It’s weird to think that we were doing most of our corn and soybean planting this week in 2019. A lot sure can change in a year.
June 5, 2020 Update:
Soybeans (44 days)
The soybeans are steadily growing. Remember how we went over vegetative (V) growth stages last week? The soybeans were in the V1 stage and just working on their first set of trifoliate leaves last week. This week, they have that set of trifoliate leaves and either have or nearly have a second set of trifoliate leaves, putting them into the V3 growth stage this week.
This field is looking greener by the day as the soybeans get taller and begin to fill some of the empty space. But because the soybeans are still very small and their leaves don’t fully cover the space between rows (these soybeans are planted in 15-inch rows, or with 15 inches of space between rows to allow for the plants to grow and spread out without overcrowding the leaves), there are lots of opportunities for weeds to germinate and take off with ample sunlight available. This field was sprayed with a herbicide just a few days ago to kill those weeds. If you recall, it’s already been sprayed with a herbicide once this season, which did two things: killed weeds that germinated before the soybeans and killed the cover crop so the soybean crop could grow without competition. The first application was what we would call a pre-emergence herbicide application and this one is what we would call a post-emergence herbicide application. We may initiate a second post-emergence herbicide application late this month, depending on weed pressure. It’s important to get weeds while they’re very small – less than four inches tall in most cases – so that they don’t get away from us and mature, developing seeds and causing a much bigger weed problem down the road (some weeds can create hundreds of thousands of seeds PER PLANT).
You also might notice that not all of the soybean leaves are smooth. It looks like some plants have some minor symptoms of herbicide injury, which you can see with the puckering or rippling of the leaves. Fortunately, soybeans are very resilient at this stage of growth and will pretty much grow out of the injury.
Corn (23 days)
I’m really upset that I forgot to grab a photo with the ruler last week to show exactly how much progress this corn field has made this week. The corn has nearly tripled in size and is growing nicely – some of it is taller than the soybeans in the next field next door already!
We had just a little bit of replant to take care of on our farm, all of which was completed last weekend. Right now, we’re looking towards starting sidedressing the corn. This is when we add some additional nitrogen fertilizer to help the corn continue to grow. Some farmers add all of their nitrogen fertilizer before planting. We add some before planting, but also like to add some during the growing season. How much is needed is generally determined by your field, taking soil type and previous crop and expected yield into account.
Right now, everything is just working on growing and hoping that we get a nice, gentle rainfall when we see the remains of Tropical Storm Cristobal sometime mid-next week.
