It’s incredible how much crops change and grow during this time of year. It’s almost as if a weekly update isn’t enough!
June 18, 2021 Update:
Soybeans (56 days)
Compared to the corn, it seems like soybeans grow soooo slowly. In reality, these beans put on a few new leaf sets AND grew two inches since last week. Soybean growth is less obvious than corn growth because they A) don’t get nearly as tall as corn, so less height to put on anyway; B) spread out more than corn, so growth is also represented by how big the plant is side-to-side rather than just height like I have pictured here; and C) is still mostly obscured by the cover crop in this field, so they look a lot smaller than they really are.
Here’s an example of how quickly the soybeans are actually growing. In the photo above, you’ll see the top leaf set has barely taken off with a lot of growth left before they become full-fledged soybean leaves to support the plant. But the plant has already set out another trifoliate (you can see it below the other set of leaves in my hand) before the earlier one had completely set!
Here’s how the beans look against the cover crop. Beyond the first few rows, you can’t really tell what crop is even in this field, let alone how big it is. As the cover crop continues to break down and the bean plants get bigger, it’ll eventually become easy to see what’s planted in this field.
And here’s the obligatory above-shot.
And another taken from the same spot as the previous two photos, except this one is looking down the rows.
You might have noticed in the last few photos that a lot of the soybean leaves have light tan spots on them. This probably isn’t a disease (never say never…), but rather caused by some of the product used when we applied a herbicide in this field earlier this week. These spots will never go away and we’ll likely be able to find them weeks from now on the lower leaves, but they won’t hurt the soybean plants at all as they continue to add new, healthy leaves to the top of the plant.
Corn (52 days)
The corn has practically DOUBLED in height this week. We haven’t received any rain, but we’ve sure had the heat and humidity that corn thrives on at this time of year!
See how quickly new leaves are coming out of the whorl? I counted three just by looking at the plant – there’s likely at least two more leaves following these if I were to have cut open the stalk and counted.
We are well past knee-high (by the Fourth of July…). 100 years ago, farmers never would have imagined a corn crop this large and healthy (and dense!) by this time of year. We can thank genetics and modern technology for that.
In the two photos above, you can see how the corn leaves are starting to fill the gaps between the rows. This is really important for sunlight capture (maximizing opportunities for photosynthesis) and to shade out weeds. It’s not so fun to walk through a field anymore since you’re constantly pushing against corn leaves, which can be sharp and slightly itchy. At this point, we’ll leave the corn to its own devices.
Nice and shady below the leaf canopy.
Fingers crossed for some rain in our area soon to give us a respite from some of the heat and to get rain to areas here in Illinois that were recently downgraded to “extreme” drought.