Administrative Items:
Please add these extension programs to your calendars and share them with others who would find them of interest.
June 13th – Ag Professional Tour NE Research Farm, Nashua 9:30AM – 12 noon. Details TBA
June 19th - Spring Field Day, NE Research Farm, Nashua, 1:30 – 4:30 PM. Details TBA
June 25th-26th Farm Progress Hay Expo to be held near Ossian, IA. Details at
www.HayExpo.com/media
July 1st – Spring Field Day. Kanawha
July 15th Howard Co Research Farm field Day
July 18th - Ag Professional Tour NE Research Farm, Nashua 9:30AM – 12 noon. Details TBA
August 12th – Midwest Strip-Till Expo, Arlington Ag Research Station, 25 miles N. of Madison, WI. Details TBA but the Expo will have a speakers program, static commercial displays and field demos similar to the 2007 Expo held last July on the Hawkeye Community College Campus near Waterloo.
August 26th- 28th Farm Progress Show near Boone, Iowa
September 3rd – Fall Field Day. Kanawha
September 4th – Fall Field Day. Nashua
September 8th-9th Biobased Industry Outlook Conference at the ISU New Century Farm west of Ames. Details at www.bioeconomyconference.org.
Agronomic Items:
- Last week at the North Central Iowa Research Association Annual Meeting in Clarion, ISU Extension Climatologist Elwynn Taylor, noted a strengthening La Nina increasing the chances for drier than normal conditions during the ’08 growing season and a 70+% chance of below trend line yields. The national corn trend line yield is 151 bu/ acre. Taylor is currently predicting a national average corn yield of 142bu/acre – 9 bushel below trend line- and December futures at harvest above $7/ bu. During the last major drought in 1988, market volatility was due to reduced supply. Market volatility in recent months is due to increased demand. In 2008, Taylor suggests we could have volatility compounded by supply/ demand imbalances.
- One positive this spring, is the current soil moisture levels. Drainage tile are running indicating that soil moisture levels exceed field capacity. When the attraction of the soil particle to water is stronger than the pull of gravity (field capacity), most north Iowa soils contain 2” – 2.2” of plant available water/ foot of depth. A 5’ soil profile would contain 10 – 11” of available water or almost half of the water needs of a corn crop. The available water in sandier or shallower soils is less and the risk of drought stress is greater.
- In the southern part of the area along Hwy 20, many farmers like to be planting by April 20th. If the cool wet soil conditions continue, it will be difficult to be patient and wait for optimum planting conditions. Mudding the crop in will have negative effects if surface/ sidewall compaction develop and the weather turns hot and dry.
- A good root system is imperative in a dry year. The table below is from a statewide summary of 12 site-years of corn rootworm management strategies. The data was sorted by dry and wet(normal) years. In the dry years on the left, even modest nodal injury from the root worm feeding resulted in significant yield loss. In a “normal” years on the right, all treatments yielded the same statistically (same letter) even tho nodal injury varied. Nodal injury is generally measured in July after the CRW larvae stop feeding and pupate. In a normal year root regeneration may occur and yield-limiting moisture stress will not occur.
- Rising energy costs affect everything we do professionally and personally. Farm Bureau and ISU are currently doing energy audits on different types of farming operations. Some useful tools are already available. The website http://energytools.sc.egov.usda.gov has energy estimator templates for animal housing, irrigation, N fertilizer used and tillage. For the Iowa corn farmer, the greatest energy user is commercial nitrogen fertilizer followed by grain drying.
The mid-February issue of Corn and Soybean Digest has an article of a crop energy audit developed by crop consultants Jason and Shannon Gomes from Waverly and funded by the Iowa Soybean Association. You can view the article on Waverly farmer Mark Mueller‘s audit “How to be an Energy Miser” at www.cornandsoybeandigest.com in the current issue. Mueller notes that using corn hybrids that dry down quicker in the fall reduces artificial drying costs significantly. Avoiding overdrying, feeding high moisture corn, and fully utilizing manure N are also strategies which others are using to reduce energy use and improve the bottom line.
Contact ISU/Floyd County Extension for the above mentioned table. (641) 228-1453