April 21, 2020

 

YIELD POTENTIAL FOR SMALL GRAINS DECLINES AFTER ABOUT APRIL 15

For those who may not have their spring seeding of small grains done yet, potential yields decline for both oats and wheat about 10% per week for each week planting is delayed after April 15, and an additional 15% per week if planting is delayed beyond May 1. See Chapter 4 of the Illinois Agronomy Handbook, beginning on the page numbered 43 (spring wheat) and 44 (oats), for more details.

 

SEEDING FORAGES AND WATERWAYS

In general, try to complete seeding of cool season forage grasses and legumes before May 1 as seeding after May 1 increases the likelihood that seeds will germinate but less frequent rainfall will allow the soil to dry out before roots are deep enough to reach moist soil, killing the seedlings.

 

SPRING FIELDWORK CONSIDERATIONS

 

Planter Maintenance

Be sure to take time before and during planting to adjust, monitor, and re-adjust your planter as soil conditions vary. Mark Hanna, Extension Agricultural and Biosystems Engineer emeritus, wrote a good article at: https://crops.extension.iastate.edu/cropnews/2019/04/planter-maintenance-tips-2019. Planting errors haunt all season, so taking time to closely monitor and adjust is time well spent.

 

Managing Winter Annual Weeds

Winter annual weeds like field pennycress, chickweed, horseweed/marestail are resuming growth with the warmer temperatures. These can be especially problematic in no-till fields. A burndown treatment can help increase the consistency of control of these weeds and help with starting off with a clean field for crop planting.

Effective burndown treatments should follow herbicide label suggestions for carrier type, carrier volume, nozzle type, and environmental considerations. Treatments made on sunny days with warm daytime (>55F) and nighttime (>40F) temperatures will generally be more successful than those in cooler conditions. Read more on this topic here.

 

 

Updated Corn and Soybean Planting Recommendations

 

Mark Licht provides some food for thought at https://crops.extension.iastate.edu/blog/mark-licht/updated-views-corn-and-soybean-planting-recommendations?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter.

 

 

Managing wet field conditions this spring

 

While soils are not as saturated as they were for much of last spring, many are still quite moist. Check out this article "Spring planting and wet soil management" for ideas on how to manage the wet soil conditions in fields this spring.

 

PESTICIDE APPLICATOR CERTIFICATION

 

COVID 19 put an early end to the winter's Continuing Instruction Courses for Private Pesticide Applicators. It also ended applicator testing conducted by the Pesticide Bureau of the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.

The State of Iowa has extended pesticide applicator certificates expiring in 2019 to be valid through 2020. More details can be found at https://www.extension.iastate.edu/news/iowa-pesticide-applicators-have-more-time-complete-recertification.

Private Pesticide Applicators now have until September 30, 2020 to complete last winter's courses. Opportunities will be announced later. See the end of the article at the above link.

Testing for Private Pesticide Applicators can now be done on-line.

Private Pesticide Applicators may now act as Commercial Pesticide Applicators if under the supervision of a Certified Commercial Applicator. More details are at: https://crops.extension.iastate.edu/cropnews/2020/04/options-available-new-pesticide-applicators, and https://www.extension.iastate.edu/news/additional-options-available-new-pesticide-applicators.

 

 

CALENDAR ITEMS

 

Spring Field Day - Southeast Research and Demonstration Farm

1:00 p.m., Thursday, June 25, 2020

Crawfordsville, IA

In addition, training for Certified Crop Advisors will be conducted, beginning at 9:00 a.m.

 

At this point, it is most likely these events will occur virtually because of the COVID 19 issues. The afternoon field day may be scattered over several days with one presentation per day. Details will appear at: https://www.extension.iastate.edu/Pages/eccrops/meetserc.html.

 

 

Spring Field Day - Northeast Research and Demonstration Farm

TBA

Nashua, IA

Details will appear at: https://www.extension.iastate.edu/Pages/eccrops/meetnerf.html.