Boots In The Field Report

In this week’s Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie covers seed test results and what pest scouts should be on the lookout for including: 13-lined ground squirrel, voles, wireworm, cutworm, and armyworm.

In this week’s Boots In the Field Report Ken Ferrie covers rootworm resistance and how the pressure has been increasing over the last couple of years.

In this Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie stresses using this time to put thought into diversifying hybrid line up and strategizing placement of hybrids to take advantage of a field’s strengths and farm around the weaknesses.

This week in the podcast Ken takes a deep dive on what we have learned about tar spot in 2021. He covers why it was so bad in parts of the country this year, what the plot research said about timing of fungicide applications and number of applications, what to be on the lookout for in this coming year. Ken also talks about an app that can help with keeping us up to date on if conditions are right for Tar spot. 

Ken uses this week’s Boots In The Field Report to cover the topic of starter fertilizer and what to consider when looking at cutting costs for next year. Ken walks through evaluating product, placement, timing, and rate to get the most bang for your starter buck.

In this week’s Boots in The Field Report Ken Ferrie breaks down planting conditions for beans in an ideal situation and how that changes when you are trying to plant early beans. The focus, when planting early beans, changes from soil temperatures to soil conditions in order to attempt to get the beans to the unifoliate stage quick enough to pressure the bean to flower before the solstice. Ken also walks through how to adjust the timing window for different maturity groups.

In this week’s Boots In The Field Report Ken covers some of the swings seen in the Hybrid Plot hand shelling day and warns about some of the hurdles growers new to applying fall anhydrous need to be aware of. Fall gas does NOT do well in paying the carbon penalty and Ken walks through options to help get over that hurdle.

As a lot of crews cross the harvest finish line, eyes turn towards preparation for next spring. Ken walks through considerations for growers wanting to plant early beans in 2022. As the weather locally led to a lot of wet harvesting and wheel tracks/ruts, Ken recommends trying to fix those fields this fall to make sure it doesn’t hold you back from planting early next spring. If that is not an option than rotating those to your “normal” planted bean fields and switching fields without seedbed issues to be the early planted fields. He also recommends avoiding the group 14 PPOs in early planted bean fields, staying on top of winter burn down, and having discussions with retailers and suppliers so everyone has the same game plan for being ready to plant early beans.

In this week’s Boots In The Field Report Ken answers a question that came in during Session 1 of Beyond the Basics. While soil tests can not detect if a disease is present in the field, it can give indicators to how the field will handle disease pressure. Healthy plants handle stress better than unhealthy plants and fields with adequate fertility help to create healthy plants. If a field has low potash values, acid soils, or runs out of nitrogen at grain fill, it is more susceptible to greater loss due to disease pressure. We are asking for growers to call in with the hybrids that did and did not handle tar spot well and also asking for volunteers that can help with the hand harvest project on Tuesday, December 14th. 

In this week’s Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie warns about making sure the anhydrous is sealing as it is too expensive to let gas off. He reports that some strip-till growers are struggling to get good strips in current weather conditions and advises that they might have to move to a plan B. Ken encourages keeping the seedbed sacred and he reminds growers that seedbed preparations for next year’s crop start this fall. He also extends a heartfelt thank you to all Veterans and their families for their service and sacrifice.