Boots In The Field Report

In this week's Boots In The Field Report Ken talks evaluating stands and diagnosing causes of non-uniformity. He covers why growers may have seen even emergence initially but now are seeing uneven plants. Ken stresses the importance of knowing if the difference is a height difference or a collar difference. Plants can be the same collar but different heights if there is an interruption in the transition from seed roots to crown roots creating slower growth. He also reports more issues showing up for growers that used a spoke closing wheel in tilled soil creating more moisture issues with this dry spring. Ken also says that now is a great time to evaluate how your early season fertility program and residue management program are working based on how much your corn crop suffers during the carbon penalty phase. 

 This week on the "Boots in the Field Report," Ken discusses the recent weather and dust storms, highlighting concerns about residue, sandblasting, and replant decisions. He also addresses nutrient and herbicide loss due to the lack of rain after application, and issues like rootless corn, sidewall smearing, and down pressure, noting how recent rain should help. Plus, get an exciting update on a bean plot that was flowering by May 21st! 

In this week's Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie covers why timeliness is important when it comes to making replant decisions and how accurate stand counts and ear counts are crucial in making the right call. For beans, the count is more for weed control concerns in most fields, but for corn a grower needs to look not only at emergence but uniform emergence to get an accurate ear count. If it is 1 collar behind it counts as a half ear and if more than 2 collars behind doesn't get counted in your ear count at all. It can be helpful to determine now what lead to the subpar emergence to make adjustment notes for next season. He also warns that he has seen cutting in central IL and reminders pest scouts to be on the lookout for cutworm.

In this week's Boots In The Field Report, Ken Ferrie covers the good coming from this rain delay for spreading out our crop stages and reducing risks. He also reminders growers to switch up planting order for beans now that we are back in the normal planting window and gives a heads up on bugs the pest team should be scouting for. 

With a green light for planting corn in central IL this week, Ken advises growers to spend a lot of time on the ground checking planter settings to make sure it is set correctly before going full out. He covers setting down pressure, checking row cleaners, and maturity planting order. But he also reminders growers not to forget about early planted fields that might be fighting crusting with this past weekend's heavy rain.

In this week's Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie talks about thinking through conserving water with your tillage decisions,  reminds growers to hoe before they know and recaps what the seed results that are back are indicating about this year's seed.

The first podcast on what to consider when changing to corn on corn produced a flurry of questions coming in, so this week Ken dives into questions like: Which fields do I choose for going corn on corn?  What hybrids do I pick? Why does my residue level and placement matter more in corn on corn situations? Is 100 pounds of Urea broadcast enough to combat the carbon penalty? Ken answers these questions and more in this week's episode of Boots In The Field Report.

This week in the Boots In The Field Podcast, Ken Ferrie talks spring anhydrous warnings, compaction from 1st pass reminder and tips to think about with early beans

With current commodity prices, several growers are looking at switching some fields to corn on corn for a better ROI. In this week's Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie issues some reminders of things to think about or plan for when switching to corn on corn for the first time in a field.

While we don't plan for a drought, we can make sure we are picking the right hybrid for the ground and our management style that will mitigate risks like a drought. Matching defensive ground with a defensive hybrid and offensive ground with offensive hybrids can be the best advantage to getting every bushel from an acre while also minimizing risk. Ken Ferrie covers this and more in this week's Boots In The Field Report.

In this weeks episode Ken Ferrie gives an update on where we stand with 45Z

This winter growers are asking about what to do when they notice they have stand issues and Ken Ferrie gives some tips for how to hunt down the root of the problem in this week's Boots In The Field Report. Yield maps can tell us where a problem is and how much that problem is costing in yield, but it can't tell us what the problem is.  It can guide us where to look but not answer the why. If the problem is an emergence issue, the closer the scouting is to emergence the more likely you are to be able to identify the problem. The first step is awareness, being aware that there is an issue. Pest teams play a role in this, doing stand and ear counts to catch if there are areas that deviate farther than is acceptable from planting population. In situations where the stand has dropped off, they can look at stalk diameter and placement to see if it is even, look below ground for indicators of planter issues like sidewall smearing or trash in the furrow, any evidence of insect or varmint pressure or the presence of diseases or weeds. These notes go in the fields record file and operators make a plan of action to correct it, managing what they can this season and a plan for fixing it before next season.

In this week's Boots In The Field Report, Ken Ferrie answers a grower's question about if you can create enough efficiency in banding fertilizer in beans to be able to reduce the amount of product applied. There are several factors that play into what the correct answer to that question is which are specific to a farming operation. Ken walks though things to consider to help growers come up with an answer for their operation.

In this week's Boots In The Field Report Ken answers a question that came in from a Beyond the Basics series viewer concerning what to consider when laying out a 4R nutrient plan that involves manure.

In this week's Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie covers some things to consider when evaluating how many acres to allot for new hybrids that are winning yield contests. He also has an interview discussing farming in Utah from a recent meeting he did out West.

In this week's Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie walks through considerations for fall tillage and if the window closes, plan Bs for getting ready next spring. He explains the different considerations for growers this fall depending on if they are in a horizontal tillage system or a vertical tillage system and also covers the question of liming ground that is on an unsecured lease.  

A 4R nitrogen plan starts now. In this week's Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie reminds growers that if they are applying anhydrous this fall that they need to do it in conditions that will allow it to seal and conserve the nitrogen being applied, not letting it gas off.

In this week's Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie talks early plot results from fields harvested last week and also walks growers through options on fall tillage for the dry conditions we are facing.

In this week's Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie advises growers to have a harvest fire plan, and make sure everyone is aware of the plan and their part in the plan. In the dry areas he also recommends not just doing the stalk push test but also to check shank strength to make sure there aren't fields hiding that Need to move up the priority list. Ken also reminds growers to take a moment to recharge in this furious fall to help keep everyone safe.

In this week's Boots In The Field Report, Ken Ferrie says yield information is coming in slow, but yield reports are strong. How yields are affected by this late season drought depends on soil type, compaction present, and health of crop coming into the drought.  Ken encourages scouts to start doing push tests in fields and monitoring stock quality to make sure harvest order can be set appropriately and combine operators need to be on the lookout for rubbery tips to make sure harvest loss doesn't get too high. While the moisture can help crops still working on fill and help fall tillage and strip-till applications, it will accelerate stalk quality issues especially in fields that were starting to come apart before the last patch of dry weather.  As growers are looking at fall fertilizer budgets, Ken walks through some things to consider when trying to reduce input costs.

If you aren't seeing photocopy stands and photocopy ears, do a little investigation before the combine rolls through to figure where adjustments need to be made for next year to improve your systems approach.

Ken gives a crop condition recap and a pest scout report from farm visits. The dry weather has some big ears wanting to tip down early and nitrogen deficiencies are showing up strong in fields that didn't have the nitrogen plan adjusted for early season loss. Ken covers this and more in this week's Boots In The Field Report.

In this week's #BIFR Ken gives a crop report both locally and on the road from OH, IA, and IN and recaps what he sees as the biggest risk to each area in finishing out their growing season.

Ken Ferrie covers crop conditions from his farm visits in this week's Boots In The Field Report. He reports cases of SDS, white mold, red crown rot, aphids, and tar spot. He mentions that this is the heaviest corn aphid year he has seen and encourages growers to do accurate ear counts to know if adjusting your yield expectations is needed.

During the roundtrip from Heyworth, Illinois to Northeast Iowa and back, the area affected by heavy rains was larger than Ken was expecting to see. In this week's Boots In The Field Report he gives a recap of the field conditions along the route, covers tar spot considerations and reminds the pest boss to be scouting for silk clippers and rate root feeding. He also speaks to the growers in the harder hit areas, encouraging them to keep fighting the good fight and reminds them to never walk away from a growing crop.

Ken talks hail replant, no-tilling beans after wheat to conserve moisture, ugly corn phase and carbon penalty locking up some beans, need for doing stand evaluations now to document cause of uneven stands, rootless corn, nitrate loss, and water hemp out of control on this week's Boots In The Field Report.

In this week's Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie covers planting progress, replant reports, stand evaluations, sidedressing information and predictions of the ugly corn phase. He also gives his perspective on the wind and water erosion we have seen this spring.

Planting is nearing a close for most operations, but the jobs of the pest scout are just getting rolling. Ken covers what they should be on the lookout for in this week's Boots In The Field Report. Scouts should be evaluating corn fields for crusting issues and dust storm damage and soybeans for crusting and PPO damage to make hoeing and replanting decisions. They also need to be evaluating timing of post spraying, noting any fields that are experiencing a pre-plant herbicide failure that would need post spraying moved up and fields that are stressed from dust storm damage and need to wait for new growth before post spraying to not over stress the crop. Heat units are significantly moved up compared to a normal year, so scouts need to be watching for cutworm, corn borer, cucumber beetle, June bugs, and flea beetle now. And due to a large number of fields worked in unfavorable conditions, scouts need to take note of fields that now have a compaction layer that needs to be addressed this fall before fields could be taken into or go back to no-till. Due to the large amounts of rain, scouts will also need to be pulling nitrates to check for Nitrogen loss.

Ken Ferrie walks through considerations for planting strategies for this time of year and field moisture conditions in this week's Boots In The Field Report. Since the window for pre-solstice flowering has passed, focus for planting switches to getting the corn in the ground. Areas that have bathtub rings might need a strip freshener to open up those soils to dry out and whether it is the strip freshener or the planter, make sure they are dancing on top to avoid putting in compaction in these wet fields. Covers that escaped a timely kill, will cause a bigger carbon penalty, but might be better off living at this point to help dry out the soil through transpiration to be able to get in and plant. Ken also reports some growers are seeing PPO damage on beans due to splashing.

How well or long seeds will survive underwater depends on many factors including hybrid/variety type, seed quality, how far along the crop is, and temperature. In this week's Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie walks through steps to take as fields dry out including using drones/scouting to figure out how much replant seed might be needed, noting fields that need to be scouted or ponding spots that need nitrates pulled before sidedressing. He also advises growers to get hoes ready to help fields before they develop a crust, utilize spray drones to help take care of herbicide that didn't get on before rain, take care of cover crops that haven't been killed, and wheat that needs sprayed.

After Thursday morning's frost warning is through most of Central IL will be moving to a green light for planting corn and will hold most likely till the end of planting. Green light is in regards to temperature, if field moisture is too high, then growers have to wait for that to dry out first.  Due to weather, several fields have a heavy cover of weeds, crop scouts need to keep an eye on these fields for cutworm and armyworm presence even if they were tilled. Seed quality continues to have a larger number then normal falling into poor quality, if growers haven't sent off a seed sample may want to keep back a small sample that they can send off later if field shows stand establishment issues. The warmer weather will help lessen some of the risk on these lower testing seeds.

With the predicted weather for Central IL, Ken gives a green light for full season beans on ground that is fit and sees a window for a possible green light for corn starting as early as this weekend. Ken fears some growers will grow impatient and work ground too wet to try to dry it out, creating season long compaction, or mud in corn. He also reminds growers not to let covers ahead of corn get too big, to keep an eye on seed quality and germ when choosing which seed to plant early, be on the look out for herbicide carryover damage in overlap zones, and know your hybrid's Stewart's wilt score if we run into heavy pressure from the flea beetle.

As growers start to roll on planting early beans, Ken Ferrie walks through considerations for deciding when the right time for your operation is. Planting beans in March doesn't show a large yield advantage over waiting to plant the first week in April but can provide some advantages for operations that only have the ability to plant one crop at a time, then having some bean planting done when the ground is also fit to plant corn could bring more benefit. He encourages growers to ask themselves: Are you insured? Are the beans fully treated? Are you a one planter operation? Have you had discussions with landlords to make sure everyone is on the same page? Do you have a hoe ready if the beans need help? These can help a grower decide when it makes sense for their operation to start planting beans.

Ken covers questions about using spring anhydrous strip-till or a Zone Builder when facing the possibility of a dry year. There are options that can make it safer but most of them require water. The drier it is or higher rates of anhydrous make for bigger risks of planting issues.

Time spent on planters now can bypass a lot of headaches later and can keep farmers from jumping the gun on doing tillage passes before the ground is fit. A simple test is taking soil right below tillage depth, balling it up in your hand, and see if you can ribbon it. If it ribbons an inch or more, it will be a compaction layer not just a density change you will be putting in. Ken also advises growers to do some grow outs to check for herbicide carry over due to the dry June of 2023. He also advises checking your last freeze date and backing up 25 days to set your earliest planting date for those early planted soybeans.

In this week's Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie advises growers, if they haven't gotten their wheat top-dressed, the window to get that on is closing fast.  He comments, if tougher wheat stands are going to corn in case of a winter kill, he would still top-dress it, but if going to beans, might want to hold up on top-dressing. Due to Iowa's drought conditions, they can start rolling on some field work as long as the soil is dry enough, but he warns to make sure you are not creating a cloddy seedbed or leaving tracks. Ken says 80% of his summer service calls come from the first pass run in the spring, 1 pass systems like soil finisher or high speed disk need to be careful so as not to run too soon. Ken reminders growers “Your neighbor doesn't decide when your ground is fit.” Conditions in your fields, matched to your tillage practices, need to dictate when you are ready to go. 

In this week's Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie answers the question of if freezing and thawing will take out a compaction layer and if it could actually make it worse. He also speaks with University of Tennessee State Specialist Ryan Blair on how the growing season went last year and about the expansiveness of the Extension system throughout Tennessee.

In this week's Boots in the Field Report Ken Ferrie answers some questions coming in from winter meetings: Will a spring or fall horizontal tillage pass put in more of a density layer?, Was it allelopathic toxins in the cereal rye ahead of corn that caused such a yield ding?, Will there be a cap to CI payments per farm operations?

In this week's Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie answers a question from a Beyond The Basics viewer from Southwest Ontario. The viewer was asking about nitrogen carryover in red clover, where is the best place to reduce nitrogen in the overall nitrogen program when using red clover, and does it pay to use a nitrogen stabilizer in that situation.

In this week's Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie shares his concern on the December 12th drought map for the “I” states and advises growers to close tile gates, if they haven't already, to keep what water they have from getting away. He also answers the question from a Beyond the Basics viewer about how deep to pull samples in long term no-till fields. Ken advises that it could be beneficial to pull a couple of stratification samples, checking the top three inches compared to the next three. A good amount of uptake of nutrients happens in the top three inches but in a drought year the next three inches become very important. Ken also talks updates on the CI score front for farmers

In this week's Boots In The Field Report Ken talks with Jared Bergan about the stats from this year's hybrid flex plot: hybrids added, operations and locations participating, record for highest and lowest kernels per bushel. Ken also answers a question from a Beyond The Basics viewer about how soil test values can be helpful in hybrid selection and placement.

In this week's Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie covers the last of the Hybrid Ear Flex plots that came out this past week, hard pulling conditions, and considerations for growers contemplating going from narrow to wide row beans.

In this week's Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie takes a peek into the results that came off the host of plots that came out last week, from N rate, planter fertility, corn nematode, fix/flex, to bean tillage and row spacing plots.

The rain events are creating some delay for harvest and tillage work and but it also brought lower soil temperatures to get growers closer to safer anhydrous application conditions. While more often growers are concerned in dry falls about sealing for anhydrous, Ken Ferrie warns that too much moisture can create smearing from the knives, preventing a good seal and creating Nitrogen loss. In this episode he is able to share Sullivan Agro's results of their 8 variety, 3 planting date bean study done in Canada. Ken also covers plot results on bean fungicide, using AMS and starter on beans and high-speed disk versus vertical till. All this and more in this week's Boots In The Field Report.

In this Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie covers harvest recaps getting called in. Fields that got that heavy rain in August have high ground out yielding low ground, beans that turned too quickly showing premature death from disease, and harvest loss proving to be an issue for some field conditions. Ken recaps the fungicide and insecticide plot that came out and the outcome of 2 fix/flex plots that came out this week. In addition, he advises growers to check their WAAS satellite if having issues with GPS signal.

In this Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie reports on initial review of soybean plot data that came out this week. He advises that the research crew will have to look at a lot of variables: planting dates, varieties, maturities, row spacing, rainfall timing, rainfall amount, tillage, use of covers and more. While the data may vary widely this year, it will give growers excellent data to find field advantages and identify field weaknesses if they take the time to make sure they are collecting good data and noting the anomalies in the field.

In this week's Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie reports on harvest progress and recounts yields getting called in throughout IL and IA. Wide swings in yield not only throughout the state be in single fields. He also updates on lime shortages and replant bean plot results. 

Join us for this week's episode of Boots in The Field Report with Ken Ferrie, where he provides a plot and harvest update that's both informative and timely. Ken dives into the ongoing issue of lime shortages that some growers are grappling with.Furthermore, Ken underscores the importance of keeping a close eye on harvest loss and the correct calibration of your yield monitors. He walks us through the meticulous process Crop-Tech employs for scaling yield monitors, especially when transitioning between different hybris.Tune in to ensure you're well-prepared to maximize your yields and effectively manage the unique challenges for this year's harvest. 

In this week's Boots In The Field report Ken covers why it is more important than usual this year to calibrate the yield monitor to make sure growers are capturing spatially accurate yield maps. These dry years can give clues to where perched water tables and sand lenses are located out in the field. Ken also advises harvest scouting teams to stay on top of the push test, as some hybrids are flat coming apart. He recommends if scouts find that hybrid failing the push test, that they check the other fields it is planted in as well. If growers are running into anomalies in the field like the low ground suffering in yield compared to the high ground, Ken encourages getting off the combine to do a quick check on stand count, ear count, and plant condition to help determine what the issue was before all the evidence is gone.  Ken also reminds growers to check for header loss, especially in these low branching soybeans.

In this week's Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie covers the range of yields being called in as harvest kicks off and reminds growers to stay on top of the push test when letting corn dry down in the field. Due to the variability in fields, combine operators will have to continuously check for harvest loss as they change fields and change hybrids. Ken also warns, with the dry June, growers will need to watch out for carry over issues on those products with 10 month cropping restrictions.

In this week's Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie covers reasons for seeing so much top die back in the corn. 1. Disease issues like anthracnose top kill will be on sporadic plants in the field, show black spores on outside of stalk on full dead plants, and behind the leaf sheaths on top killed plants. Can be hybrid and stress related.2. Insect issues like corn borer. Will have dead tops, maybe even broken over from wind and with tunneling into nodes.3. Heat Stress. More consistent across all plants in field not just sporadically. Doesn't show the black spores or discoloration in the stalk like the disease top kill has. More prevalent in short corn or fields that struggled to close the row.The early planted corn that had tassels out when the June 29th storm was already done growing, but the corn planted after May 10th was still 3-5 leaves from tasseling allowing it to utilize the rain and add height to the plant to capture more sunlight. Ken is finding the narrow rows and more pendulum hybrids are showing less damage due to the heat. Ken advises growers to start doing push test in the fields with disease and insect top kill in about 10 days to stay on top of how the crop is deteriorating. Ken also covers how to do yield estimates in fields with variable ears and to be on the lookout for the movement to the greener corn or to soybeans from late season rootworm beetles as some of the fields start to die early.