CMEG Crop Management Extension Group

Field Crop News

Website Address: http://fcn.agronomy.psu.edu/

September 26, 2006    Vol. 06:22

IN THIS ISSUE:

Weather Outlook — Paul Knight

The cool regime which began during the last week of August will continue into the weekend. Wednesday will be a bright day with a milder afternoon. Clouds and showers will spread slowly across the state on Thursday with eastern sections becoming very mild ahead of the potent cold front. Most sections will receive between 0.20—0.50 inches. Friday will dawn like a November morning with a chill wind, low clouds and scattered showers. Readings will stay in the 40’s in the northwest hills and only reach the mid 60’s in the southeast. Saturday should start bright and chilly and turn breezy and cloudy with some showers in the western half during the afternoon. More chilly air will circulate through the region on Sunday under considerable cloud cover. Scattered showers are expected in the mountains. Monday and Tuesday will bring a marked warm—up with more sunshine than clouds and readings may top 80 in eastern sections on Tuesday. Another cool—down is likely for the second half of next week. No threats expected from the Tropics.

Reduce Soybean Harvest Losses — Del Voight, Extension Educator, Lebanon Co.

Over the last several years of working with many of the top soybean producers in Lebanon County, I have learned the importance of timely harvest of soybeans. My experience is that the prime time to combine is about 1 week after 95% of the leaves turn brown.

I still remember John Yocum referring to the fact that after plants first reach harvestable moistures, dry matter losses occur simply by the alternating day and night wetting cycles. The following excerpts are taken from a Missouri article and are useful reminders to help operators capture losses that frequently occur during harvest.

Numerous tests of soybean combine losses show that up to 12% of the soybean crop is lost during harvest. Harvesting losses cannot be reduced to zero, but they can be reduced to about 5%. Combines can be operated to reduce losses without affecting the harvest rate. Consider shatter losses of 2% acceptable. Average loss is 5%.

Tips for Keeping Combine Losses Low
Your best guide for correct combine adjustment is your operator’s manual. Remember that more than 80 percent of the machine loss usually occurs at the gathering unit.
The following suggestions will help keep these losses to a minimum:
Make sure that knife sections, guards, wear plates and hold—down clips are in good condition and properly adjusted.
Use a ground speed of 2.8 to 3.0 miles per hour. To determine ground speed, count the number of 3—foot steps taken in 20 seconds while walking beside the combine. Divide this number by 10 to get the ground speed in miles per hour.
Use a reel speed about 25 percent faster than ground speed. For 42-inch—diameter reels, use a reel speed of 11 revolutions per minute for each 1—mile—per—hour ground speed.
Reel axle should be 6 to 12 inches ahead of the cutter bar. Reel bats should leave beans just as they are cut. Reel depth should be just enough to control the beans.
A six—bat reel will give more uniform feeding than a four—bat reel.

For specific methods and a sheet to take to the field, refer to this website and enter your own information. You may also call me directly at 717—921—4728 for copy. http://muextension.missouri.edu/xplor/agguides/agengin/g01280.htm

(Adapted from articles written by Charles W. Shay, Lyle V. Ellis and William Hires, Department of Agricultural Engineering, University of Missouri—Columbia.)

Small Grains as a Nurse Crop for Orchardgrass — Marvin Hall, Forage Specialist, Crop & Soil Sciences

Small grains are often seeded with forages to serve as a “nurse crop” to the young establishing forage plants. A common example of this practice is seeding winter wheat with timothy. Recently there has been an interest in Pennsylvania in seeding small grains with orchardgrass in the fall. This practice has been successful with increased economic return during the 1st year. However, forage yield of the orchardgrass was lower because the small grain provided competition for moisture and light. Forage production during the 2nd year was not affected by use of a small grain during establishment.

Stem Diseases in Soybean Becoming a Serious Problem for Some Producers — Erick De Wolf, Assistant Professor, Plant Pathology

Reports of soybean fields with symptoms of stem diseases continue to occur in many areas of Pennsylvania. Based on the samples we have received it appears nearly all the affected fields have symptoms of both stem canker, and stem blight. Fields affected by stem canker and stem blight often mature unevenly with patches or large areas of the plants dying prematurely. Plants affected by the disease will have moderate to large lesions (1—6 inches in length) on the stem. These lesions or cankers are usually tan to dark brown in color and may have small black fruiting bodies of the fungi scattered within the diseased tissue. Grain affected by Phomopsis seed decay have a white chalky coating of mold growth intermixed mixed with dark brown blotches on the seed. Plants dying prematurely from stem canker and stem blight often do not completely fill their pods resulting in a high incidence of small seeds and reduced grain quality. Losses are further compounded by the weathering of the matured pods and grain prior to harvest, which can lead to a high incidence of Phomopsis seed decay. Based on the description of affected fields in PA it appears the yield loss may range from 1—50% yield loss depending on the extent of infection.

The fungi that cause these diseases survive in association with soybean residue, and produce spores in the spring. The infection takes place during the vegetative stages of growth, and the disease is most severe when extended periods of wet weather occur during these growth stages. In Pennsylvania these growth stages typically occur in mid. June through early July. This period was exceptionally wet this year and some of you may recall that we had enough rain to cause significant sprouting in our soft red wheat just prior to harvest. Some growers are also indicating that they had applied fungicides to these fields with no apparent difference in incidence of stem canker. Given that many of these fungicides were applied at R3–R4, and have only limited movement within the plant, I would not expect these applications to have much impact on infections that took place during the vegetative stages of growth.

Soybeans in most areas of the state are rapidly maturing, and very little can be done to reduce the disease losses at this time. Growers should make and effort to document disease problems in their fields, and harvest the grain as soon as conditions allow to prevent further weathering and development of Phomopsis seed decay. Fields with high levels of disease should be rotated to corn or other grass crops to limit exposure of next years soybean crop to the high pathogen populations. Growers may also reduce the risk of disease by planting within the recommended planting dates for their area, and having a reasonable plant population (90,000 – 100,000 plants/A).

Grain Markets — John Berry, Ag Marketing, Lehigh Co.

As wet weather continued to slow the pace of corn and soybean harvest, basis levels moved higher in most parts of the country this week. Corn harvest was 13 percent completed versus 17 percent last year and soybean harvest was 9 percent harvested versus 17 percent last year.

While the discrepancies don’t appear that large, at a local level there are some harvest delays that are causing big price increases. Indiana and Ohio were both at only 2 percent harvested versus 12 percent last year. As a result, soybean basis saw 20—cent gains at some key end—user markets in this region. Most elevators we spoke with in this area were out of beans and anxiously awaiting harvest to pick up the pace. (This is interesting to me because of our local basis being based off Ohio cash bids.)

Basis should begin easing as harvest progress gains some speed. In the Eastern Cornbelt were crop sizes are expected to be lager look for big drops in local basis over the next 4 weeks. However, with large crops there are also large forward carries built into forward prices. Locking in a decent return to storage and re—owning with a call option may be a prudent strategy in these surplus areas.

Article from CashGrainBids.com

Seeding Cover Crops Through the Manure Spreader — Sjoerd Duiker, Soil Management Specialist

Cover cropping is increasingly becoming a common part of cropping systems in Pennsylvania. One of the most needed places for cover crops is after corn silage. The soil is bare, exposed to soil erosion, and because manure is commonly spread on this ground, there are lots of nutrients, ready to be leached from the soil profile, or washed away in surface runoff. In many cases, cover crops are required in conservation and nutrient management plans. Different methods are available to establish cover crops. The recommended methods are to use no—tillage or very shallow tillage for cover crop establishment. A method that has attracted much attention recently is to establish cover crops such as rye or wheat through the slurry manure tanker. This method combines manure application and cover crop establishment and is of course very convenient and cost—effective. The question is: can good results be expected?

Research from Michigan State University has compared drilling wheat with slurry seeding of wheat and rye through the manure spreader. In this study, the manure spreader is equipped with an Aerway SSD system that punches holes in the soil and subsequently bands the manure above the open slots. Part of the manure + seed mix disappears in the holes, which can be up to 8” deep. The researchers used 2 bu/A and 4 bu/A of wheat seed, only 2 bu/A rye, and compared gang settings of 5° or 10° (most aggressive setting) on the Aerway aerator. Manure application rates were 5000 gal/A. The manure used was dairy manure (9.5% solids, sawdust bedding, 65 lbs/A NH4–N, 60 lbs/A organic N, 100 lbs/A P2O5, and 168 lbs/A K2O). Excess pump capacity was used to provide bypass flow for seed mixing and distribution. Drilled wheat received no manure, but only 50 lbs/A N topdressed in the spring.

There were no differences in spring biomass between drilled and different types of slurry—seeded cover crops, except for the 2 bu/A rate of wheat and 5° angle of the Aerway, which had slightly lower biomass. Small grain yields were not significantly different between establishment methods. These results show there is good potential for success with slurry—seeding. The researchers also compared drilling and slurry seeding of radish and mustard cover crops. In these smaller seeded crops the researchers observed much lower plant populations with slurry seeding than drilling, but because individual plants were much more vigorous, total biomass per acre was no different. It is likely that some of the small seeds got burried too deep in the aerator holes and never produced a plant. However, the differences in fertility caused the slurry—seeded brassica seedlings to grow much better than their drilled counterparts.

These results show great promise for slurry—seeding of cover crops. However, if an aerator is not used, lower stands may be expected. It does therefore seem safe to up the seeding rate to 3 bu/A of wheat or rye with slurry seeding. The seed should be poured into the tanker when the tanker is being filled to get good mixing. The excellent small grain yields and uniform stands obtained in this study suggest that slurry—seeded ryelage yields can be very competitive with drilled ryelage yields.

For more info: http://asae.frymulti.com/request.asp?JID=5&AID=21086&CID=por2006&T=2#search=%22harrigan%20slurry%20cover%22

Contributors: State Specialists: Marvin Hall, Erick DeWolf, Sjoerd Duiker and Jeff McClellan Extension Educators: Paul Craig (Dauphin), Del Voight (Lebanon) Kevin Fry (Armstrong), Andrew Frankenfield (Montgomery), Mena Hautau (Berks), Susan Alexander (Jefferson), John Berry (Lehigh), Dave Messersmith (Wayne), Dwane Miller (Schuylkill), and Mark Madden (Sullivan)

Editor:Andrew Frankenfield, Agricultural Educator, Montgomery Co.

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