Small Town News

Harvest Outlook Good For Crops

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Anthony Mayer, Agronomist at Country Pride, is pictured above inspecting a field of corn south of Burke. The field that Anthony is inspecting is projected to produce around 120 bushels per acre this season! Country Pride will be hosting a Plot Tour this Thursday at the Chad Heyden Farm south of Burke. Everyone is welcome to come and listen to Anthony discuss local issues with this year's crops. A free supper will be held at the site following the plot tour program.

Anthony is a 2000 graduate of Burke High School and a 2005 graduate of SDSU in Brookings, graduating with a degree in agronomy. Following his graduation he worked as an agronomist at the Lake Preston Coop for three years before coming home and joining Country Pride as an agronomist. Anthony is the son of

Lisa and Steve Mayer of rural Burke.

Anthony summarizes the upcoming harvest with these comments.

"Well here we are about to begin another busy harvest season. Before we get started I would like to revisit the year and try to draw some conclusions about what we are doing well and what maybe we could improve on for years to come. Mother Nature dealt us another pretty good hand this year. Sure there are some pockets that are struggling, but I think we will all agree that it is going to be an above average harvest. I have been out and about checking yields and what I have found in the arearanges from 80 to 170bu corn. Soybeans are a little harder to estimate and anyone who has asked me will tell you that I am very hesitant to give out soybean yield estimates, but I am guessing that our beans are going to come in anywhere from 10 to 45bu/A. For anyone who is wondering how to estimate corn yields it is a pretty simple formula, you just take the number of kernels around an ear multiply that by the number of kernels long on an ear multiply that by your population and divide the answer by 90. For example if you have an ear of corn 16 kernels around and 38 kernels long and you plant a population of 18,500 your equation would look like this (16X38X18)/90=121bu/a. Notice I used 18 and not 18.5 because typically we do not get every seed we plant to produce an ear. Now that I have given you a little info on what this year is looking like I would like to cover about 4 topics that I feel are the most important factors in determining just how good harvest can be.

The first and most important decision that I think we need to make is a weed control program. The last two springs, as we all know, have been exceptionally wet; this poses a huge problem on the timeliness of weed control in our fields. A couple suggestion that I would make would be to start a fall burn down program and begin using some type of pre-emerge chemical program. I know glypho-sate is cheap and, it is real tempting to just spray two post applications

of glyphosate, but unless we have perfect weather, no wind, and time to spray, hay, and work cattle I think we are lowering yields in our fields. In corn, for example, yield is set at the V6 stage. For those of you who are wondering how big of corn that is, it is about knee high. After our yield potential is set there is only one way to go and it's not higher. So if we have 12" tall corn and weeds in our fields 3" tall we have already made harvest a little shorter.

The second most important thing that I believe we can change on our operations is soil fertility. Soil samples are a great way to see how much nutrient is left in our soils. The last two years county wide we have taken exceptional yields off of the majority of our fields. A bushel of corn requires about 1 pound of nitrogen, 4 pounds of phosphorus, and 3 pounds of potassium. Most guys in the area use somewhere around 100 bushel yield goals when we figure there fertilizer plan for the upcoming year, in this case we are mining between 20 and 60 bushels worth of nutrients out of the soil. We can only do this for so long before we completely deplete our soil reserves and have nothing but what we apply for crops to use. I would suspect that if we have another year like the last two next year we will see a lot of nutrient deficiencies in our fields. This can lead to decreases yields and poor stalk quality, and no one likes to harvest corn that is lying on the ground.

Thirdly, we need to take a look at seed selection. As agronomists we have many tools that help place hybrids on specific soil types to maximize yield potential on each acre. A lot of growers look at last year's plot data and pick the top two hybrids and plant them. If every year was exactly the same this would work great, but as we all know each year is different and we have to look at each field individually to make the best choice of hybrids. All seed companies have

hybrids that need less and more management, fertility, and water requirements. All seed companies also have great hybrids, they just need to be placed right. I would challenge everyone to ask their seed supplier to tell them why they are recommending the hybrids they are. If they say, because it is the best we have to offer or it's better than what the competition is offering, I think a better answer is available. Every hybrid has strengths, and even though we hate to admit it, weaknesses. Some hybrids have more root mass, these hybrids work better in sandy soil, because they catch more water. Other hybrids have deep penetrating roots, these work better on heavy clay soils because they go deeper to catch more water. Yet other hybrids have an ear capable of flexing longer if a favorable environment is present making more kernels, and more bushels. It takes more than a salesman to place these hybrids on the right acres.

The fourth topic that I would like to touch on is a new practice we are just beginning to use, tissue sampling. Tissue sampling is exactly what it sounds like. We take parts of the plant growing in your fields and analyze them for nutrient content. We know how much of specific nutrients are supposed to be in plants at certain growth stages. If there is a nutrient that is lacking in a plant we can use foliar feed nutrients, spray liquid nutrients on the leaves of plants, to correct deficiencies. We have done some of these samples in the area and have see great yield results, 3-5bu/a in corn, from them. The cost associated with a treatment such as this runs anywhere from $5.00-$7.00 per acre. One key nutrient that we saw deficient in our area was zinc in corn. In trials in surrounding areas we have found that any application method, broadcast, in furrow, or on seed, pays just about every time.

The last thing I would like to say is Mother Nature is the biggest variable we have to contend with. We cannot, no matter how hard we try, change the weather.

It takes rain to make grain, as the old saying goes. We can do everything exactly right and still end up with problems, but I always say if we plan for a drought and do not take care of our crops rain or no rain we will end up with a pretty small pile at harvest. However, if we plan for a big year every year when Mother

Nature deals us the straight flush we will have a huge pile come harvest. I would like to thank everyone who has done business at Country Pride Coop, and I would invite anyone who has questions about their operation, and what they can change to maximize profits to give us a call so we can visit."



Copyright 2010 The Burke Gazette, Burke, South Dakota. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from SmallTownPapers, Inc.

© 2011 The Burke Gazette Burke, South Dakota. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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