Note: You can listen to my conversation with Keith Byerly and Chris Winkelbauer using the audio player at the end of this blog.

Pollination is upon us in Nebraska, and it's a period that Keith Byerly, advanced cropping systems (ACS) manager at Central Valley Ag, notes is easily the most important part of the year for corn plants — particularly when it comes to water management.

WATCH FOR STRESSES: Pollination is easily the most important part of the year for plants, and now that pollination is here, Keith Byerly says it's critical to watch for and eliminate as much stress as possible.

In the latest Nebraska Notebook, a podcast covering critical crop-related issues throughout the growing season, we visit with Keith Byerly and Chris Winkelbauer, ACS equipment manager at CVA, about managing irrigation during the pollination period, as well as some of the tools available — from soil moisture probes to telemetry to variable-rate irrigation (VRI) systems — to manage irrigation more efficiently.

"Now that pollination is here, the thing to remember is, these plants are pretty well done with their vegetative growth stages," Byerly says. "Now with pollination time upon us, we really want to eliminate as much stress as we can on that crop. During the pollination time right now, it requires just a little bit of a mindset change — especially with the summer we've had thus far with lots of heat and a ton of humidity, good growing degree unit accumulation on a daily basis. We need to make sure we're not just taking the plant's water use into account, but also looking at the stress factor on that plant."

This means keeping a close watch on soil moisture levels, whether it's ground-truthing and checking by hand, using dryland corners as an indicator of water stress, or using soil moisture probes.

Technology plays a significant role in knowing when and when not to irrigate. In our conversation with Byerly earlier this month, we talked about developing trust between growers and monitoring technology like soil moisture probes. Byerly says once growers are comfortable with the measurements probes are giving them, the next step is a comprehensive analysis to see if variable-rate irrigation or speed control will be beneficial.

When telemetry is in place, growers have more information on whether or not their pivot is running, where the pivot is, as well as the ability to control the pivot. "If we start to put those things in place, it's a really, really small step to go from having that pivot control in place to taking the pivot control plus the moisture probe to develop the VRI prescription on that field," Byerly says.

As Winkelbauer notes, there's a significant return on investment to be realized through telemetry. "What's it costing you to be overapplying or underapplying water? There's that side, and being able to know where that pivot is at all times," Winkelbauer says. "When we look at it throughout the year, [with] a lot of these systems, you can get a one-year payback pretty easily."