Seed Treatment
It’s been another wet year, and many Iowa cornfields have shown the tell-tale yellow cast this growing season, instead of the desired deep-green color. Yellow corn plants during summer are usually a sign they’re running out of nitrogen, which washed or leached away, or otherwise escaped. Many farmers are wondering, “Should I just go ahead and apply a nitrogen stabilizer product with my nitrogen fertilizer?”
Chances are your seedsman not only wants to know what varieties of soybeans you want, but he also wants to know if you prefer treated seed. To help in planning workloads, your seed dealer may be pushing for an early answer on seed treatment.
There are scores of seed treatments on the market used for reducing stress, stimulating growth and bumping yields in soybeans. But farmers need to know whether they actually work and are worth the extra expense.
Kansas State University Distinguished Professor Chuck Rice included a word you don’t always see in research titles when he presented his study to the Kansas Soybean Expo in Topeka on Jan. 9.
It’s been a difficult year for weed control. The issue isn’t that weeds in general have not been controlled by the herbicides, particularly those applied postemergence. Rather, the issue was finding the opportunities to make the applications in a timely manner.
You don’t have to go back very far to when soybean breeders and entomologists were scratching their heads, wondering why soybean seed treated with insecticide produced more. Now it’s becoming an accepted practice. The only flies in the ointment are cost and the fact that payoff is larger in some years than others.
Cotton root rot has been a nemesis to cotton more than 100 years. Now researchers are combining even more muscle aiming to stop the dreaded disease.
So far this season, we’ve fought numerous challenges that could rob yield in cornfields: Insects, diseases, weeds, soil conditions, weather, fertilizer deficiencies and herbicide injury come to mind for most growers and agronomists. Not meaning to “pile it on,” I’m afraid I must add another to the list.
The last six months produced a great amount of moisture in Texas cotton country. That holds potential for the 2010 cotton crop to have a strong start. But with the prolific growth of weeds serving as perfect hosts for bugs, it may also be a challenging season.
While it’s difficult to say exactly what diseases will be prevalent in Nebraska soybean fields in the upcoming growing season, University of Nebraska Extension plant pathologist, Loren Giesler, has the inside track on potential diseases to look for.