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October 31, 2019 Having spent my time as a CCA Soy Envoy writing about micronutrients, sulfur, nitrogen and phosphorus, it seems appropriate to close out the year focusing on potassium. Of the plant nutrients, potassium is part of the big 3—nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium (NPK). When I run soil tests in my area potassium is the most likely to be low, although some soils I work with can be high and stay high. Potassium helps plants withstand... |
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October 28, 2019 In Illinois we are not only blessed with fertile soils, we are also blessed to have a great agriculture network of industry professionals to study and share their findings. In some situations, attending meetings is seen as added, unnecessary work or taxing. However, to many progressive growers who want to learn and strive to obtain higher yields and profits while being sustainable, winter meetings are an indispensable resource. Now is the... |
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October 25, 2019 As I sit in my combine watching the harvest fill up grain cart after grain cart, I’m sure I’ll wonder at times where my soybeans will find a home and who will use them. Considering this year’s challenges, I’m sure these concerns may be on the minds of other growers, too. There’s no debate that the soybean market caused a few headaches and sleepless nights the past few months. Between turbulent trade talks and less than ideal weather,... |
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October 22, 2019 CCA Soy Envoy, Dave Rahe, looks at soil compaction caused by planting in less than ideal soil conditions and what soybean growers can do to minimize the impact on the 2020 growing season.
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October 21, 2019 With all the challenges we have faced in 2019, I figure we’ll see a few more before December gets here. One that particularly concerns me is marestail that will germinate this fall because of the weed seed bank in some areas across the state. This past spring and summer most were unable to get residuals down in a timely manner. This has led to more escaped weeds than we would like, some of which is marestail that has, or will, go to seed.... |
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October 21, 2019 When should I test soils? For years, fall soil sampling was the standard practice. However, it became a challenge to collect samples, get a lab report, develop a recommendation and apply nutrient needs prior to tillage or winter. In some situations, if the summer and fall were extremely dry, fall sampling could provide somewhat of an inaccurate measurement of true plant-available nutrients.... |