In 2018 I received some images on my cell phone. These images were of red crown rot, a soybean disease I had encountered while I was the field crop pathologist at the University of Delaware. The images clearly showed distinctive brick red, pinhead sized “balls” aggregated on the lower stems of the plant. My immediate response to the individual who sent the images was “That’s red crown rot (RCR)- It’s typically a non-issue and routinely...
All Posts from 2022
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April 05, 2022 |
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March 23, 2022 Early season drought issues across Southern Brazil (Mato Grosso Do Sul, Parana, and Rio Grande do Sul) robbed Brazil of a record setting soybean crop for the 2021-22 growing season. Stagnant high-pressure plus a lack of cold fronts moving north out of Argentina led to about 40% of Southern Brazil’s soybean growing area receiving less than 60% of normal rainfall through late January. The Parana River, which runs through Southern Brazil and... |
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March 22, 2022 Farmers make hundreds of decisions every year. Some of them are big and some are small. These decisions all affect the bottom line to differing degrees. Some of them have negligible fiscal repercussions, while some can mean the difference between profit and loss. In my recent Better Beans seminar, I discussed five decisions that farmers make when growing soybeans and their impact on profitability. These factors were planting date, seed... |
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March 21, 2022 Hello again everyone, and welcome to spring (almost). The temps are rising, and we’ve all changed our clocks so planting time will be here very soon. This is the fourth in a series of blog posts from NASS. The earlier blog posts were all about surveys and the statistics we publish from those projects. This time, I am writing about the 2022 Census of Agriculture. It’s coming this year and I urge everyone to respond. Five years... |
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March 14, 2022 Resolution Realization Photos taken before the smartphone era have significantly lower quality and resolution than what’s possible with the latest mobile devices. Modern smartphone cameras can capture extensive details that could never be seen from a pixelated flip phone camera. Similarly, you may have noticed this increase in resolution if you’ve ever switched soil sample grid size. By increasing your sample... |
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February 25, 2022 Investments in sustainable initiatives are becoming mainstream since long term resilience is a priority for the marketplace. Leaders not only have to focus on day-to-day operations, but also devise and monitor ways to protect critical resources. In agriculture, producers and consumers are moving towards a common goal of water, soil, and yield stewardship. Fortunately, new sustainability strategies and technologies appear in the market daily.... |