February 18, 2025 • 36 mins
Early planting can significantly increase soybean yields, but it comes with both advantages and risks. Bill and Jeff discuss the importance of planting timing, the impact on pod and node development, and essential management strategies such as weed control and seed treatments.
Topics Covered:
• Importance of early planting in maximizing yields
• Historical planting trends shifting toward early soybeans
• Effects of planting date on plant development stages
• Recommendations for seed variety and treatments
• Strategies for effective weed management
• Considerations of risk vs. rewards when planting early
Disclaimer:
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Xitavo is a registered trademark of MS Technologies and exclusively distributed by BASF. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners and use of any such trademark does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by its owner.
Always read and follow label directions. Before mixing components, always conduct a compatibility jar test. Always consult respective product labels for specific mixing instructions. The most restrictive label applies. Fastac CS is a restricted use pesticide. Nemasphere, Zorina, and Voraxor are not registered and not available for sale. This information is provided for educational purposes only and is not intended to promote the sale of this product. Any sale of this product after registration is obtained shall be based solely on the EPA approved product label, and any claims regarding product safety and efficacy shall be addressed solely by the label. The views expressed by BASF employees and Guest are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of BASF. Grow Smart is a registered trademark of BASF. Copyright 2025 BASF Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Spilling the Beans, the podcast that
spills the secrets to unlockingyour soybean farm's full
potential.
Every Tuesday, your hosts, billBackus and Jeff Mueller, dive
into expert strategies andinnovative solutions that will
help you boost your yields andmaximize your returns.
Whether you're a seasonedgrower or new to soybean farming
, we're here to help you succeed.
Let's get started.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello and welcome to another episode of Spilling the
Beans.
I'm Jeff Mueller and I'm BillBackus, and thanks again for
joining us as we dive into theworld of soybeans, covering
various topics and providinginsights to the soybean industry
.
Bill, how are you doing today?
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Doing great.
Jeff man, it's hard to believewe're flying through February
and we're potentially in certainareas.
If you're planting soybeansearly, we could be literally a
month away from plantingsoybeans on soybeans.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
But yeah, you know it's going to.
It's going to happen in some ofthese areas and it tends to
happen a little bit farther East.
But yeah, you know, we're,we're a matter of six weeks away
from this baby getting rollinghot and heavy and uh, it just
gets here, gets here quicker andquicker, it seems like every
year.
But uh, um, hopefully we'llhave a nice, uh, when I have a
nice season and everybody willget some nice yields this year
and things will roll well thisyear.
So I'm I'm going to beoptimistic and I think that's
(01:26):
going to happen.
Everybody's going to have agood year.
We're going to roll from there.
So, but you brought that upabout soybean planting, about
early planting in some areas.
Areas and that's what we'regoing to be talking about today
is going to be the impact ofsome early season, early
planting dates on soybeans andjust some of the, some of the
characteristics we see with it,some of the ramifications and
(01:46):
some of the advantages ordisadvantages that we could
potentially see when we'retalking about that with soybeans
, because you know, we tend toalways lean heavier to the corn
first and followed up withsoybeans.
That's starting to change alittle bit Over the last several
years, early planting ofsoybeans in cases have allowed
us to see some higher yields insome of these soybean fields
(02:08):
we've been dealing with, or thepotentials there for that higher
soybean yield.
We kind of wonder what's goingon.
Why are we seeing that?
We've always planted corn first.
In the Midwest it's always beencorn is king.
We plant it first and then wefollow with beans.
But now we're starting to seemore soybeans starting to go in
at the same time as corn orbefore corn.
Several producers have multipleplanters and one's running on
(02:29):
corn and one's starting to runon soybeans, both at the same
time.
So you know, we're starting tosee that trend.
You know, is that trend here tostay?
Is this something we're goingto see happening more and more,
or is this just a fad we'redealing with at this time?
Bill, what are your thoughts onthat?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Yeah, no, I'm looking forward to this episode for
quite a while because you know,this is definitely near and dear
to my heart.
We've done a lot of trials hereacross the, you know, since we
really got here with BASF, youand I, and we've, you know,
we've had, you know, within BASF.
We'll just say back to 2015.
So we're going on 10 yearsworth of data that we've
collected for reallyunderstanding how soybeans build
(03:11):
yield and how data planninginfluences that yield.
So story time real quick.
So I'll just use family farm.
We've been, we've did the samething Corn first and then switch
to beans and finally I got twobrothers, or three brothers, but
two are farming.
So one brother's in the cornplanter, one brother's now in
(03:31):
the soybean planter.
So we're running to it one timeand really just going to town to
get it done, and many times youknow he gets done planting
beans before my other brother'sdone planting corn.
And lo and behold, soybeanyields have gone up and up and
up.
And lo and behold, soybeanyields have gone up and up and
up and we're very, veryimpressed with what that's
brought to the table andunderstanding, just
understanding, what's going onout there.
So you talk that, you tell thatto.
(03:51):
You know, take that story tocustomers and you know, try and
replicate that and lo and behold, they're seeing it as well.
So it's not just you knowcertain areas and certain
environments and you talk tomore and more people.
Of course we take it north,then we're probably not quite as
early, but we take it south andwe can definitely go earlier.
So continue on with story timeon this one.
(04:13):
So I think it was two years ago, if I got my years right
basically planted soybeans atthe end of March in Iowa, so
that would have been March the29th and I could have gone a
week earlier, but wasn't quitebrave enough to do that quite
yet Then planted into 36 degreesoil temp and basically it was
like, oh boy, what's going onhere?
(04:33):
Is this going to work?
But the soil tilth was awesome,right?
So soil tilth was awesome andwe talked through that.
We're going to talk throughkind of some things about that
and kind of what's going on.
But you know, those firstplanted beans, it took them a
month to come up and those werethe highest-yielding beans.
You go back to some othertrials that were running before
(04:56):
we got here, 2015,.
Those actually were planted inFebruary and basically what
happened there is we lost abouthalf the stand but, lo and
behold, those were some of thehighest yielding beans.
So that's a little differentlatitude, a little further south
than you and I are, and again,you kind of understand some
different things.
We're going to share some ofthose learnings here today on
(05:16):
this episode and kind of gothrough a little bit around that
.
So, jeff, if we kind ofsummarize all of our data, quick
question how many bushels arelost after the first date fit to
plant soybeans?
Speaker 2 (05:30):
So if you think about it, you know, kind of on
average, what we've seen isyou're seeing about four-tenths
to half a bushel every day.
You know that you're delayed ingetting that plant in the soil.
Now, environment in the yearcan dictate this very much.
So you look at and I knowyou've done some trials and I've
(05:51):
done some trials at researchI've done them since 2019,
planning four different datesApril 1st, april 15th.
May 1st May 15th been within aday or two every time of
planting.
In those cases, and overallaverage, we've seen about a
seven bushel advantage April 1stversus the May 15th.
(06:11):
Point I always tell everybody,though, is I'm not telling you
if you plant May 15th, don't be,don't, don't shoot for April
1st, but maybe we can get you togo to May 1st, maybe we can get
you to go to last week of Aprilfrom that standpoint, but we've
had years where that's thetrend that it shows.
But I've had a year I've hadtwo of those years where it
showed that the May 15th wasbetter than the April 1st.
(06:33):
So, again, you're taking theaverages into account, but it
has tended to show that earlierplanted you have out there is
yielding better.
But yeah, it holds on to aboutthat, about four tenths to half
a bushel every every day afterafter it's fit to plant beans,
that you start to lose some,some of that from there and
we're going to talk about that alittle bit.
And that's a great question andagain, we've hit about it on the
(06:55):
last last couple of episodespretty good.
But we talked about the G by Eby M, the genetics by
environment, by management, andthis is a management decision.
Can you give us a littleinsight on why?
You know what, maybe?
Why are we seeing um?
Why are we seeing some yieldadvantage with earlier planted
soybeans?
Are we seeing more pods outthere?
Are we seeing more nodes?
Are we seeing the beans beingbigger, more folk, four pod
(07:19):
beans instead of three pod beans?
What's going on?
What?
What effect is g by e by Mhaving on early planting that
we're noticing some of thesetrends?
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Yeah, no great question, Jeff.
And yeah, just to reiterate,you know that I've run is
running about a, you know, halfa bushel to four tenths as well,
across early planting and thenas you get later, after about
May the 15th, then it shifts toabout a seven tenths of a bushel
is what it is after that.
So it gets really steep afterthat.
That's, you know, per day.
(07:49):
So if you start running themath on that, you know if we
planted, let's just say, April15th versus May 15th, you know
you got 30 days Right.
So half a bushel per day,that's quick math.
That's 15 bushel.
That's what start start lookingat and that's that's real money
when you start thinking aboutthat.
So that's really what the trendis showing.
And so to answer your questionon what's going on, so as we see
(08:10):
that we're planting soybeansearlier, so I'll go back to my
story where I started there alittle bit.
I talked about that in mytrials, basically planting at
the end of March, and then whatI did that year is I planted
every two weeks after that andI've done this many, many years.
But this is just the story I'musing today.
So March 29th and I think itwas roughly April 15th, april
(08:32):
30th and then May 15th were myfour dates of planting this past
year.
Actually, I went into the endof May and did a little bit
later to add in like an almostJune planting and and did a
little bit later to add in likean almost June planting and the
trend, you know, stayed the same.
So it's getting, you know, lessand less yield planted later.
So what's going on?
Why has that happened?
So, really, you know we duginto that over many, many years
(08:53):
of data and what we understoodwas let's look at the number of
days that that soybean plantspends in each of the vegetative
growth periods, each of thereproductions R1, r2, r3, r4, r5
, r6, r7, r8, you know, and soon.
What we found was that when weplant earlier, if we can get
(09:15):
that soybean to basically flowersooner, so typically what we
find is the soybean flowersright Summer solstice, june 21st
.
That's what's really going totrigger flowering.
But if we plant earlier, whatwe're finding is we can get that
soybean to flower before then.
And what we found, like theearliest ones I planted there on
(09:37):
this example I'm using, I gotfirst flower.
It was a 2.6 relative maturity.
First flower was actually onJune the 6th, so I had the first
flower.
So I was basically a full 15days prior to the summer
solstice because I planted wayearly for the area.
So understanding that.
So does that really matter inflowering?
Well, yes and no.
(09:58):
You've got to get to floweringbefore you get to R2.
R2 is the critical time.
We want to spend more days inR2.
That's when we're buildingnodes.
That's when we're building podsper node.
So we go back to that G by E byM, basically pods per acre, by
the seed for pod, basically bythe weight per seeds.
We want to have more pods peracre and we want to have more
(10:21):
pods per plant and we want tohave more seeds per pod.
Basically is what we'rethinking about.
So how do we get there?
We get more nodes and reallythe way to get there is to spend
more time in R2.
And how do you get there?
By planting early.
So that's kind of what's goingon within that.
And then really think about youknow what defines early
planting versus the status quo.
We got to think about that aswell.
So for your area, you knowsomething that's ahead of corn
(10:43):
planting.
Right, that's what's going tobe early for you.
So, and then early is, you know,thinking about you know,
understanding my firsthistorical or last historical,
not first last historical dateof frost, right?
So think about that.
So if I'm planting on end ofMarch, right, I've got a whole
(11:05):
month potential, or two monthand a half of frost potential in
Iowa, so I'm very concernedabout that.
So what did I find when Iplanted early?
What I found is those beans didnot emerge for a full month.
They sat there and sat thereand sat there and waited.
What they did, though, is theydug up some roots and found the
different roots between each ofthe planting dates.
(11:27):
Actually, I had a very nice deeproot mass being built.
It was growing roots, so weplanted a 36 degree soil temp.
I really never got to the 50that we typically, or 52 or 60
that we typically recommend 60for soybeans, that we typically
recommend for soybeans.
I never really got there untilthe end of April and basically
(11:49):
early May, but yet they emergedwell before that.
So there's something going onwhen we start thinking about
soybeans and how they interact,basically, with soil temperature
.
They imbibe, so you can getsome imbibational chilling,
which basically is the coldwater going into the seed and
kind of messing up thegermination.
We can get it, but it's reallyhard to get in soybeans.
(12:11):
You'll see that more in corn.
So when we think about corndata planning and soybean data
planning, what we're finding isplanting soybeans early.
It really doesn't influencebecause they can adapt.
We talked about the differentplant types.
They can adapt more than cornCorn.
You got to have a picket fence,you got to get them all to come
up at the same time and we donot want to plant corn into cool
(12:34):
temperatures.
Beans are much more tolerantthan corn is for planting into
that cool soil, so that's kindof the big piece of that.
So, jeff, when I plant early,how do I select the right
soybean variety and or relativematurity for my area?
Speaker 2 (12:50):
when I plant early, so you know, first of all, when
we're planting early and we'reselecting those varieties, you
know, first of all we want tomake sure it's the right variety
for the field, right, we wantto know what we're going on
there.
But the question will come in.
You know it's like with corn.
You know if I'm planting early,I'm planting a later maturity
(13:11):
corn, right.
And then if I'm planting later,I'm planting a shorter maturity
corn because I need to get totassel and I need to get
pollination and everything gothrough that.
Some people think that's theright way with the soybeans too,
but it's not necessarily thecase, because you can plant a
longer maturity.
But what you can do is ifyou're planting say, I would
hold pat to the maturity I wantto do in my area, say, just
(13:35):
throw an example out there, I'ma group three, that's what I
wanted to plant in my area.
I'm going to stay with thegroup three because if I'm
planting earlier, it's just likeyou talked about in a little
bit earlier, we're going to getthat to flower a little bit
earlier.
So it might not, instead of beon June 21st, start flowering.
Maybe it's flowering on the10th or the 12th of June and by
doing that now, we're going tobe able to extend that period
(13:57):
into that R2 by another week ortwo and by doing that we're
going to get more nodes and morepods and more beans and that's
more yield from that standpoint.
So, again, the one thing wereally have to take into
consideration with soybeans isit's about light interception.
It's, like you know, the summersolstice and the day-night
length periods.
That's what triggers that.
(14:19):
That's different on corn.
So from soybeans, from thatstandpoint, even if you plant
later and you plant a latermaturity bean, once it hits
about that June 21st, she'sgoing to start flowering, no
matter what if you only havethree or four nodes on it.
So again, I like to stay kindof with the same maturity I have
in my plan personally, becausethen I know I'm going to extend
out that R2 window a little bitlonger.
(14:39):
That's where I'm going to getthat maximum potential from
there.
What are your thoughts on thatBill?
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Yeah, no, I totally agree.
So you know, I do.
You know where I live.
We do have proximity to aterminal market on the river and
some guys will choose to plantearly beans early, right, so
they'll do that.
They're getting good yieldsbecause they planted early, but
they're also harvesting early,Right, so their yield loss and
(15:06):
harvest is actually less.
If you plant a full season, letit go through all that that
weird weather we typically getin September and October, you
know, as we get the seasonchange and whatnot.
So, but I'm in the same camp.
I still for biggest yield, Iwant to plant my fuller season
beans early.
But if my, if my idea iscatching an early market and
I've got a better price, I mightchoose to plant some early
beans early, just so I can getout there and get started.
(15:27):
It really depends on my.
You know the operation, howmany acres you're farming, what
you're thinking through and yourharvest schedule and all that,
how that ties together.
So that'd be the only reason I'dconsider planting some early
beans, early, early RM for yourregion, if you will.
And then that I typically, likeyou, say I go to.
I stay with the full season aslong as I can.
(15:48):
I'll go back to my you know myearlier types as I get a little
bit later and then I'll flipback to try and compensate for
that loss of yield that wetalked about.
After May 15th, usually aboutMay 20th, I'll start thinking
about switching back to a fullerseason bean, simply because I
want to get some more vegetativegrowth, get that height, and
that's where I start tying thatinto.
You know my seeding rates.
We talked in the previousepisode.
(16:08):
How do we tie all that togetherso that I can maximize, you
know, my yield for plantinglater if I don't get it in early
.
But again, biggest yield that'swhat the podcast is all about
Biggest yield is going to beplanting early and planting the
fullest season being you can forthat relative maturity.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
So big piece of that, yep, no good call.
So, with that being said, wewere talking about planting
early.
You know we were talking aboutin respect to the right soybean
variety, right maturity that wewant to deal with.
What about row spacing?
Row spacing going to be aneffect there?
Is that going to be something?
That is something.
Is there a right or wrong rowspacing to decide if you're
(16:46):
going on an early plantingsituation?
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Yeah, so really no.
I mean, my answer is reallygoing to be no.
It's really going to be youroperation, what you're set up
for, right.
So you know if I am.
You know it's really going to beyour operation, what you're set
up for right, so you know if I,if I am you know, if I got a 30
inch row planter versus 15, oreven a uh 20, or if I still got
wide rows of 36 wider, or if Igot a drill uh seven inch, or so
you know as you get into that.
(17:08):
So so, thinking about how theirinteraction is going to be, but
just understanding that, if wethink about the planter, which
we're also going to talk about,another episode is how to set
that planter, you know, makesure that you're getting seed to
soil contact.
So that's the biggest piece ofthat to get that growing.
And and when I you know plantearly, planting depth comes into
mind.
So so, so don't plant shallow,by all means.
(17:30):
We don't want them coming upright away, we want to have that
insulation layer down there.
So if you're planting early,you know for your region,
definitely get them in there,don't be afraid of that.
You know, good, inch and a halfdepth is awesome, but you think
about how that interacts withthat row spacing.
So if we plant an inch and ahalf deep and we think about the
(17:51):
actual row spacing, then wethink about seeding rate, how it
interacts.
We think about how those plantswork together.
So let's say, we get that hardpounding rain after we planted
and we got this, you know, halfinch crust on it, so.
So seeding rate uh, ties intothat.
So if I did choose to go 15inch rows and I only dropped
135,000, um, or this is to140,000 for simple math, uh,
(18:16):
that's four seats per footversus 30 inch rows, which is
eight seeds per foot.
So if you think about, I've goteight seeds working together to
push through that crust, versusfour seeds working together to
push through that crust.
Definitely a 30 inch row.
It's gonna be better plantedearly because you're gonna have
more seeds working together forthat.
(18:37):
So think all that through, thinkabout your seeding rate.
So if you are going to go alittle bit earlier, you may want
to increase seeding ratebecause of you know, potential
mortality might be a littlehigher.
So you got to think throughthat.
But that ties into to reallyyou know, some of our next
questions here when we talkthrough some future things.
But again, use what you havebut know that there's some
(19:02):
interactions and row spacing andseats per foot and how those
work together.
So, but anyway, so so yeah,jeff, I guess we'll, we'll go
with.
You know how do I select theright weed management program,
how does that tie together withmy planting early and how that
ties, you know, back and forth.
So yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
So your weed management program.
You know, hopefully everybody'sgot a good weed management
program put into place goinginto the season.
You know what it's really goingto do is it's probably going to
extend some of your earlierwindows, some of your plant
competition or weed competitionsthat's coming up with your
plants because you are not aswarm of soil as you might be at
(19:40):
the first of May.
Those weeds are going to bebehind a little bit coming up.
So soybean plants, but thosesoybean plants might be a little
bit slower coming out, but oncethey do they're going to have a
nice established root massunderneath them and they'll be
able to get going a little bitfaster from that standpoint,
putting down a good pre-emergentherbicide with a good burndown
something like a Zidua Pro outthere, getting it on early,
(20:03):
starting out clean, is alwaysyour best option and opportunity
there and then following it up,you know, maybe have that
calendar out there and thenlooking and saying, okay, 30, 35
days from now, if you do it onearly planted, maybe 40, I'm
going in there with a postapplication and with another
residual and then I'm lookingback, probably coming in another
30 days and going from thatstandpoint.
(20:24):
A couple of things you may see,though, is, when you're going
on that earlier planted, you'reprobably going to get to that
canopy faster than you would ona later planted bean.
You're probably going to get alittle bit bigger plant, taller,
right, so you're going to getmore bushiness, more row
coverage out there.
So, again, should have morecompetition against the weeds
(20:45):
coming up out there, helping tosuppress some of that weed
emergence that's going to happenin some of those cases, and we
know, with a lot of our weeds,when they really start coming in
you know your waterhemp, we'lljust use that one, because
that's the one everybody talksabout it really starts kicking
into gear when we get into thatJune timeframe.
You know how many times is ithey, this field's clean.
Then, all of a sudden, boom aweek later and it's really
(21:06):
coming in.
If we're getting those beansplanted earlier, we're going to
have more plants, more canopyout there when that's coming in,
and that should help minimizesome of the some of the weed
emergence that we have occurringin some of those cases.
So, again, um, first andforemost, you have a good weed
program put in place, no matterwhen you're planting, knowing
that's part of the factor, but,again, uh, you may be able to
(21:27):
get some uh, you will get somebetter coverage and some better
canopy when the weeds reallystart kicking in at the ideal
time, because you have plantedearlier and you're getting some
more size on that, which bringsa really good question.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Go ahead, bill, anything else, add in here real
quick.
So, yeah, my two cents on thatis, yeah, the longest residual
that you possibly can.
But the other piece of thepuzzle I wanted to address here
is no-till.
So we think about no-till andwhat's going on in that field.
We think about, you know, I'vegot a lot of winter annuals
(21:59):
right, I've got hen bed, I'vegot pennycrest, I've got, you
know, some dandelions out there.
You know, and in Western Iowawe got mulberry trees that
continue to show up, right,we're not going to talk about
here today.
But no-till, you get a lot ofdifferent things that are
growing out there because wehaven't done any tillage.
But my point is there's a lot ofhard to control weeds that
we've really got to get a goodburndown on as well, which we're
(22:22):
going to talk about in a futureepisode as well here.
But burndown, you know how thatties into early planting.
We're really adding in anotherlevel of we want to get.
We're going to have longerresiduals.
So we're going to ask more ofour pre's, basically to do more
work.
So we've got to have a reallygood pre with a nice long
residual that's got a lot ofactivity and we're going to have
(22:42):
to have some burndown activity.
If we're going in early andwe're doing a no-till or
something, or if we're sprayingover the top and we've got some
emerged weeds of some sort, youknow we're going to be robbing
energy.
And then the other one that wereally didn't talk about here
really is cover crops.
You know how to cover cropsinteract with, uh, planting
early and termination timing andso on and so forth.
So I think another episode thatwe can sure talk about is cover
(23:03):
crops and termination timing.
All that.
All that, all that tiestogether, uh.
So, but uh, jeff, I'm going toask you the question here.
So when I plant early, what doI need to consider, you know,
for seed treatments, or can Iskip using them to costs?
You know how?
About lowering my seeding ratewhen I included seed treatment?
So how does seed treatmentsinteract with data planning?
Speaker 2 (23:24):
So my question is no, do not skip seed treatments.
I think seed treatments to meis personally one of the best
investments you can make in yoursoybean crop that you have out
there.
Start thinking about it.
There's still a few that don't,but there's not a lot of
farmers and producers out therethat don't have some type of
seed treatment that they have ontheir soybeans going forward.
(23:45):
And if you think about it earlyon and it really ties into
where we're at for population,it ties into everything comes in
with that.
But it used to be.
We used to plant 180 to 220,000out there because we were
pulling like I said talked acouple episodes earlier, we were
grabbing them out of the binand we were throwing them in the
in the planter and you knowwhether they you know you had
some come up or whatever likethat, but you know you made sure
(24:07):
you had enough of the massesout there to have it.
Seed treatment brings a lot ofthings to the table.
First of all, it brings out afungicidal and insecticidal
component in there that's goingto help protect that seed from
that early feeding of some ofthose insects, some of those
early diseases that potentiallycould come in if you're sitting
in cool, wet kind of conditions,from that standpoint Really
builds a layer around thatsoybean seed to help protect it.
(24:28):
To me it's more important onearlier planted beans and later
planted beans because you havethe potential that bean, as you
were saying, earlier, sat therefor a whole month, right, so it
can sit there a lot longer.
So it allows more opportunityfor damage to occur to that
beans.
If you're doing a later plantedbean, you're usually warmed up
faster, boom and quick comingout of the ground and you're
flying out of there.
(24:48):
So to me it's more crucial thanwe go from on there.
So I do not look at it as evena question of to put it on or
not.
To me it has to be part of thatprogram, especially on early.
From that standpoint, from aseeding rate though, what it
does, it has allowed us to lowerour seeds because we know we're
getting a lot more protectionout there.
So if we're planting 140,000seeds using that average that
(25:10):
we've talked about, I feelpretty confident I'm going to
have 90% to 95% of the beanscoming up, unless I have, you
know, some type of weather eventthat came in and caused some
other issues to come throughthere.
(25:37):
No-transcript, you can have thatcyst nematode protection,
especially if you have a LevoCtreatment on with it.
You get some of those otheraspects that really play into a
factor and it really helpsminimize some of the stresses
that can occur on that soybeanplant and help maximizing that
yield out there.
So that was an excellentquestion, bill, because we do
get that question out there.
So that was that was anexcellent question, bill,
because we do get that questionevery year and we talk about a
(25:59):
year that's coming up wheremaybe the economics aren't so
strong in soybeans andindividuals looking to cut costs
in several ways and I know seedtreatment's been thrown out
there and to me that's one ofthe last ones you can afford to
cut from this situation becausewhat it brings to the table and
how that affects it from there.
So we talked about having theseed treatment on her brought up
and talked a little bit aboutwith the seed treatment on it
(26:20):
and what it brings, some of thethings.
But again we also talk aboutthe early planning.
You know how does how, how doesit influence the disease and
insect management programs.
Again we talked about what seedtreatment can bring.
But do we worry about it more?
Do we not worry about as muchcan we see more damage?
What are your thoughts on thatBill?
Because the beans in the fieldfor a lot longer.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
A lot longer.
Yeah, that's the key.
So you know.
Short little story time here,quick too.
So you know when I, when I, mymaster's actually I worked on
this focused on this, so plantsoybeans early, with and without
seed treatments, trying tounderstand how did they
influence high yield soybeans,right?
So so you think about, you know, a healthier plant coming out
(27:00):
of the ground all season longbasically had higher yields.
There was more.
Basically, what I found wasthere was more seeds per pod and
that equated to more you know,yield and and and, lo and behold
, just the seed treatment.
I had a higher weight per seedtoo because I had a higher,
healthier plant from thebeginning to end.
So think about that.
You know, the healthier you canwhen you start, that's going to
(27:23):
be so less things that you'vegot to fight off.
You know, as we talked aboutthose early season diseases, so
you think about that disease andinsect management.
So really, what's the, what'sthe first insect that we're
going to see, jeff?
What's the first one we'll seewhen we plant beans early?
Speaker 2 (27:40):
We're probably going to see some white grub.
We're going to see some ofthose good ones out there, some
of the earlier ones that emerge.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
All right, yeah, yeah , I'll see some white grub,
we're gonna see some wirewormsand we're gonna see bean leaf
beetle.
Right, you think about thosebean leaf beetles and what
they're bringing to the tableand you know, and the other uh
diseases and and viruses thatthey transmit bring through all
the way through that season.
So that first brood ofoverwintering bean leaf beetle,
(28:05):
we want to, you know, minimizethe impact that they do, because
every single trial that I putout from when I'm planting early
, that's the first one thatshows up and they're chewing on
the leaves and but you know, youfind the ones that I put out
untreated when I do an untreatedversus treated check.
Yeah, they'll devastate theuntreated beans and then they
treat it.
You know I get about 20, someodd days of protection, 21 to
(28:26):
say, three weeks roughly, out ofthat early plan once they get
up and emerge and through that.
So you know, we think about thealevo, think about you
mentioned that the soybean cystnematode, the sudden death and
how that goes on later in theseason.
We think about, you know, how dowe, you know, future episodes
we're gonna, we're gonna talkabout, uh, uh, you know,
(28:48):
different weird insects but butyou know, stink bug, stink bug
being one of them.
You know how do we, how do weinfluence that?
We're gonna have to probablyscout a little bit more monitor.
You know, for these differentinsects that we can put an
insecticide on.
You know, as we get there, wethink about white mold.
We talked about that in aprevious episode.
As we get canopy earlier, as wementioned earlier, we canopy,
(29:09):
you know before, you know summersolstice and we get that
environment that allows whitemold to grow.
We talked about white moldmoving further south.
Well, we're also planting beansearlier and earlier, right, so
that ties into that.
So we got to do a little morescouting and understanding what
diseases are going to be present.
We probably I saw, probablythis year, more septoria brown
(29:31):
spot than I've seen in a longtime, not a big yield robbing
disease, but again, we plantedearlier so we got more incense
to that.
We had some moisture earliertied into that.
So those different things thatare coming on.
So we got to think about ourmanagement all the way through,
from start to finish, if we wantto maximize really soybean
production here.
So, jeff, we hit a lot ofthings here today, a lot of
(29:52):
different areas.
So any other comments or ideasthat you have or things to
summarize.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Yeah, just a couple of thoughts thinking about there
.
You know, when we're talkingabout early planting, you know
we hear a lot of oh God,mid-april, early April type of
timeframe.
You know, I guess my main takehome point to our listeners is
you know, it's not aboutswitching it up a month and a
half earlier or a month earlier,but maybe it's a week earlier,
maybe it's 10 days earlier,maybe it's when you're halfway
(30:18):
through corn planting you, youstart the other planter on the
beans, something like that.
But just, you know doing thingslike that, those little things,
because we're always talkingabout, you know, we've, we're at
that limit.
How do we max?
How do we get more yield out ofour field in that?
And and this is one way, thisis a practice, this is something
we can do to help gain a fewbushel and it's just a matter of
(30:38):
something we already have to doanyway.
You mentioned earlier about ano-till field versus tilled and
stuff like that.
That can make a big differencefrom a freezing standpoint or
affecting if we do get a lateseason frost.
You'll see it more in thatno-tilt situation than you will
in a tilt situation from.
You know, some of that heatlosses and everything we got
going on through there.
(30:59):
So a couple of those things totake into consideration from
that standpoint.
And then you know, really, inthe end, everything we've been
talking about is for everyaction there's opposite and
equal reaction, right.
So we talk about getting earlycanopy, get a canopy, or either
better weed control pressure,better this, that, but okay, we
might get more disease.
(31:19):
You brought it up with whitemold.
Maybe we got more white moldpotential coming in.
Some of those things we so it'salways fettering out what we're
doing and understanding there'sgood and there's bad, and
understanding how we're going tomanage them and using the
varieties and going forward withthat.
And that's really what it comesdown to.
So, no matter what what we doto try to to do something
(31:40):
different, always rememberthere's going to be something
else that could have a differenttype of impact on there.
And understanding that and andhow to work through it and be
prepared for it is is reallythink what is a good take-home
point to our listeners from thisepisode.
Bill, any thoughts or anythingyou'd like to add to our
listeners that you gleaned fromtoday's conversation?
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
One thing again, I think, greatdiscussion all the way around.
We're trying to figure out thefoundation of high yield and
really we start with variety,right, we get that genetics
first, we figure out where toplace it and then the first
management step is really whenam I going to plant it?
Right, that's the first stepthat I got to think about.
As soon as I put that seed inthe ground, the clock starts
(32:24):
ticking.
Right, that is what I do andfrom that point forward, every
management decision I make afterthat is influenced by when I
planted it and then the seedingrate.
We tie back to that.
So let's see a hypotheticalsituation.
So let's say we, as you broughtup the no-till versus till,
let's say we planted 140,00030-inch rows and we get that
(32:47):
early frost, that late frost, Ishould say, that comes in May,
the 10th, and I've got a standof 130,000 that came up because
I lost about 10% or so, justnormal loss.
And then boom, that frost hitsme and takes me out and drops me
down to 70,000.
You know what do I do then?
Right, do I leave that stand,or do I intercede?
(33:09):
Or what do I do?
You know what do I do thenRight, do I leave that stand or
do I intercede or what do I do?
And there's a lot of math thatwe put into.
You know how soybeans canrespond at 70,000.
Once we get below that, wereally got to start thinking
about interceding.
And we never, you know, tear upexisting sand.
We always intercede into it.
So we'll have another futureepisode I think we'll likely get
into with the replantsituations and trying to
(33:29):
understand you know what are thepros and cons and how do I
evaluate that stand.
But understand that you knowyou get one shot to do it right
each year and most commonly,most operations get, you know,
40 to maybe 50 chances to dothis right.
So once you start farming andyou know that's what you got to
think about is I got one shothere this year and I got to do
(33:51):
it right and I understand therisk and reward of that.
But you can't get the higheryield that we're talking about
if you wait until May the 20thto plant your beans.
So we want to make sure we takethat, take that opportunity to
to go after that, because we canalways intercede and add into
it if we need to and a lot ofcompanies have 100 percent
reprograms and as they tie thatall together, there's a lot of
(34:21):
stuff that we've really dug intoover the years and
understanding how soybeanvarieties respond and thinking
all that through.
So just a lot of stuff that wewant to put together here to
help people understand that.
You know, planting beans earlyis definitely one of the key
tactics to going after highyield beans.
So again, great episode.
Thanks, jeff, for leading usalong here.
So again, if you got anythingelse, go ahead.
But I'll turn it back to youAbsolutely, bill.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Thanks for joining me today for this nice
conversation on planning datewith soybeans, and thank you to
our listeners today for joiningus for this episode of Spilling
the Beans.
We invite you to download theGrow Smart Live app for more
resources and share this podcastwith other growers.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
So thanks for joining us and make it a great day.
Thanks for joining us onSpilling the Beans, where every
episode gets you one step closerto maximizing your soybean
profitability.
If you found today's insightsvaluable, subscribe and leave us
a review on your favoriteplatform.
Download the Grow Smart Liveapp for more resources and share
the podcast with other growers.
See you next week with moreexpert tips to help you grow
smarter and achieve the bestyields yet.
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Thank you.
Welcome to Spilling the Beans, the podcast that
spills the secrets to unlockingyour soybean farm's full
potential.
Every Tuesday, your hosts, billBackus and Jeff Mueller, dive
into expert strategies andinnovative solutions that will
help you boost your yields andmaximize your returns.
Whether you're a seasonedgrower or new to soybean farming
, we're here to help you succeed.
Let's get started.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello and welcome to another episode of Spilling the
Beans.
I'm Jeff Mueller and I'm BillBackus, and thanks again for
joining us as we dive into theworld of soybeans, covering
various topics and providinginsights to the soybean industry
.
Bill, how are you doing today?
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Doing great.
Jeff man, it's hard to believewe're flying through February
and we're potentially in certainareas.
If you're planting soybeansearly, we could be literally a
month away from plantingsoybeans on soybeans.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
But yeah, you know it's going to.
It's going to happen in some ofthese areas and it tends to
happen a little bit farther East.
But yeah, you know, we're,we're a matter of six weeks away
from this baby getting rollinghot and heavy and uh, it just
gets here, gets here quicker andquicker, it seems like every
year.
But uh, um, hopefully we'llhave a nice, uh, when I have a
nice season and everybody willget some nice yields this year
and things will roll well thisyear.
So I'm I'm going to beoptimistic and I think that's
(01:26):
going to happen.
Everybody's going to have agood year.
We're going to roll from there.
So, but you brought that upabout soybean planting, about
early planting in some areas.
Areas and that's what we'regoing to be talking about today
is going to be the impact ofsome early season, early
planting dates on soybeans andjust some of the, some of the
characteristics we see with it,some of the ramifications and
(01:46):
some of the advantages ordisadvantages that we could
potentially see when we'retalking about that with soybeans
, because you know, we tend toalways lean heavier to the corn
first and followed up withsoybeans.
That's starting to change alittle bit Over the last several
years, early planting ofsoybeans in cases have allowed
us to see some higher yields insome of these soybean fields
(02:08):
we've been dealing with, or thepotentials there for that higher
soybean yield.
We kind of wonder what's goingon.
Why are we seeing that?
We've always planted corn first.
In the Midwest it's always beencorn is king.
We plant it first and then wefollow with beans.
But now we're starting to seemore soybeans starting to go in
at the same time as corn orbefore corn.
Several producers have multipleplanters and one's running on
(02:29):
corn and one's starting to runon soybeans, both at the same
time.
So you know, we're starting tosee that trend.
You know, is that trend here tostay?
Is this something we're goingto see happening more and more,
or is this just a fad we'redealing with at this time?
Bill, what are your thoughts onthat?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Yeah, no, I'm looking forward to this episode for
quite a while because you know,this is definitely near and dear
to my heart.
We've done a lot of trials hereacross the, you know, since we
really got here with BASF, youand I, and we've, you know,
we've had, you know, within BASF.
We'll just say back to 2015.
So we're going on 10 yearsworth of data that we've
collected for reallyunderstanding how soybeans build
(03:11):
yield and how data planninginfluences that yield.
So story time real quick.
So I'll just use family farm.
We've been, we've did the samething Corn first and then switch
to beans and finally I got twobrothers, or three brothers, but
two are farming.
So one brother's in the cornplanter, one brother's now in
(03:31):
the soybean planter.
So we're running to it one timeand really just going to town to
get it done, and many times youknow he gets done planting
beans before my other brother'sdone planting corn.
And lo and behold, soybeanyields have gone up and up and
up.
And lo and behold, soybeanyields have gone up and up and
up and we're very, veryimpressed with what that's
brought to the table andunderstanding, just
understanding, what's going onout there.
So you talk that, you tell thatto.
(03:51):
You know, take that story tocustomers and you know, try and
replicate that and lo and behold, they're seeing it as well.
So it's not just you knowcertain areas and certain
environments and you talk tomore and more people.
Of course we take it north,then we're probably not quite as
early, but we take it south andwe can definitely go earlier.
So continue on with story timeon this one.
(04:13):
So I think it was two years ago, if I got my years right
basically planted soybeans atthe end of March in Iowa, so
that would have been March the29th and I could have gone a
week earlier, but wasn't quitebrave enough to do that quite
yet Then planted into 36 degreesoil temp and basically it was
like, oh boy, what's going onhere?
(04:33):
Is this going to work?
But the soil tilth was awesome,right?
So soil tilth was awesome andwe talked through that.
We're going to talk throughkind of some things about that
and kind of what's going on.
But you know, those firstplanted beans, it took them a
month to come up and those werethe highest-yielding beans.
You go back to some othertrials that were running before
(04:56):
we got here, 2015,.
Those actually were planted inFebruary and basically what
happened there is we lost abouthalf the stand but, lo and
behold, those were some of thehighest yielding beans.
So that's a little differentlatitude, a little further south
than you and I are, and again,you kind of understand some
different things.
We're going to share some ofthose learnings here today on
(05:16):
this episode and kind of gothrough a little bit around that
.
So, jeff, if we kind ofsummarize all of our data, quick
question how many bushels arelost after the first date fit to
plant soybeans?
Speaker 2 (05:30):
So if you think about it, you know, kind of on
average, what we've seen isyou're seeing about four-tenths
to half a bushel every day.
You know that you're delayed ingetting that plant in the soil.
Now, environment in the yearcan dictate this very much.
So you look at and I knowyou've done some trials and I've
(05:51):
done some trials at researchI've done them since 2019,
planning four different datesApril 1st, april 15th.
May 1st May 15th been within aday or two every time of
planting.
In those cases, and overallaverage, we've seen about a
seven bushel advantage April 1stversus the May 15th.
(06:11):
Point I always tell everybody,though, is I'm not telling you
if you plant May 15th, don't be,don't, don't shoot for April
1st, but maybe we can get you togo to May 1st, maybe we can get
you to go to last week of Aprilfrom that standpoint, but we've
had years where that's thetrend that it shows.
But I've had a year I've hadtwo of those years where it
showed that the May 15th wasbetter than the April 1st.
(06:33):
So, again, you're taking theaverages into account, but it
has tended to show that earlierplanted you have out there is
yielding better.
But yeah, it holds on to aboutthat, about four tenths to half
a bushel every every day afterafter it's fit to plant beans,
that you start to lose some,some of that from there and
we're going to talk about that alittle bit.
And that's a great question andagain, we've hit about it on the
(06:55):
last last couple of episodespretty good.
But we talked about the G by Eby M, the genetics by
environment, by management, andthis is a management decision.
Can you give us a littleinsight on why?
You know what, maybe?
Why are we seeing um?
Why are we seeing some yieldadvantage with earlier planted
soybeans?
Are we seeing more pods outthere?
Are we seeing more nodes?
Are we seeing the beans beingbigger, more folk, four pod
(07:19):
beans instead of three pod beans?
What's going on?
What?
What effect is g by e by Mhaving on early planting that
we're noticing some of thesetrends?
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Yeah, no great question, Jeff.
And yeah, just to reiterate,you know that I've run is
running about a, you know, halfa bushel to four tenths as well,
across early planting and thenas you get later, after about
May the 15th, then it shifts toabout a seven tenths of a bushel
is what it is after that.
So it gets really steep afterthat.
That's, you know, per day.
(07:49):
So if you start running themath on that, you know if we
planted, let's just say, April15th versus May 15th, you know
you got 30 days Right.
So half a bushel per day,that's quick math.
That's 15 bushel.
That's what start start lookingat and that's that's real money
when you start thinking aboutthat.
So that's really what the trendis showing.
And so to answer your questionon what's going on, so as we see
(08:10):
that we're planting soybeansearlier, so I'll go back to my
story where I started there alittle bit.
I talked about that in mytrials, basically planting at
the end of March, and then whatI did that year is I planted
every two weeks after that andI've done this many, many years.
But this is just the story I'musing today.
So March 29th and I think itwas roughly April 15th, april
(08:32):
30th and then May 15th were myfour dates of planting this past
year.
Actually, I went into the endof May and did a little bit
later to add in like an almostJune planting and and did a
little bit later to add in likean almost June planting and the
trend, you know, stayed the same.
So it's getting, you know, lessand less yield planted later.
So what's going on?
Why has that happened?
So, really, you know we duginto that over many, many years
(08:53):
of data and what we understoodwas let's look at the number of
days that that soybean plantspends in each of the vegetative
growth periods, each of thereproductions R1, r2, r3, r4, r5
, r6, r7, r8, you know, and soon.
What we found was that when weplant earlier, if we can get
(09:15):
that soybean to basically flowersooner, so typically what we
find is the soybean flowersright Summer solstice, june 21st
.
That's what's really going totrigger flowering.
But if we plant earlier, whatwe're finding is we can get that
soybean to flower before then.
And what we found, like theearliest ones I planted there on
(09:37):
this example I'm using, I gotfirst flower.
It was a 2.6 relative maturity.
First flower was actually onJune the 6th, so I had the first
flower.
So I was basically a full 15days prior to the summer
solstice because I planted wayearly for the area.
So understanding that.
So does that really matter inflowering?
Well, yes and no.
(09:58):
You've got to get to floweringbefore you get to R2.
R2 is the critical time.
We want to spend more days inR2.
That's when we're buildingnodes.
That's when we're building podsper node.
So we go back to that G by E byM, basically pods per acre, by
the seed for pod, basically bythe weight per seeds.
We want to have more pods peracre and we want to have more
(10:21):
pods per plant and we want tohave more seeds per pod.
Basically is what we'rethinking about.
So how do we get there?
We get more nodes and reallythe way to get there is to spend
more time in R2.
And how do you get there?
By planting early.
So that's kind of what's goingon within that.
And then really think about youknow what defines early
planting versus the status quo.
We got to think about that aswell.
So for your area, you knowsomething that's ahead of corn
(10:43):
planting.
Right, that's what's going tobe early for you.
So, and then early is, you know,thinking about you know,
understanding my firsthistorical or last historical,
not first last historical dateof frost, right?
So think about that.
So if I'm planting on end ofMarch, right, I've got a whole
(11:05):
month potential, or two monthand a half of frost potential in
Iowa, so I'm very concernedabout that.
So what did I find when Iplanted early?
What I found is those beans didnot emerge for a full month.
They sat there and sat thereand sat there and waited.
What they did, though, is theydug up some roots and found the
different roots between each ofthe planting dates.
(11:27):
Actually, I had a very nice deeproot mass being built.
It was growing roots, so weplanted a 36 degree soil temp.
I really never got to the 50that we typically, or 52 or 60
that we typically recommend 60for soybeans, that we typically
recommend for soybeans.
I never really got there untilthe end of April and basically
(11:49):
early May, but yet they emergedwell before that.
So there's something going onwhen we start thinking about
soybeans and how they interact,basically, with soil temperature
.
They imbibe, so you can getsome imbibational chilling,
which basically is the coldwater going into the seed and
kind of messing up thegermination.
We can get it, but it's reallyhard to get in soybeans.
(12:11):
You'll see that more in corn.
So when we think about corndata planning and soybean data
planning, what we're finding isplanting soybeans early.
It really doesn't influencebecause they can adapt.
We talked about the differentplant types.
They can adapt more than cornCorn.
You got to have a picket fence,you got to get them all to come
up at the same time and we donot want to plant corn into cool
(12:34):
temperatures.
Beans are much more tolerantthan corn is for planting into
that cool soil, so that's kindof the big piece of that.
So, jeff, when I plant early,how do I select the right
soybean variety and or relativematurity for my area?
Speaker 2 (12:50):
when I plant early, so you know, first of all, when
we're planting early and we'reselecting those varieties, you
know, first of all we want tomake sure it's the right variety
for the field, right, we wantto know what we're going on
there.
But the question will come in.
You know it's like with corn.
You know if I'm planting early,I'm planting a later maturity
(13:11):
corn, right.
And then if I'm planting later,I'm planting a shorter maturity
corn because I need to get totassel and I need to get
pollination and everything gothrough that.
Some people think that's theright way with the soybeans too,
but it's not necessarily thecase, because you can plant a
longer maturity.
But what you can do is ifyou're planting say, I would
hold pat to the maturity I wantto do in my area, say, just
(13:35):
throw an example out there, I'ma group three, that's what I
wanted to plant in my area.
I'm going to stay with thegroup three because if I'm
planting earlier, it's just likeyou talked about in a little
bit earlier, we're going to getthat to flower a little bit
earlier.
So it might not, instead of beon June 21st, start flowering.
Maybe it's flowering on the10th or the 12th of June and by
doing that now, we're going tobe able to extend that period
(13:57):
into that R2 by another week ortwo and by doing that we're
going to get more nodes and morepods and more beans and that's
more yield from that standpoint.
So, again, the one thing wereally have to take into
consideration with soybeans isit's about light interception.
It's, like you know, the summersolstice and the day-night
length periods.
That's what triggers that.
(14:19):
That's different on corn.
So from soybeans, from thatstandpoint, even if you plant
later and you plant a latermaturity bean, once it hits
about that June 21st, she'sgoing to start flowering, no
matter what if you only havethree or four nodes on it.
So again, I like to stay kindof with the same maturity I have
in my plan personally, becausethen I know I'm going to extend
out that R2 window a little bitlonger.
(14:39):
That's where I'm going to getthat maximum potential from
there.
What are your thoughts on thatBill?
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Yeah, no, I totally agree.
So you know, I do.
You know where I live.
We do have proximity to aterminal market on the river and
some guys will choose to plantearly beans early, right, so
they'll do that.
They're getting good yieldsbecause they planted early, but
they're also harvesting early,Right, so their yield loss and
(15:06):
harvest is actually less.
If you plant a full season, letit go through all that that
weird weather we typically getin September and October, you
know, as we get the seasonchange and whatnot.
So, but I'm in the same camp.
I still for biggest yield, Iwant to plant my fuller season
beans early.
But if my, if my idea iscatching an early market and
I've got a better price, I mightchoose to plant some early
beans early, just so I can getout there and get started.
(15:27):
It really depends on my.
You know the operation, howmany acres you're farming, what
you're thinking through and yourharvest schedule and all that,
how that ties together.
So that'd be the only reason I'dconsider planting some early
beans, early, early RM for yourregion, if you will.
And then that I typically, likeyou, say I go to.
I stay with the full season aslong as I can.
(15:48):
I'll go back to my you know myearlier types as I get a little
bit later and then I'll flipback to try and compensate for
that loss of yield that wetalked about.
After May 15th, usually aboutMay 20th, I'll start thinking
about switching back to a fullerseason bean, simply because I
want to get some more vegetativegrowth, get that height, and
that's where I start tying thatinto.
You know my seeding rates.
We talked in the previousepisode.
(16:08):
How do we tie all that togetherso that I can maximize, you
know, my yield for plantinglater if I don't get it in early
.
But again, biggest yield that'swhat the podcast is all about
Biggest yield is going to beplanting early and planting the
fullest season being you can forthat relative maturity.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
So big piece of that, yep, no good call.
So, with that being said, wewere talking about planting
early.
You know we were talking aboutin respect to the right soybean
variety, right maturity that wewant to deal with.
What about row spacing?
Row spacing going to be aneffect there?
Is that going to be something?
That is something.
Is there a right or wrong rowspacing to decide if you're
(16:46):
going on an early plantingsituation?
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Yeah, so really no.
I mean, my answer is reallygoing to be no.
It's really going to be youroperation, what you're set up
for, right.
So you know if I am.
You know it's really going to beyour operation, what you're set
up for right, so you know if I,if I am you know, if I got a 30
inch row planter versus 15, oreven a uh 20, or if I still got
wide rows of 36 wider, or if Igot a drill uh seven inch, or so
you know as you get into that.
(17:08):
So so, thinking about how theirinteraction is going to be, but
just understanding that, if wethink about the planter, which
we're also going to talk about,another episode is how to set
that planter, you know, makesure that you're getting seed to
soil contact.
So that's the biggest piece ofthat to get that growing.
And and when I you know plantearly, planting depth comes into
mind.
So so, so don't plant shallow,by all means.
(17:30):
We don't want them coming upright away, we want to have that
insulation layer down there.
So if you're planting early,you know for your region,
definitely get them in there,don't be afraid of that.
You know, good, inch and a halfdepth is awesome, but you think
about how that interacts withthat row spacing.
So if we plant an inch and ahalf deep and we think about the
(17:51):
actual row spacing, then wethink about seeding rate, how it
interacts.
We think about how those plantswork together.
So let's say, we get that hardpounding rain after we planted
and we got this, you know, halfinch crust on it, so.
So seeding rate uh, ties intothat.
So if I did choose to go 15inch rows and I only dropped
135,000, um, or this is to140,000 for simple math, uh,
(18:16):
that's four seats per footversus 30 inch rows, which is
eight seeds per foot.
So if you think about, I've goteight seeds working together to
push through that crust, versusfour seeds working together to
push through that crust.
Definitely a 30 inch row.
It's gonna be better plantedearly because you're gonna have
more seeds working together forthat.
(18:37):
So think all that through, thinkabout your seeding rate.
So if you are going to go alittle bit earlier, you may want
to increase seeding ratebecause of you know, potential
mortality might be a littlehigher.
So you got to think throughthat.
But that ties into to reallyyou know, some of our next
questions here when we talkthrough some future things.
But again, use what you havebut know that there's some
(19:02):
interactions and row spacing andseats per foot and how those
work together.
So, but anyway, so so yeah,jeff, I guess we'll, we'll go
with.
You know how do I select theright weed management program,
how does that tie together withmy planting early and how that
ties, you know, back and forth.
So yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
So your weed management program.
You know, hopefully everybody'sgot a good weed management
program put into place goinginto the season.
You know what it's really goingto do is it's probably going to
extend some of your earlierwindows, some of your plant
competition or weed competitionsthat's coming up with your
plants because you are not aswarm of soil as you might be at
(19:40):
the first of May.
Those weeds are going to bebehind a little bit coming up.
So soybean plants, but thosesoybean plants might be a little
bit slower coming out, but oncethey do they're going to have a
nice established root massunderneath them and they'll be
able to get going a little bitfaster from that standpoint,
putting down a good pre-emergentherbicide with a good burndown
something like a Zidua Pro outthere, getting it on early,
(20:03):
starting out clean, is alwaysyour best option and opportunity
there and then following it up,you know, maybe have that
calendar out there and thenlooking and saying, okay, 30, 35
days from now, if you do it onearly planted, maybe 40, I'm
going in there with a postapplication and with another
residual and then I'm lookingback, probably coming in another
30 days and going from thatstandpoint.
(20:24):
A couple of things you may see,though, is, when you're going
on that earlier planted, you'reprobably going to get to that
canopy faster than you would ona later planted bean.
You're probably going to get alittle bit bigger plant, taller,
right, so you're going to getmore bushiness, more row
coverage out there.
So, again, should have morecompetition against the weeds
(20:45):
coming up out there, helping tosuppress some of that weed
emergence that's going to happenin some of those cases, and we
know, with a lot of our weeds,when they really start coming in
you know your waterhemp, we'lljust use that one, because
that's the one everybody talksabout it really starts kicking
into gear when we get into thatJune timeframe.
You know how many times is ithey, this field's clean.
Then, all of a sudden, boom aweek later and it's really
(21:06):
coming in.
If we're getting those beansplanted earlier, we're going to
have more plants, more canopyout there when that's coming in,
and that should help minimizesome of the some of the weed
emergence that we have occurringin some of those cases.
So, again, um, first andforemost, you have a good weed
program put in place, no matterwhen you're planting, knowing
that's part of the factor, but,again, uh, you may be able to
(21:27):
get some uh, you will get somebetter coverage and some better
canopy when the weeds reallystart kicking in at the ideal
time, because you have plantedearlier and you're getting some
more size on that, which bringsa really good question.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Go ahead, bill, anything else, add in here real
quick.
So, yeah, my two cents on thatis, yeah, the longest residual
that you possibly can.
But the other piece of thepuzzle I wanted to address here
is no-till.
So we think about no-till andwhat's going on in that field.
We think about, you know, I'vegot a lot of winter annuals
(21:59):
right, I've got hen bed, I'vegot pennycrest, I've got, you
know, some dandelions out there.
You know, and in Western Iowawe got mulberry trees that
continue to show up, right,we're not going to talk about
here today.
But no-till, you get a lot ofdifferent things that are
growing out there because wehaven't done any tillage.
But my point is there's a lot ofhard to control weeds that
we've really got to get a goodburndown on as well, which we're
(22:22):
going to talk about in a futureepisode as well here.
But burndown, you know how thatties into early planting.
We're really adding in anotherlevel of we want to get.
We're going to have longerresiduals.
So we're going to ask more ofour pre's, basically to do more
work.
So we've got to have a reallygood pre with a nice long
residual that's got a lot ofactivity and we're going to have
(22:42):
to have some burndown activity.
If we're going in early andwe're doing a no-till or
something, or if we're sprayingover the top and we've got some
emerged weeds of some sort, youknow we're going to be robbing
energy.
And then the other one that wereally didn't talk about here
really is cover crops.
You know how to cover cropsinteract with, uh, planting
early and termination timing andso on and so forth.
So I think another episode thatwe can sure talk about is cover
(23:03):
crops and termination timing.
All that.
All that, all that tiestogether, uh.
So, but uh, jeff, I'm going toask you the question here.
So when I plant early, what doI need to consider, you know,
for seed treatments, or can Iskip using them to costs?
You know how?
About lowering my seeding ratewhen I included seed treatment?
So how does seed treatmentsinteract with data planning?
Speaker 2 (23:24):
So my question is no, do not skip seed treatments.
I think seed treatments to meis personally one of the best
investments you can make in yoursoybean crop that you have out
there.
Start thinking about it.
There's still a few that don't,but there's not a lot of
farmers and producers out therethat don't have some type of
seed treatment that they have ontheir soybeans going forward.
(23:45):
And if you think about it earlyon and it really ties into
where we're at for population,it ties into everything comes in
with that.
But it used to be.
We used to plant 180 to 220,000out there because we were
pulling like I said talked acouple episodes earlier, we were
grabbing them out of the binand we were throwing them in the
in the planter and you knowwhether they you know you had
some come up or whatever likethat, but you know you made sure
(24:07):
you had enough of the massesout there to have it.
Seed treatment brings a lot ofthings to the table.
First of all, it brings out afungicidal and insecticidal
component in there that's goingto help protect that seed from
that early feeding of some ofthose insects, some of those
early diseases that potentiallycould come in if you're sitting
in cool, wet kind of conditions,from that standpoint Really
builds a layer around thatsoybean seed to help protect it.
(24:28):
To me it's more important onearlier planted beans and later
planted beans because you havethe potential that bean, as you
were saying, earlier, sat therefor a whole month, right, so it
can sit there a lot longer.
So it allows more opportunityfor damage to occur to that
beans.
If you're doing a later plantedbean, you're usually warmed up
faster, boom and quick comingout of the ground and you're
flying out of there.
(24:48):
So to me it's more crucial thanwe go from on there.
So I do not look at it as evena question of to put it on or
not.
To me it has to be part of thatprogram, especially on early.
From that standpoint, from aseeding rate though, what it
does, it has allowed us to lowerour seeds because we know we're
getting a lot more protectionout there.
So if we're planting 140,000seeds using that average that
(25:10):
we've talked about, I feelpretty confident I'm going to
have 90% to 95% of the beanscoming up, unless I have, you
know, some type of weather eventthat came in and caused some
other issues to come throughthere.
(25:37):
No-transcript, you can have thatcyst nematode protection,
especially if you have a LevoCtreatment on with it.
You get some of those otheraspects that really play into a
factor and it really helpsminimize some of the stresses
that can occur on that soybeanplant and help maximizing that
yield out there.
So that was an excellentquestion, bill, because we do
get that question out there.
So that was that was anexcellent question, bill,
because we do get that questionevery year and we talk about a
(25:59):
year that's coming up wheremaybe the economics aren't so
strong in soybeans andindividuals looking to cut costs
in several ways and I know seedtreatment's been thrown out
there and to me that's one ofthe last ones you can afford to
cut from this situation becausewhat it brings to the table and
how that affects it from there.
So we talked about having theseed treatment on her brought up
and talked a little bit aboutwith the seed treatment on it
(26:20):
and what it brings, some of thethings.
But again we also talk aboutthe early planning.
You know how does how, how doesit influence the disease and
insect management programs.
Again we talked about what seedtreatment can bring.
But do we worry about it more?
Do we not worry about as muchcan we see more damage?
What are your thoughts on thatBill?
Because the beans in the fieldfor a lot longer.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
A lot longer.
Yeah, that's the key.
So you know.
Short little story time here,quick too.
So you know when I, when I, mymaster's actually I worked on
this focused on this, so plantsoybeans early, with and without
seed treatments, trying tounderstand how did they
influence high yield soybeans,right?
So so you think about, you know, a healthier plant coming out
(27:00):
of the ground all season longbasically had higher yields.
There was more.
Basically, what I found wasthere was more seeds per pod and
that equated to more you know,yield and and and, lo and behold
, just the seed treatment.
I had a higher weight per seedtoo because I had a higher,
healthier plant from thebeginning to end.
So think about that.
You know, the healthier you canwhen you start, that's going to
(27:23):
be so less things that you'vegot to fight off.
You know, as we talked aboutthose early season diseases, so
you think about that disease andinsect management.
So really, what's the, what'sthe first insect that we're
going to see, jeff?
What's the first one we'll seewhen we plant beans early?
Speaker 2 (27:40):
We're probably going to see some white grub.
We're going to see some ofthose good ones out there, some
of the earlier ones that emerge.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
All right, yeah, yeah , I'll see some white grub,
we're gonna see some wirewormsand we're gonna see bean leaf
beetle.
Right, you think about thosebean leaf beetles and what
they're bringing to the tableand you know, and the other uh
diseases and and viruses thatthey transmit bring through all
the way through that season.
So that first brood ofoverwintering bean leaf beetle,
(28:05):
we want to, you know, minimizethe impact that they do, because
every single trial that I putout from when I'm planting early
, that's the first one thatshows up and they're chewing on
the leaves and but you know, youfind the ones that I put out
untreated when I do an untreatedversus treated check.
Yeah, they'll devastate theuntreated beans and then they
treat it.
You know I get about 20, someodd days of protection, 21 to
(28:26):
say, three weeks roughly, out ofthat early plan once they get
up and emerge and through that.
So you know, we think about thealevo, think about you
mentioned that the soybean cystnematode, the sudden death and
how that goes on later in theseason.
We think about, you know, how dowe, you know, future episodes
we're gonna, we're gonna talkabout, uh, uh, you know,
(28:48):
different weird insects but butyou know, stink bug, stink bug
being one of them.
You know how do we, how do weinfluence that?
We're gonna have to probablyscout a little bit more monitor.
You know, for these differentinsects that we can put an
insecticide on.
You know, as we get there, wethink about white mold.
We talked about that in aprevious episode.
As we get canopy earlier, as wementioned earlier, we canopy,
(29:09):
you know before, you know summersolstice and we get that
environment that allows whitemold to grow.
We talked about white moldmoving further south.
Well, we're also planting beansearlier and earlier, right, so
that ties into that.
So we got to do a little morescouting and understanding what
diseases are going to be present.
We probably I saw, probablythis year, more septoria brown
(29:31):
spot than I've seen in a longtime, not a big yield robbing
disease, but again, we plantedearlier so we got more incense
to that.
We had some moisture earliertied into that.
So those different things thatare coming on.
So we got to think about ourmanagement all the way through,
from start to finish, if we wantto maximize really soybean
production here.
So, jeff, we hit a lot ofthings here today, a lot of
(29:52):
different areas.
So any other comments or ideasthat you have or things to
summarize.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Yeah, just a couple of thoughts thinking about there
.
You know, when we're talkingabout early planting, you know
we hear a lot of oh God,mid-april, early April type of
timeframe.
You know, I guess my main takehome point to our listeners is
you know, it's not aboutswitching it up a month and a
half earlier or a month earlier,but maybe it's a week earlier,
maybe it's 10 days earlier,maybe it's when you're halfway
(30:18):
through corn planting you, youstart the other planter on the
beans, something like that.
But just, you know doing thingslike that, those little things,
because we're always talkingabout, you know, we've, we're at
that limit.
How do we max?
How do we get more yield out ofour field in that?
And and this is one way, thisis a practice, this is something
we can do to help gain a fewbushel and it's just a matter of
(30:38):
something we already have to doanyway.
You mentioned earlier about ano-till field versus tilled and
stuff like that.
That can make a big differencefrom a freezing standpoint or
affecting if we do get a lateseason frost.
You'll see it more in thatno-tilt situation than you will
in a tilt situation from.
You know, some of that heatlosses and everything we got
going on through there.
(30:59):
So a couple of those things totake into consideration from
that standpoint.
And then you know, really, inthe end, everything we've been
talking about is for everyaction there's opposite and
equal reaction, right.
So we talk about getting earlycanopy, get a canopy, or either
better weed control pressure,better this, that, but okay, we
might get more disease.
(31:19):
You brought it up with whitemold.
Maybe we got more white moldpotential coming in.
Some of those things we so it'salways fettering out what we're
doing and understanding there'sgood and there's bad, and
understanding how we're going tomanage them and using the
varieties and going forward withthat.
And that's really what it comesdown to.
So, no matter what what we doto try to to do something
(31:40):
different, always rememberthere's going to be something
else that could have a differenttype of impact on there.
And understanding that and andhow to work through it and be
prepared for it is is reallythink what is a good take-home
point to our listeners from thisepisode.
Bill, any thoughts or anythingyou'd like to add to our
listeners that you gleaned fromtoday's conversation?
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
One thing again, I think, greatdiscussion all the way around.
We're trying to figure out thefoundation of high yield and
really we start with variety,right, we get that genetics
first, we figure out where toplace it and then the first
management step is really whenam I going to plant it?
Right, that's the first stepthat I got to think about.
As soon as I put that seed inthe ground, the clock starts
(32:24):
ticking.
Right, that is what I do andfrom that point forward, every
management decision I make afterthat is influenced by when I
planted it and then the seedingrate.
We tie back to that.
So let's see a hypotheticalsituation.
So let's say we, as you broughtup the no-till versus till,
let's say we planted 140,00030-inch rows and we get that
(32:47):
early frost, that late frost, Ishould say, that comes in May,
the 10th, and I've got a standof 130,000 that came up because
I lost about 10% or so, justnormal loss.
And then boom, that frost hitsme and takes me out and drops me
down to 70,000.
You know what do I do then?
Right, do I leave that stand,or do I intercede?
(33:09):
Or what do I do?
You know what do I do thenRight, do I leave that stand or
do I intercede or what do I do?
And there's a lot of math thatwe put into.
You know how soybeans canrespond at 70,000.
Once we get below that, wereally got to start thinking
about interceding.
And we never, you know, tear upexisting sand.
We always intercede into it.
So we'll have another futureepisode I think we'll likely get
into with the replantsituations and trying to
(33:29):
understand you know what are thepros and cons and how do I
evaluate that stand.
But understand that you knowyou get one shot to do it right
each year and most commonly,most operations get, you know,
40 to maybe 50 chances to dothis right.
So once you start farming andyou know that's what you got to
think about is I got one shothere this year and I got to do
(33:51):
it right and I understand therisk and reward of that.
But you can't get the higheryield that we're talking about
if you wait until May the 20thto plant your beans.
So we want to make sure we takethat, take that opportunity to
to go after that, because we canalways intercede and add into
it if we need to and a lot ofcompanies have 100 percent
reprograms and as they tie thatall together, there's a lot of
(34:21):
stuff that we've really dug intoover the years and
understanding how soybeanvarieties respond and thinking
all that through.
So just a lot of stuff that wewant to put together here to
help people understand that.
You know, planting beans earlyis definitely one of the key
tactics to going after highyield beans.
So again, great episode.
Thanks, jeff, for leading usalong here.
So again, if you got anythingelse, go ahead.
But I'll turn it back to youAbsolutely, bill.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Thanks for joining me today for this nice
conversation on planning datewith soybeans, and thank you to
our listeners today for joiningus for this episode of Spilling
the Beans.
We invite you to download theGrow Smart Live app for more
resources and share this podcastwith other growers.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
So thanks for joining us and make it a great day.
Thanks for joining us onSpilling the Beans, where every
episode gets you one step closerto maximizing your soybean
profitability.
If you found today's insightsvaluable, subscribe and leave us
a review on your favoriteplatform.
Download the Grow Smart Liveapp for more resources and share
the podcast with other growers.
See you next week with moreexpert tips to help you grow
smarter and achieve the bestyields yet.
(35:18):
Liberty Outlook, zidua, ziduaPro, poncho, motivo, precise,
endura, rivitec, fastax, CS,elevo, vault, ip+, relenia,
(35:42):
dryaxor, liberty Ultra areregistered trademarks of BASF.
Thank you.
Is a registered trademark of MSTechnologies and exclusively
distributed by BASF.
All other trademarks are theproperty of their respective
owners and use of any suchtrademark does not imply any
affiliation with or endorsementby its owner.
Always read and follow labeldirections Before mixing
components.
Always conduct a compatibilityjar test.
Always consult respectiveproduct labels for specific
mixing instructions.
(36:02):
The most restrictive labelapplies.
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(36:30):
Nemasphere Zorina and Voraxorare.
Thank you.
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