Follow the Field 2020 Update #15

Happy Friday! Another short update for you this week as the crop continues with grain fill and we begin thinking about harvest.

August 21, 2020 Update:

Soybeans (121 days)

The soybeans have pretty much stopped growing taller and the plants have shifted to filling pods with beans, which is what we’ll harvest come October.

See how the pods are beginning to bulge? That’s a sign that the beans inside are growing. You can kind of tell in this photo, but there are pods at each node from bottom to top of the soybean plant.

Check out all of the pods on this node. This field seems to be pretty consistent with three beans to each pod. This is pretty average for our area and the varieties we select. Of course, we would welcome 4-bean pods because that’s a 25% increase in yield per pod, but 3-bean pods are nothing to sneeze at.

And here’s an overhead view of the beans. The leaves shade most of the pods and you can’t really see them from above.

Corn (100 days)

Nothing too exciting happening over in the corn field, either.

The ears on each plant are filling out nicely.

The kernels inside the ear are still soft, but very similar to the stage where we could consider sweet corn “hard” or “tough” or “old” – they’re not as soft as they were a few weeks ago, which is ideal for sweet corn, but not at all good for field corn like this.

As the kernels mature, they will harden and dry down, creating a dent at the top of the kernel (which is why it’s also known as dent corn). We want dry, hard kernels for harvest, storage, and eventually use for ethanol production, animal feed, or whatever else the corn will be used for.

I’m not sure I’ve included a photo of the ground in a while (it’s not often something we focus on once the corn takes off and grows above waist-high). See these tall roots? These are called brace roots and are simply anchoring the stalk to the ground. An 8+ foot stalk is a lot for roots below ground to support, especially since the plant doesn’t have a wider base for support, like a tree would. If you look between the brace roots, you can still kind of see the main roots peeking out from the ground.

And this concludes this week’s update. Have a great weekend!