Happy Friday! This week turned out drastically different than what they were predicting weather-wise a week ago. We only had a couple of rainy days and have ended up with a sudden warm-up that the corn and soybeans are soaking up.
May 21, 2021 Update:
Soybeans (28 days)
A few days of warmer temperatures and these soybeans have more than tripled in height compared to the same time last week!
We talked a little about soybean growth stages last week. This time last week, the soybeans only had cotyledon leaves, but were working on putting on unifoliate (the first layer) of leaves.
The smooth leaves at the bottom are the cotyledons.
The bigger leaves that the soybeans now have are the unifoliate leaves – this is the first layer of leaves and is the only set of two leaves the soybean plant will put out. All future leaves will be trifoliates, or sets of three. When the soybean puts out the unifoliate leaves, it officially depends on photosynthesis to generate energy to grow.
Here you can see that this plant is starting to work on it’s next set of leaves (the first trifoliate). As the plant gets bigger, new leaves will also be bigger to help support the plant.
One thing we’ll do this week is scout our soybeans fields. As you may recall, all of our soybean fields this year followed a cover crop. By having a green cover earlier this spring, we may have attracted armyworms to come and lay their eggs. While the benefits of a cover crop outweigh the risks on our farm, we do still want to keep a close eye on the field to make sure that the soybean crop isn’t plagued by armyworms. If we meet thresholds for the number of armyworms in the field (if any), we will consider applying an insecticide to protect the young crop. This protects the potential of each soybean plant to yield many soybeans for us later this summer – it’s how we sustain our farm.
Corn (24 days)
Great news – the corn is also enjoying the warmer weather and has emerged! Last week, the field had started to emerge, but really wasn’t very even, which is really important come pollination season. While the field isn’t as even as we might like, it does look better than it could have been. With the warm 70- and 80-degree weather expected this weekend, the corn may double in height in a matter of days.
The residue on the ground in this photo is from last year’s soybean crop, with a few cornstalks left from two years ago. We’re not as concerned about potential insect issues in this corn field at the moment. We will likely sidedress this field over the weekend or early next week, though. Not all farmers sidedress, but we do since we like to provide our corn with nitrogen after the corn plants have begun to grow. Nitrogen is incredibly important for the growth and development of corn plants. The corn plants will grow much more quickly and will also turn a darker green after we provide it with some more nitrogen. There is currently some nitrogen in the field left over from last year’s soybean crop (soybeans fix their own nitrogen…more on that another time) and a little from the nutrients we added to the field via strip-till last fall.
And that’s this week’s update!
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