Agronomist shares field management advice

FORT WAYNE, Ind. — This year’s challenging plant and harvest conditions will impact the decisions farmers make for next year, said Stephanie Smith, agronomist at Golden Harvest.

Looking to 2020, Smith shared field management tips on a variety of topics with AgriNews.

On Stalk Strength

“When we think about stalk strength, it comes from nitrogen availability, potassium availability and overall plant health. When we progress into 2020, keeping those things at the top of your mind is vitally important to ensure that we keep that stalk strength.

“This year what we found with a later planting season is that fungicides really provided a huge return on investment and yield benefit. Keeping that plant greener, longer, for it to be able to use soil fertility and to be able to use sunlight to make starches — that will help keep the plant from cannibalizing itself.”

On Lower Test Weights

“This year’s test weights were lower than average. I think growers across the Corn Belt are being docked for their test weight.

“When we think about 2020, let’s hope we don’t have a similar planting season. Planting those hybrids earlier will be much more beneficial as we’re (hopefully) going to get more of that time frame for grain fill next year.”

On Hybrids And Plant Population

“Hybrids are not created equal. Knowing the ins and outs of that hybrid before you throw a population at it is important. Take a look at hybrid performance this year. Also, understand your soil type.”

On Plant Disease

“When we think about disease, tar spot continues to get a lot of coverage when it comes to corn diseases. What we saw this year was that the area of infection is continuing to move south and east from what we saw last year. I was able to find it in central Indiana and Ohio this year.

“That ring of infection continues to spread. As we select hybrids, we need to make sure we take that tar spot rating into consideration.”

On Crop Rotation

“2020 is going to be a little tough when it comes to crop rotations. This year, most of the time corn didn’t get planted where corn was intended. It got planted into drier fields, in hopes of getting the crop in.

“So, a lot of guys, if they were in a corn and soybean rotation, planted corn on corn or beans on beans, because that’s what they were dealt. The question becomes, what will be the rotation next year?

“If we go back to beans again for a third year, we may be in a little bit of trouble. Also, a lot of Indiana growers haven’t had to think about corn rootworm in a while, but if our crop rotation changes and we’re looking at three years of corn on corn, we should be thinking about different trait options in our corn systems.”

On Weed Management

“We had unprecedented prevent plant acres this year. When we think about those acres, typically those didn’t get managed the best for weed control.

“When we think about selecting corn and soybean products for 2020, I think it’s pretty important to consider our herbicide program as maybe one of the first determining factors.

“There are a lot of technologies out there, including Enlist soybeans, in addition to Xtend. We have Liberty options in corn. We have a lot of different options. This might be a year to explore a different type of herbicide program that really goes after those weeds, because I think this coming year could be a bit of a mess.”