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The onset of the 2022 growing season has farmers checking and rechecking their input costs. It can be challenging to balance the cost of crop inputs and realize top yield potential.

The onset of the 2022 growing season has farmers checking and rechecking their input costs. It can be challenging to balance the cost of crop inputs and realize top yield potential.

The Yield Profit Challenge Reaps a Better Harvest

The weed seed bank is one place where nobody wants to see their accounts grow. “Unlike your bank account, you can’t withdraw the weed seed bank deposits that are made. You can’t change that. A net-zero deposit would be great,” said Blake Miller, a Syngenta agronomic service representative.

This is one bank where less is more. “One question growers have to ask themselves — what is my risk for not having good weed control this year?” said Chad Threewits, Syngenta agronomic service representative for Indiana.

When it comes to planting soybeans, farmers in central Illinois are throwing away their calendars — and following the directions.

Fungal diseases in corn, like tar spot, are advancing. “It’s out there. I would say Illinois had tar spot from north to south this year,” said Phil Krieg, Syngenta Agronomy service representative based in Southern Illinois.

Tar spot, a relative newcomer to the Corn Belt’s disease lineup, is changing the way that growers and agronomists look at fungicides on corn.

To be a star, you have to have a great supporting cast. For soybean plants, fungicides play that role.

When is it important to have a strong herbicide program for corn? Every year is the obvious answer. But when should a corn herbicide program to kill weeds and protect the crop and yield move further up the priority list?

One of the best views of how a farm’s herbicide performed is a windshield view. A combine windshield view, that is.

In Tony Zerrusen’s territory in southern Illinois, beans matter. It might be soybeans, green beans or soybeans followed by soybeans, but every type of bean has a farmer’s livelihood behind it.

In Pioneer field agronomist Brian Schrader’s territory in east-central Indiana, ‘maters matter and Plenish is a priority.

Oftentimes, the window from the combine reveals agronomic challenges that may have been overlooked during the growing season. If goosenecked or downed corn is found in a field, it may be an indicator of corn rootworm damage

By harvest time, there is very little to be done to combat corn rootworm other than planning how to manage the billion-dollar pest next season. Integrated pest management practices are key to keeping next year’s corn rootworm larvae from damaging cornfields.