Stayin' Green, Poppin' Pods and Droppin' Ears

This past week I traveled North, into the heart of the drought.  When I took a look around, I was surprised to see that while from the road the soys looked ready there were very few combines rolling.  The drought stunted corn still looked quite green.  The edibles were very slowly maturing.

I would have thought that since it had been so dry, the crops would have matured early and harvest would be in full swing.

I have to thank fellow Pioneer rep Russ Barker for helping me figure this one out.  In dry areas, the grain is maturing but the plant is not.  To rapidly dry down the plant, we need large "sinks" of grain to pull the carbohydrates out of the leaves and stems.  A plant that aborted half it's pods or with half the kernels not pollinated, will slowly die but it takes much longer than an average crop.

Another sight I have seen this week is pod shatter in soy beans.  In most places that soys were dry and spider mite infected, the pods are weak and are shattering once dry.  Approx 4 beans per square foot is a bushel lost.  Weigh your options when considering shatter vs green stems. 

Along with the shatter in soys, another aspect of the drought is ear drop in corn.  This year in some areas the shank of the ear was weakened due to the drought and the ear dropped.  Since the shaft was kinked, the flow of carbohydrates to the kernels was cut off and the ear matured early.  These cobs have loose, small kernels and will probably have a lighter test weight.  Watch that these cobs don't start to drop completely off the stalk as the fall progresses.  2 kernels of corn per square foot or 100 average sized cobs per acre equals a bushel of corn.  Check on the cobs and prioritize your fields for harvest.

Picking My Battles

With the wheat coming of so early this year and the drought breaking late July, conditions have resulting in some very challenging weed situations in the wheat stubble fields. 

 

Two weeks after harvest, with a bit of rain to get it going, Perennial Sow Thistle had started to bloom but the volunteer wheat was not all up yet.  Regardless of the early date, since the best time to go after the Sow Thistle is bud stage, I hit it with a few different mixes the first week of August.  One plot received Glyphosate and Banvel, another plot got Glyphosate, Estraprop and AMS.  Between the two, so far I can't see any differences in control.  I would estimate 85% control of the Sow Thistle, but we will see how it looks in the spring. 

 

Now my problem is this:

 

The field has greened up again with volunteer wheat.  Yes, now I will have to focus on tillage to control it before next years corn and possibly make a preplant pass of straight glyphosate in the spring but I had to choose my battles to win the war.  Since the timing was right for the sow thistle, I got reasonable control at the time and had I waited to let the wheat come up the sow thistle would have gone to seed and I'd be fighting more of it next year.