20 Story Idea? Email Paul.Nolan@Farms.com Better Farming | June/July 2024 Fungicide in Soybeans Imagine a world where you could see into the future. What would it be like if you could predict the weather? If you could predict which insects, diseases or other issues would affect your crop and what this would mean for final yields. I always tell growers that if I could do that, I would be a millionaire who travels the world. The trick is to figure out what these pest issues will be annually for different crops, on different fields, for different yearly growing environments. In this article I will explore soybean crop physiology and reference some fungicide trial work we conducted during the 2023 growing season. You may have heard me say that the key to getting higher soybean yields is to set a large pod load, fill a large pod load, and harvest a large pod load. Having as big a factory as possible right from the get-go is crucial to higher yields. This involves planting as early as possible for your given maturity area and having all the foundational management practices in place, like soil fertility, drainage, and variety selection. From here it is critical to manage the large pod load of flowers that will eventually make it to soybean seed. This is extremely important in the reproductive stages of soybeans from R1 through to R5, which usually starts around the summer solstice for 40 to 45 days. A quick refresher on reproductive stages: R1 has one open flower at any node on the main stem. R2 has an open flower at one of the two uppermost nodes on the main stem and has a fully developed leaf. R3 has a pod 3/16 of an inch long (4.8 mm) at one of the four uppermost nodes on the main stem with a fully developed leaf. R4 is like R3 but the pod is 3/4 of an inch long. in R5 the seed is forming, and is 1/8 of an inch long (3.2 mm) in the pod at one of the four uppermost nodes on the main stem with a fully developed leaf. Taking a closer look at how a soybean crop grows and when soybean yield is determined allows us to understand when we need to make sure the IT’S THE KEY TO HIGHER YIELDS KEEPING YOUR SOYBEAN CROP HAPPY By PAUL HERMANS Paul Hermans photo
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