44 Story Idea? Email Paul.Nolan@Farms.com Better Farming | September 2024 PLANNING FOR A SMOOTH HARVEST Communicate with your trusted crop advisor, end user, & retailer. By Dale Cowan Harvest plans are a good follow-up to spring and mid-season crop plans. It has been a year of challenges, with copious quantities of rain in most of the province. This has influenced crop development in many cases and contributed to uneven crop growth within fields. This has challenged in-season crop health management in determining crop staging for consideration for fungicide applications. In corn, during the VT and R1 growth stages, there have been ideal conditions for foliar fungal pathogens of tar spot, Northern corn leaf blight (NCLB) and gray leaf spot (GLS) to develop. In addition, the same conditions have favoured Gibberella ear rot and most likely production of the mycotoxin DON. The incidence and severity of infection is highly variable within and between fields. For soybeans, there has been some development of white mold at the time of writing this article. Before any harvest begins, ask yourself, “Do I have any test plots where I need to gather yield information? What have I committed to with suppliers that may have given product with the expectation of receiving yield data?” Regardless of farm size or how many fields you have, consider who needs to know when you are harvesting. How are you collecting data, and who are you needing to share it with? If using digital tools such as applied maps and yield maps, do you know where those map layers are, and is the yield monitor calibrated? Does everyone on your team know where the plots are, and the importance of capturing data? This is all the more reason to have a harvest plan in place. Let’s start with soybeans. Are the soybeans going into onfarm storage or being delivered to an elevator? Will they get there by your own wagon or trucks or a hired carrier? If by hired carrier, are they lined up ahead of harvest? If you deliver your own crop, do you have the labour all arranged? Nearly 75 per cent of wheat acres are planted after soybean harvest. Soybean harvest will be delayed, especially on soybean fields that were planted at the end of June. As harvest is delayed in the fall, the ideal soil conditions for planting wheat may also slip away. What are the options if you are going to keep your rotation intact? We know that seeding rates need to be adjusted for planting dates. The next part of the strategy is to figure out how to plant as quickly as you can. Are you willing to hire a custom operator to assist in planting wheat to get more acres planted in a short window? Logistically, can you have the seed and fertilizer on-hand to avoid any possible delays in delivery? Often, letting your service provider know in advance what your plans are can help to make sure planting goes as smoothly as it can. A greater concern is with the corn harvest. Apart from a larger volume crop, there may be quality issues to contend with. With the chance of foliar pathogens being of high incidence and severity, we may see elevated levels of stalk rot. This impacts standability, dry down, test weight, and lodging potential. Looking at fields ahead of time and performing the push and pinch test can assess stalk integrity and help determine which fields should be harvested first. Melissa Bartels, former extension educator at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, describes the push and pinch test as the following: “A push or pinch test can be used to determine the incidence of stalk rot/ weakness within your own field. This can be done by walking through the field and randomly selecting a minimum of 100 plants, pushing the plant tops away from you approximately 30 degrees from vertical. Alternatively, Refine your application strategy to minimize nutrient loss past the field edge. Dale Cowan photo crops: yield matter$
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