A lot has happened since my last posting!!!
Soybeans are in the ground, Corn Looks really good (for the most part), and a lot of 1st cut hay is bailed or in the silo! As you can see in the picture below there was definitely some serious bailing going on.!!
Corn Looks good in general! Corn planted in the early May window looks really good (where it survived), it is on average 10-11 leaf and growing quite well due to current and past beautiful growing conditions.
If you have any varieties plots now is a good time to go look at physiological difference between varieties. in the Picture above is P9623HR which looks really good so far this year, you can usually pick it out of the plot because it is currently a deeper green then other varieties.
As I said earlier the corn that survived the early planting in May looks really good!! Here is P9910XR in my plot at home!
I have found Army worm while walking fields this summer. But none of the population levels are at the spray threshold! The field I found Army worm in was a hay field the year before which is a prime candidate for army worm. The army worm moths are attracted to lush grass in the fall where they will over winter and then mate and lay eggs in the spring. This specific field had a spring burn down which made it even more favorable for army worm
The Picture above shows the type of feeding you would expect to see from arm worm. A positive for this field is that since the corn is past the 8 leaf stage it should be able to out grow of this infestation because the corn will out grow the damage caused by the arm worm.
There are also some neat plots out there for our High Yield Challenge! It is great to see some plots get out even though we had a terrible spring for having the time to gett plots in! This specific plot has strip cropping mixed with twin rows in corn. The Soybeans and the corn where planted on May 10th and as you can see in the picture the soybeans are doing quite well in this early planted situation. The corn that survived the flooding of the spring looks really GOOD!!!
As you can see in the picture above the ideal diamond pattern for twin rows was accomplished in this row. The diamond pattern is extremely important with twin rowing because it optimizes light interception, which in turn has the potential to increase yield.
