In this episode, the IL Soy Envoys examine the current conditions of soybean and corn crops, highlighting how recent rains have enhanced moisture levels in soybeans. They review yield reports, noting variability in both corn and soybeans, with some areas experiencing lower yields due to seasonal stresses, along with reports of cercospora leaf blight and ear rot disease. The conversation also covers 2025 input planning for fertilizer and weed control.
Links Mentioned in This Episode:
· “The Bronzing Effect of Cercospora Leaf Blight” by Shelby Weckel
· Free SCN Egg Count Sampling funded by Illinois Soybean Checkoff program
· “2025 Input Planning: Phosphorus and Potassium Applications” by Eric Beckett
· “2025 Input Planning: Weed Control” by Eric Beckett
· On-Farm Trialing Network with Illinois Soybean Association
The guests in today’s podcast include Shelby Weckel, Ehler Brothers Seed; Drew Beckman, Beck’s Hybrids; and Eric Beckett, Illini FS. Today’s podcast was hosted by Kelsey Litchfield, Agronomic Outreach Specialist for Illinois Soybean Association.
Watch the video version of the Field Advisor podcast on YouTube or subscribe on all major podcasting platforms.
(upbeat music) - Hello everyone and welcome back to Field Advisor. I'm Kelsey Lichfield. Today we're joined by our soy envoys. Once again, Shelby Wuckle, Eric Beckett and Drew Beckman are here with me this morning. And guys, I just wanna go around real quick. Let's hear some harvest reports from the field and the yields that you're hearing, bad or good, and any other field of observations you've been making within the past couple of weeks. Shelby, would you like to start for us today? - Good morning. You generally don't hear about the bad yields until later. So we won't be able to talk too much about those or at least on my end. But quick recap, I mean, for the last two weeks, it's been really dry. The soybeans really progressed quickly. There's gonna be a whole lot of soybeans cut next week as it starts to dry out here, depending on what the rain does this weekend. We finally ended up with an inch, around an inch and a half, up to three inches in areas there this earlier this week. And it was nice to see that. It had been, it was really dry. I was kind of worried that a lot of the later corn was really gonna suffer just for almost the plant dying, whereas now we can kind of progress to continue to progress naturally, mature on out and hopefully kind of not as worried about stock brats or anything like that. Quite as bad as what we've already seen. Yield wise, other, it's been really good. Corn, the little corn that's come out mid upper 200s, 250 plus, I've heard some of this earlier, some areas that we're struggling a little less than that. But I think territorial, that area caught a whole lot of rain. So probably just some suffering from a lot of moisture in that territory and they were a lot of early planted right in that area. So the early planting we're seeing kind of suffered with populations. So whether it was your account or plant count, having some population issues, but very good reports on the corn side. And I think as we progress into the later planted things could get better. I'll just kind of see how it pans out. And then soybeans, we've had lots of good reports, anything from 75 to 100 at this point. And really guys are really excited really to see kind of what things happen. It's exciting to see that with where the markets are. So kind of make some guys think a little bit, feel a little bit better about themselves. And even with the diseases and things we've solved, still getting good reports. So I'm anxious to see, I mentioned in my crop reports, we were seeing circus fora and soybeans. We've never kind of seen it this heavy. And in my time of kind of being around, I've never seen it be this bad. So I'm anxious to kind of see what that pans out to be. And if we can progress into that purple seed stain in the soybeans, if it gets that bad. So I've wrote my report on that. And there's a tie between circus fora and the purple seed stain, but yet there's not. So there was a lot of mixed information kind of as I read. So be anxious to see if something comes out of that and kind of how bad it gets, so. - And Shelby, you wrote in your blog this week about that topic. Will you just share for those? I want them to go read the full blog, but maybe just show or tell us the impact that disease might have on harvest. - So after doing a lot of research that disease is brought on by early season conditions as a lot of diseases are. And the reports that I've read, you could have an impact of up to 30% to be able to decline if that disease goes unmanaged. And I mean, management is the usual plant genetics that are resistant to it or the seed that's free as well as used fungicide. There was a lot of fungicide that was sprayed. And we don't know if every field that's affected was sprayed. It'd be hard to find that out, without contacting everybody and it would take some time. But sounds like it could be pretty significant, I'm sure too. It could not have any effect depending on where you're at and different things like that. But there's a potential there as well as it can lead to docking if you do end up with purple seed stain, you can get dockage at the elevator. So lots of pieces that go with it. But go read the blog. I learned a lot as I was researching it. There was a lot of information on it for something that we don't see a whole lot. - Yeah, but if you go to fieldadvisor.org, it's right there on the homepage. Thanks, Shelby. Anything else you want to mention any other field observations or farmer questions you're getting? - I think it's right now. Guys are anxious to get in and see what's actually out there. The little reports we've gotten earlier, guys are quite pleased. So it'll be, we always feel like the later stuff is gonna be better. So this is early planted, early season varieties that have been combined. So I'm hoping it can only get better from here with this rain we had earlier this week. That's gonna save this next go-around of plant or combining just because you can help keep the seed size and things like that. So it'll continue to keep the yields up, I think. - Yeah. All right, thanks, Shelby. Drew, let's head up north real quick. And then Eric will come back down to you. Drew, what are you seeing now in the field, any harvest reports? - We're seeing quite a few different things out in the field here this so far this fall. So they're gonna take out a few of our variety plots, getting a lot of yield reports in. Kind of like Shelby said, a lot of the bad fields haven't come out yet. A lot of the ones that we're seeing are the ones that were planted early in fairly good conditions for the most part. And we're seeing exceptional yields on both corn and soybeans. I actually had a call the other day that the field aground must normally don't get where I got ahead of dealer. Call me just to tell me how good a hybrid was doing. And that just never really seems to happen. So I'm very, very happy here on the front side and getting a little bit of renewed optimism with a couple of days of up markets. It seems I haven't looked at what I'm doing yet this morning, but I know the last few days has been fairly positive overall. But yeah, everything in that like probably 75 to even some reports up into that 105 range overall. We're on soybeans where we were hit really nicely with some other events. As far as observations, agronomically, we are starting to see a couple different things show up. So I have been to several fields with the floaty at year rot starting into one. So that is something that we have had the conducive environment of and I've been in fields of that everywhere from Fisher all the way over to the Iowa border. So it's a pretty wide area that we're starting to see some of that. Not huge amounts, maybe 20% of the year has infected something like that. So this is something that we want to monitor and we may want to take some of those fields out first if you do see that. The floaty, if you're wondering what that looks like, it's almost like a white fuzz. It normally ends, starts at the bottom of the year, but this year I'm seeing it mostly start at the tip and kind of work its way down, but it will continue to spread in the field as it sits out there longer. So that is something that we would advise maybe getting out sooner rather than later. You don't have to rush to it. But and then the other thing would be is if you are somebody who bends the grain on your own farm, just kind of be mindful of that or maybe take that field to a commercial setup or something like that. On the soybean side, we are starting to go down the path of our, so we do or have started doing a cis count where we go into a lot of fields that have problems in and we pull cis samples and we send those in. And I got some reports back just on Friday of a field that had very heavy SPS pressure that the cis levels range from six to 12,000 eggs for 100 TCS soil. And to kind of reference that anything over 2,000 eggs for CC or for 100 TCS is considered high. So this we're seeing very, very, very high levels of cis out there. And I would argue that kind of knowing what's going on there is probably just as important as any other soil if that's you're going to do in soybeans right now. That's kind of what I guess. - Thanks, Drew, and I'll also put in a plug. Drew's talking about soybeans, cis nematode, and so the sampling they've gotten back and the high levels they are seeing. And you saw a correlation with the SDS pressures, that correct? - So I've seen, yes, with SDS and also even a few other soil-borne pathogens like by top through a charcoal, a lot of different soil-borne pathogens we're seeing in correlation with high cis pressure. - So if I'll put in a plug real quick, Illinois Soybean Association has started to sponsor. They started this last year and they're continuing this year free SCN sampling. So it's just as quick as filling out a form and the University of Illinois plant clinic will send you all the things you need or they'll send you the label, the prepaid label so you can ship those samples in and then they can test them. So if you go to fieldadvisor.org under the Participate tab, you'll see SCN testing. You can learn more about that. We'll be doing some promotions this fall as the combines go through and letting farmers know how to submit those samples so they can get them in. All right, Drew, anything else? - Nope, that's pretty well all that we're seeing and echo a lot of things that Shelby has said too. - All right. Eric, let's head back down to you. What are things you're seeing out the field? Any harvest yield reports that you are getting across? - Yeah, it seems like most of the guys that have been working with lately have still been their harvesting crops that were maybe planned sometime in April and there's definitely a lot of variability in the yields that from what I've been hearing is that it's in response to how well the stresses were managed in the latter part of April. We went through some pretty cold. What conditions? We've talked a lot about that throughout the summer and everything, but it's definitely shown up now with harvest. I mean, I've been seeing some corn, that's probably been off by about 30 as much as 30 bushels just because of some of the stressors that it's went through. There's been a lot of beans are starting to come out, just like Shelby said, I think, especially with the rain we've had and the dry weather, we'll start to see a lot, probably be gangbusters, if you want to say it, on bean harvest next week, there'll probably be a big emphasis on that. You know, and I've been hearing some, I have been hearing some fantastic yields. Been hearing some 280 whole-field averages, so you know there's some 300 bushel plus corn in there to make that average and likewise on the soybean side. Been hearing some big yields. I was working with one grower. He has now broke his all-time record twice this year in soybeans. Prior this year, his all-time record for a field average was 99 bushels and then he went one-on-one and then one-on-four on a whole-field average, so some pretty impressive bean yield so far this year. So I'm very optimistic to hear what other type of bean yields we might be hearing out this year. - Eric, real quick, if I may, could you give us a glimpse into what that grower is doing to see, you don't have to get into specifics, maybe just a summary of what he or she is doing? - Yeah, so you know, a lot of things that we talk about as far as he plants early, he's planting on a narrow row, so he's actually planting not on fifties, but twenties. So narrower 30s, using premium seed treatments with SDS protection and then using a lot of micros, including sulfur multiple times about the growing season, including foliar applications in the post and obviously then finishing things up with a good fungicide application. And so, and it isn't just one variety where one brand of beans. I mean, he plants several different varieties from different genetic pools and seems to be cranking out the yield. So I mean, he pays a lot of attention and is a larger formula too. So I mean, it does find time to manage it well, so it's impressive. - Thank you, thanks for sharing that. - Yeah, and into, you know, I had a recent article come out this week as well too, talking about fertilizer and everything and I hit about on this the last time we met and everything, starting to, you know, with growers, starting to work through fertility plans and everything for next year. One question that I have been getting a lot like lately and it's kind of surprising given the markets and everything is talking about sulfur and growers wanting to include some extra things in their fertility plan, which is kind of refreshing that, you know, growers are still wanting to invest into next year's crop and they're really seeing the benefit. So if you are somebody that hasn't taken a look at stay beyond your standard P and K, especially for soybeans, would encourage you to look at sulfur and a few other key microbes as well too for your fertility plans for next year. Beyond that, I mean, we're just, it's been kind of, it really had been kind of the same theme as we went through the latter part of the summer. It's kind of wait and see. Harvest really hasn't got cranked up too heavy yet just because of the rain and then still trying to pick and choose fields that are ready for harvest. - Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of corn fields that were maybe opened up but then haven't been touched in the last week and a half or so. Granted, my area, we've gotten up here in Knox County, we've gotten quite a bit of rain. Although my rain gauge I think is broken 'cause it keeps, I don't know for what reason, it has more rain in it than everyone else and I haven't figured that one out. Whether it's just, I have a cloud over my house that rain more or not, but we have got some rain, I guess and then I highly doubt we'll get any rain from that hurricane but maybe Southern Illinois, I know they could use some rain down there. Maybe they'll get some remnants of that hurricane that's now trying to make its way through Florida. So thanks Eric, anything else you wanna mention? - I don't have anything else. - Other than a plug, go read Eric's blogs like he talked about, that's also on fieldadvisor.org. I'll be also posting your weed control blog today as well, anything you wanna mention about the weed management side as people are looking at 2025. - Yeah, so that's been kind of another thing is that growers have also been having to make some late season grommoxone type applications in some cases just to get through soybean fields 'cause the water is so bad. So kind of my number one message that I'm kind of looking at for next year is really look at a good residual program. I mean, honestly at this point, I don't know how much more time, how many more times we can say it, but growers have got to be including three to four effective sites of action. And metric reason is gonna be your friend in soybeans. And then also for next year, beyond choosing a good fertility or good weed control program, I'd also encourage growers to look at your soybean ratings or soybeans that you're picking out. It's gonna take, most times it's gonna take some bigger, deeper insights into just the regular information you might get from your seed provider. But every seed provider should have information on say field tolerances of PPOs. Usually it's sulfonatures on specifically and then also metric reason. And so what I mean by that is looking at those field tolerances and some varieties obviously have higher field tolerances to those herbicides. And so in those cases, I think that can maybe be a way to leverage better weed control is leveraging higher rates for maybe some more of those troublesome fields and maybe not get any crop, maybe less than our chances for crop response from use of those herbicides, especially during cool and cold conditions. But a lot to be thinking about as farmers are going through their combine or in the truck this fall, some things to be thinking about. I also will do another plug for the Illinois Soybean Association's On Farm Trial Network. I know they are looking for farmer cooperators to do sulfur trials next year. So if you guys know anyone and know any farmers that are looking to do a sulfur trial, they're also looking at insecticide trials to a Dr. Nick Cider. You can go to fieldadvisor.org and under the participate tag go to On Farm Trialing 'cause that is a pretty big question that we're getting as well as more farmers are wanting to trial some sulfur applications next year. All right, anything else that you guys forgot that you wanna mention? I know it's kind of a wait and see, probably in the two weeks we'll have more yield reports as we get more into October. So we'll talk about those then. Anything else? - Be safe out there. - Yes, we're just coming off National Farm Safety Week. So another, I don't think it's always a good reminder to keep reminding to be safe, take your time. I've already seen in my area, we had one accident with SMI earlier this week. Both drivers were okay. Corn spilled out all over the highway. Some things I know are just out of your control, but be safe as possible, this harvest. All right, well, thanks all, appreciate it. Oh, Drew, go ahead. - No, I was just gonna say, sorry. One last mention was as we get some moisture now and I know there were some guys that stopped running on beans because they got so dry. Just something to remember is it's a lot better to take them out at 14% than it did take them out at nine. You're giving them up to 5% of yields when you let those beans get down that dry. So just a little plug that now that we've got some moisture back in them, let's maybe take advantage of that and I know it's not fun to take them out when they're super wet, but it's even worse when we take them out, you know, really dry. So that was the last thing I was gonna mention. - Yep, thanks Drew. All right, well, we'll let you all go. Thanks for joining us today. And so I always, we'll see you again two weeks for more Harvest Reports. - Thank you. - The Field Advisor Podcast is the production of the Illinois Soybean Checkoff Program. For more agronomic news and information, visit fieldadvisor.org. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
