‘Tis the season. Everybody’s talking fungicide. We had a good rain last night so we’re not able to be in the field today. We’re out scouting beans and corn seeing what’s ready, what’s going to be ready, and what we’ve got a while on.
When we’re looking at soybeans, we look for a pod that’s a quarter inch long in the top four nodes. Some of these indeterminate soybeans may go through that stage two or three times. So, depending on what your disease pressure is and how fast the beans are growing, we try to hit that in the first time that it hits that growth stage, but sometimes we come back and get it the second time.
Fungus plays a role in yield but another thing to think about while we’re making a pass across the field is also nutrition. We have three main products that we focus on depending on what the growers needs are.
Our first one that we look at is Shimmy. It’s a NPK sulfur with micronutrients, it mixes well with everything and is a great blend for somebody that’s not fighting any specific deficiencies.
The next one we look at is Brant Smart KB. KB is a great product for somebody who has not applied any boron earlier in the season. We’re trying to get a little bit more of a slug of boron in there. Hold these flowers, hold these pods, keep these beans cranking for us. Also, has a great load of potassium in there. Potassium really can add some weight to these seeds and it’s critical this time of year.
Our final product that we like to look at on soybeans is Full Sun. Instead of focusing on nutritional, it’s more of a plant stimulant based product. It increases photosynthesis in the plant, increases the exudates coming out of the roots, pulling more out of our soils. It has a very visual effect causing the leaves to be more upright, changes the color of the plant. It’s a phenomenal product when we’re not chasing nutrient deficiencies.
We’re out here today finding a lot of plants that are getting close to the growth stages that we want to cover. So, when you’re making your decisions on fungicide, don’t make it a wasted pass. Think about the nutrition and things that you can put in the tank to increase yield along with controlling disease.
We’ll see you next time out in the field.