As we watch the calendar slip by, patiently waiting for an
opportunity to plant, many of us know
from past history that delayed planting = lower yields and there is nothing we
can do about it. Right? Well not necessarily. On a recent conference call , we spent some
time reevaluating the history of late plantings and a very valid comment has
come to light.
We have all been seeing that lower planting populations in
soybeans has been the talk of the winter newspapers and researchers
meetings. This is possibly a valid point
when we are beginning to learn that we can plant soybeans as early as we plant corn. Many growers have risen to that challenge and
planted soybeans in mid to late April and have been very successful. So now you are probably thinking, “where is this going and why are we discussing
this when it is now moving to late May and we still have very few acres of
anything planted let alone soybeans!” So
growers have adapted to early planting.
Awesome! So now we need to rethink about the physiology of a soybean
plant all over.
We have said that we need 6 fully expanded trifoliates to
get the highest possible yields for our soybean crop in a given year. Basically this means we will have many nodes
where flowers can bloom and a pod can set.
Here is what we know about a soybean plant.
5-6 days to emergence (under warm conditions and longer when
we plant in April)
5 days for unifoliate leaf
5-6 days for each trifoliate leaf
June 21 is longest day of the year
Longer day soybeans will start to flower about a week after
the longest day of the year
Well here we are. It
is May 20, and the weather man has been less than kind. So we have only 31 days until the 21st
of June and approximately another 7 days after that gives us 41 days to work
with and that is assuming we can plant within the next few days. I know some of you are laughing saying “Are
you kidding me! I gotta plant corn yet!”
So at best , we may plant May 27. (I gotta pick a number). This gives us only 34 days to build our
soybean factory before it starts to flower a week after June 21.
Best case scenario, plant May 27… emerge June 1.
5 days to unifoliate – June 6
6 days to first
trifoliate- June 12
And so on to next trifoliate – June 18
And the next one……………. June 24 (here we are past longest day
already and it feels like we have not seen spring yet).
So now we have 3 trifoliates and we will likely see the
fourth before the plant starts to get the message that the days are getting
shorter and I better start to flower.
So we said we want 6 fully expanded trifoliates before first
flower and we only have 4.
So how are we ever going to get a decent soybeans crop, you
say? Remember when we used to plant
200000+ plants per acre and plant our soybeans on May 25 and get a decent
soybean crop. I think this is the year
we need to reassess our soybean planting rates to try to have more plants and
more nodes to put flowers on and give us the best chance of having enough pods
there to get a reasonable yield. Now we
know Mother Nature has more control that we do, but it is something to think
about… at least on those heavier clays that don’t let us plant as early as we
want and we don’t have white mold and lodging to worry about. It makes very good sense for a lot of acres
in a late spring.
Just some food for thought as we patiently wait!
And if you are bored and need something to cheer you up, I
thought we would include the following link for your entertainment. Something I saw on the tube this past winter,
you may have seen this already but I figure you can’t watch it too often!
Hopefully we can get rolling soon!
