Early soybeans and planting progress in central Illinois

Shay

Foulk: We are grateful that you are joining us for another episode of the Ag View Pitch, as we know that your time is very valuable. Our team at Ag View Solutions is always here for you for any questions or comments that you may have. Please feel free to reach out to us at cbarron@agviewsolutions.com. And now here is your host, Shay Foulk. Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. Today you have Shay Foulk and Jacob Wade out of Haworth, Illinois. How's it going today, Jacob?

Jacob

Wade: It's going very well.

Shay

Foulk: Good. Well, I appreciate you joining us. And I was hoping you could maybe just take a couple of minutes here to kind of introduce yourself, tell the listeners a little bit about your operation. Maybe first of all, pinpoint where exactly is Hayworth, Illinois.

Jacob

Wade: So Hayworth, Illinois is almost in the center of Illinois. A town that's really close to me, Waynesville, is actually the geographical center of Illinois. But I'm a fifth-generation farmer. We farm about 6,000 acres with my father and my brother-in-law. And then we also have a seed dealership, AgVantage Seeds. We sell Whiffles and LG. We have a soybean treater and a corn treater. And then just here in the last year, we kind of added retail to the side of things. And we do a lot of custom fungicide application. We have two Hagies, and we also utilize Y-Drop and Undercover as well.

Shay

Foulk: So no shortage of things to do down at your guys' place, and appreciate you taking the time here to join us on this. I thought maybe I'd just kind of pick your mind a little bit on, you know, how's planting progress coming along in your area? It's April 12th here today. What's it look like in the countryside for other farmers? And then we'll talk more specifically about your farm operation.

Jacob

Wade: Yeah, so I would say about half the guys in the countryside have planted something. And out of those half of guys that have planted something, I would say almost every single one of them has planted soybeans, not corn. They— we were the only ones to start before Easter, but after Easter, quite a few of those guys fired up, but then we caught a rain 2 days later. So most of those guys, I would say, are less than 10% done with soybeans to date.

Shay

Foulk: Right, and I was just looking this morning, I see Illinois is roughly 10% planted on soybeans, about 5% planted on corn. How do you feel about soil moisture conditions in your area and the ground conditions that the crop is going into so far?

Jacob

Wade: When we were planting last week before the rains, the soil conditions were absolutely perfect. We are conventional tillage, 875 followed by a soil finisher, so And some of my trial work, that definitely seems to be a method that dries out faster and enables me to plant soybeans quicker in the springtime compared to, say, a pass with a Degelman or a Joker or something like that. That seems to seal up the ground a little bit more and kind of delay us. And same with the no-till, it would obviously be a little bit wetter as well. So soil conditions were very well for me. Some of the no-tillers, they were iffy, which is why they waited until after Easter. But, uh, there after Easter, soil conditions for everyone were pretty much perfect and ideal for planting. It was 70 to 80 degrees there for a couple of days. And I, I just tried to get as many as I could in.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, absolutely. And we're going to go to that here next. Uh, as we move into the season, um, you know, planters are rolling, guys are picking up seed. What is the feeling or the farmer sentiment? You know, how's everybody looking at 2021? Are they optimistic? Are they confident? Are they still reeling? A little bit from 2020? What are you kind of seeing?

Jacob

Wade: Well, being a seed dealer, I get to kind of see full spectrum. I've seen the guys that are already swearing that there's going to be a drought and they're kind of already planning for a drought, which in my experience is a little bit crazy. But I mean, to each their own. It seems like a lot of guys are pretty, pretty happy with market prices and have a pretty positive attitude that with some of the weather that the forecast is looking like, we're going to get crops in in a timely manner. So that means that we'll have full potential for yield. So unless weather gets screwed up in the summer, I think for the most part everybody's looking pretty positive because we're going to have a pretty good start here.

Shay

Foulk: Right now, I do want to look at the, you know, early soybean discussion that we were talking about here a little bit. And, you know, I follow along on Twitter. I've seen some of the stuff you do. Big believer in early planted soybeans. And I got to, you know, start by asking the question. You got people listening all over the country here on the Ag View Pitch. And with that being said, you know, when we have a temperature outlook of highs of upper 50s to mid-30s in the next 10 days, or maybe even a little further than that with the extended forecast, that makes some people nervous. So can you give a little background on your history with early planted soybeans and why you've come to be such a believer in that?

Jacob

Wade: Yeah, so I grew up going to the BASF research farm, and I got to listen to those guys talk about their early trials and how their early soybeans are doing. They consistently were planting March soybeans in their plots. And so 5 years ago, we went out and we planted some late March, early April soybeans, and they went over 80 bushels. So we just kept doing more. And now we're to the point where as soon as we can have a good 2-week forecast ahead of us— that means not freezing temperatures and ground conditions are good— I will try to put every soybean in the ground as I can. And that's from 5 years of research, 5 years of proving it. And there's some years where we're seeing 15 bushel an acre gains just by plant date. If you can get the heat units in April and early May to make the most nodes possible on the soybean plant by the summer solstice.

Shay

Foulk: And that was a question that I was going to ask here initially is, you know, you mentioned yielding over 80. What is kind of county APH in your area or what's quote unquote average?

Jacob

Wade: I think the APH in the area is 65. Yes. For the county.

Shay

Foulk: Right. So still in an area of pretty good soybean production. But, you know, what you're saying on top of that is just the yield advantage you have by getting them in early. Getting the GDUs, you know, to that plant and then having that node set by the time that summer solstice hits because of the way the soybean plant acts. Is that right?

Jacob

Wade: Yep, yep, absolutely. And there, there's absolutely more risk with planting early soybeans. I mean, sudden death is a much bigger thing. Bean leaf beetles was something that we saw on our fields more so than anyone else's early on, just because by April 20th last year, I had soybeans coming out of the ground. And so bean leaf beetles didn't have anywhere to go but my field. So we actually sprayed insecticide early. So there's a few unique learning curves. But if you put proper fungicides on as a treatment, if you're using a product like Alevo to eliminate sudden death, that kind of eliminates some of your risk. And then you start talking about soybean population. And that's a pretty interesting one that I've tried to tackle. I did a 3-year study of soybean singulation, which I was dropping populations from 40,000 to 140,000, and this is an early plant date like April 3rd.

And we took a Case planter that could space them perfectly versus a Kindee that was just a spring down forest brush meter, and we did not see any yield difference until we started going really low with population. So I In doing that, we noticed that on those early planted soybeans, that 120,000 to 130,000 is just year in and year out the sweet spot. You can absolutely get by with 80,000, but you're sometimes losing more than you're gaining if you don't have stand loss that's uniform. And that's the biggest thing. If you throw out 130 and you lose them in patches, well, that— you're not going to make up the yield. But if you're losing every third plant, well, that's a lot more uniform. But usually, unfortunately, does not work like that, right?

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, and I know the population is a really important piece of that. With that being said, if you're putting in at that 120 to 130 range, what are you anticipating for a final stand count, or expecting out of, you know, the final germination that you see on that product? Have you been doing stand counts along with that?

Jacob

Wade: Yeah, and my, my goal is to have 100,000 to 110,000 final stand. I've had fields as low as 70,000 that I've left because they weren't uniform, and I've had fields that were 80,000 that I've spotted some in or ripped up because they were super-uniform. But the goal is to be around 100,000 final stand.

Shay

Foulk: So one question that I would ask, playing devil's advocate, that we hear as rebuttal to some of these conversations sometimes is, you know, soybean feed relatively for the population that you're looking at, uh, you're, you're not looking at that many dollars difference in a recommendation. I think the University of Illinois is still recommending 1 to 1.1 units of soybeans, which would be 140,000 to 154,000 soybeans, as kind of a standard across the countryside right now. So if you're looking at that difference between 154,000 and 120,000 stand, you know, that 30,000 seeds might make up anywhere from $7 to $12 a difference. To some people, that seems like a pretty cheap insurance guarantee versus the bushel, the bushels that you might lose on the back end by having your stand get smoked and be down to 80,000 to 90,000.

Do you have any, any comments on that, looking at that dollar difference, particularly right now when soybeans are $14.

Jacob

Wade: Yeah, so I mean, one thing we didn't really mention was soil type, and soil type does change what you should put your population at. And another, another big factor that often gets overlooked is the variety. Some varieties get tall and lanky, and if you plant them too thick, you'll just end up with downed beans, which will cause aborted pods and higher disease pressures. So there is a tipping point of too much population in what I call good black soils, because they will get lazy on you. They will fall over. They will cause you more issues. And so that's one reason that we're staying— I mean, we never go above 130 on our population, even on no-till in early. But that's my argument to that, that I think there's a lot more to look at than just safeness of losing some population because you might be costing yourself in other areas when you jack up that population to 150, 160.

Shay

Foulk: Yep, no, I think that's a, that's a great point on that. So I have to pick your mind a little bit. It's funny, if anybody follows along on, on Twitter, you see people griping about insurance dates all the time, and insurance dates, you know, maybe need to be sooner on soybeans, or, you know, then you have people on the other end of the spectrum that are like, you know, what the heck are these guys going out and planting so early for? It's not near their federal crop insurance states. And, you know, so, so when the decision was made in your guys' farm operation to make that switch to early planted soybeans and get out there and see what these products could really do, that insurance discussion maybe was a little bit of a factor, maybe wasn't. How did you weigh that in your operation?

Jacob

Wade: So we started really small scale with early planted soybeans to gain comfort with it. And then after we gained the comfort with early planted soybeans and saw the yield advantages from it,— it was a no-brainer to not even care about the insurance date. Because the only thing I'm guaranteeing myself is $30, $40 an acre for my time, fuel, and hours on the tractor. For the most part, everybody gets seed for free for replant. So if you have a good seed dealer, they want you to plant the soybeans early anyways. They'll guarantee the seed. So what— I mean, I've replanted soybeans before some people have planted soybeans for the first time. So I tell people a lot of times, well, what am I really out? I mean, I own the tractors. Yes, I'm out some fuel and time, but what I can benefit on the front side from putting them in early way outweighs what could happen on the back side.

Shay

Foulk: So looking at that yield disparity, certainly.

Jacob

Wade: And I just strongly recommend to anybody thinking about it or trying to say that early planted soybeans doesn't work, just try it in a side-by-side setting in a couple different places. Just don't do this field over here compared to the one down the road. Do it in a field that's side by side. But so often I see guys doing trials of fields down the road, and that's just not a good way to do it. So if you can gain a little bit of confidence in yourself early planted soybeans is one of the easiest ways to add 10 to 15 bushels to your operation.

Shay

Foulk: What I want to add on to that is population is the same way. We have people— probably the second most asked question behind planting date is, well, what population should it go in at? Of course, we've talked soil types, we've talked management, the different varieties, what kind of treatment you have on the product. And one of the things that I always revert back to is you know, have you tried side-by-side, uh, you know, population trials in your farm operation? Have you bumped it down to 90,000, 120,000, looked at it, you know, maybe at your 140,000 to 150,000 that you're at normally? What did you like about it? What did you see? Because at the end of the day, um, you know, seed dealers can make recommendations based on the product and the information, but of course these farmers know their fields, know their operations, and know what they want to see out of the product too.

I think that's just as important the early planted soybeans, maybe the only downside in your eyes is, well, you got more bushels to deal with. But at the same time, the population is another area that I think farmers just need to get out there, do some on-farm trials, and see what they like about it.

Jacob

Wade: Yeah, I've played around with population a lot, and I've done it in both 30-inch rows and 15-inch rows. And I would argue that 15-inch rows need less population than 30s. And what I saw with my trial in 30-inch rows was I went from— I went 80, 90, 100, 120, 140, and I replicated that a couple of times across the field to get a good data set. And everything from the 100 down was canopied quicker, and I did not have velvetleaf escape through the lower population because the plant wasn't competing and it didn't have to grow up. It was able to bush out. That was a pretty eye-opening visual for me to see. I mean, to the row, velvetleaf not popping through to popping through. So that was a pretty interesting one. But the, the thing there is soil temperature and future conditions when you drop tops like that.

So when I'm doing this either March or early April stuff in the 2-week forecast still looks a little shaky where it's getting down in the upper 30s. I'm a little bit concerned about some populations, so I'm leaving it at 130. Now, if I plant soybeans late April, soil conditions are warm, 2-week forecast is warm, I'm dropping from that 130 and I'm probably going to 110 because I know I'm going to get the majority of my beans up. And then once we get later into May, I would start to go back up with my population because I don't have the chance to put as many nodes on that soybean plant as I would have from an early planting date, so I need more of them. Right.

Shay

Foulk: Now, while we're on this discussion, the last thing I want to ask you about is chemical programs. And so, are you seeing any difference with whether you're running a pre or how you're changing your post program based on this? Because, of course, soil conditions are fit or fairly ideal if you're looking to put them in in that time frame. Have you had to change anything on the spray program in coordination with that?

Jacob

Wade: We got rid of Group 14 herbicides pretty quickly when we started going to early planting date. And some people say that's pairing with Alevo, but the cool conditions in those Group 14s, like your Authorities, or your Sharpen, things like that will really hurt the progress of your soybeans early. So instead of doing a Zidua Pro, we're doing just regular Zidua, uh, Metribuzin, and we're spraying that right after we plant. I'm not incorporating anything anymore. We're right behind the planter with the sprayer, and that has been a really good method for us when we're going with cool conditions for these soybeans to be emerging through.

Shay

Foulk: What else am I not asking you? There's other things. You've had 5 years of experience, talked with other people. Anything else that we're maybe not addressing here with early soybeans?

Jacob

Wade: I think one reason that early soybeans may not work for people is the lack of rainfall that can sometimes happen in late July and early August. On some of these years, it's the years that my fungicides pay the most. So I've gotten to the point where I'm going to do 2 fungicide applications in the reproductive stage on soybeans now. I've just seen a big enough gain from it. And it has to do with alleviating stress during that reproductive stage and hanging on to as many pods and beans in the pods as you possibly can. Mm-hmm. So That is a big aspect to early planted soybeans and really hanging on and capturing all the potential that you possibly have is those fungicide passes. In 3 years of studies in a row for me, I've had 7, 7, and 12 bushel gains, and I've got to the point where I'm done leaving checks of no fungicide.

I'm just doing checks of more fungicide or higher rates just to start trying that sort of thing because I'm costing myself too much money by showing that fungicide pays. I don't need to beat it in people's heads anymore because I've seen it enough, I've preached it enough that if you don't believe it, well, you should just try it. Right. And it's pretty easy to spray a field sideways, especially if it's an airplane or even a ground rig. And some of the data that we've seen just on health imagery or on a yield map, it's like, well, you can tell exactly where that trial is. Mm-hmm.

Shay

Foulk: Are you going in maybe at like R1 and R4 when you mentioned 2 reproductive stages?

Jacob

Wade: Uh, so right at the end of R2, right at the beginning of R3 is going to be my first one. And then I'm going to hit it 2 weeks later and I'm going to try— we've been doing a headline followed by either Veltyma or Revytek, and I'm going to do some trial work of Revytek followed by Revytek. So with a longer residual on that product, maybe hit it at an early R2 and then come back 30 days later and hit it again. So probably R2, R4 type of thing on that.

Shay

Foulk: Well, that sounds great. And I, I know people out there are gonna have a lot to chew on after listening to this conversation. I think we'd be remiss if I didn't ask you about the corn side of things. Are you doing anything on early work there or anything to you know, talk about, touch base on here.

Jacob

Wade: I am a really big believer in waiting till soil conditions are warm enough to plant corn. So I don't anticipate myself planting any corn here probably for at least 10 days, maybe longer. When I can get a 2-week warming forecast and my ground temperature is 50 and above, I will start planting corn. Population is just Getting every ear up is so crucial, and getting every ear, every plant up in a timely fashion is so crucial to raising 300+ bushel corn. I've been doing some trials with some overtreatments. My biggest trial work on corn, I'm doing 15 versus 30-inch corn using a Gearinghoff Freedom head to harvest that. It's the only dual-gathering chain 15-inch corn head on the market. So kind of working with them. But last year we saw an 11.5 bushel gain over 22 different hybrids from 5 companies, replicated 3 times, half-mile-long entries.

I mean, I try to go to a lot of work with these plots to get a good data set and something that I can make a manageable decision for my operation, whether we need to go to narrow rows or not. This will be my third year of that trial work, so I'm fine-tuning some of the stuff I'm doing in narrow rows. But one of the big things, I didn't want to give up management. I still wanted to be able to use my Y-drops, and I still wanted to be able to apply multiple fungicides. So doing tram lines on 60-foot, so 30-inch tram lines, be able to run right down the center of my 60-foot planter and still should be able to manage everything the same. But so I look forward to the 15 versus 30 thing. It's been something that I've really enjoyed this last couple of years. It's really interesting to see what does work, what doesn't.

I personally thought the determinate ear hybrids would be the best thing in narrow rows, and it's the complete opposite. A flex ear hybrid does better in narrow rows, no question. Interesting. And so just a few things like that. And leaf shape, I thought more vertical leaf shape would also be a big player. It's not. And just some learning curves that I've got to experience before I switch my whole operation so I can hopefully have a well-oiled machine going into whole operation of 15-inch corn.

Shay

Foulk: Absolutely. Well, again, we really appreciate your time here today and appreciate the research that you're doing and some of the dedication to what you're sharing, not only with your seed customers but the people in the countryside. We just would encourage you to continue doing it. We thank you for what you're doing on that end. If anybody has questions and would be interested in getting a hold of you, how might they do that, Jacob?

Jacob

Wade: The best way is Twitter. I'm fairly active on Twitter, and I'd respond pretty quick on there. I mean, I always say this, we get 50 chances if we're lucky to farm, so why not try to learn the most we can every year? And I really love what I do, so I really believe that. And I am willing to help pretty much whoever reaches out to me. I love what I do, and so if I can help others along the way, well, I mean, that's the good thing to do as a person, and I just enjoy doing it. I encourage anybody if they got questions to reach out to me and I'll get back to them.

Shay

Foulk: Absolutely. Hey, thanks a lot. Jacob Wade from Hayworth, Illinois. Appreciate your time and we'll be in touch.

Jacob

Wade: All right. Thank you.

Shay

Foulk: And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the Ag View Pitch, and we will catch you next time.