Harvest series: Texas moving north, early yield reports

Shay: Thanks for tuning in today, everyone. Today's episode marks the start of a series that we will be doing following up with producers and clients that we've talked to throughout the season, looking at how things are going as we jump back into harvest.

Russell

French: Enjoy.

Shay: Welcome back, everyone, to the Ag View Pitch. My name is Shay Foulk here with special guest Russell French. How's it going and where are you at today, Russell?

Russell

French: Well, I'm here in Amarillo, Texas, and, uh, just been visiting with customers the last few days. The harvest is just really getting, uh, moving into full swing probably next week here in the High Plains. Uh, we're probably about 2 weeks behind normal because of the cool, wet spring we had and getting delayed in a little bit. But we're starting to roll, wrapping up silage harvest, and, and then, uh, you know, and high moisture corn is going pretty good and and we're starting to cut some dry green.

Shay: Good. All the, uh, listeners up here in the Midwest are probably itching hearing you say that, that you're getting jumped in. Um, can you tell the listeners again, just for those that hadn't heard our first conversation here, uh, kind of what you do and what territory you cover?

Russell

French: Well, yes, uh, I'm a strategic account manager for Pioneer Hybrid, and I cover the irrigated High Plains, and basically that would be the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles southeastern Colorado, southwestern Kansas, and the northern half of New Mexico out to the Four Corners area. That's primarily the area that I cover.

Shay: And yeah, pretty big, pretty big area there.

Russell

French: Yeah, pretty big area. And, uh, you know, we planted a lot of dryland corn. People kind of rolled the dice back in this in the spring with all the moisture we had. And then about July 1st, it pretty well shut off here in, in the High Plains except for some isolated thunderstorms here and there, but, but generally it's been hot and dry since then. And, uh, so some of the dryland corn that looked really promising early is not doing, doing much. We're probably kind of in that 20 to 80 bushel range. There'll be a few fields here and there that'll make 100, but right now, you know, if guys in that 60 to 80 bushel range, that's kind of the top end in the area I just described.

Shay: And can you talk a little bit about how that is as a— you know, maybe a departure from last year and a departure from normal?

Russell

French: Well, for— yes. So, I mean, to be honest with you, a 60 to 80 bushel dryland corn yield in the High Plains most years would be considered a pretty good yield. But, you know, the last couple of years we've had some wet summers, especially later in the summer, July and August had some good rains. And, you know, some of us were cutting at 120 to 140 bushel dryland corn. So, you know, we kind of had a rude awakening to remember that we're not, we're not in eastern Nebraska or Iowa.

Shay: Right, and have a lot of people been diving in into any of the irrigated stuff in your area?

Russell

French: Yes, so now with irrigation where we have what, what we, I would call adequate irrigation water, that would be about 600 gallons on a quarter-mile center pivot, or we would call that about 5 gallons per acre per minute. You know, that provided about 75 to 80% of the ET needed for corn this summer. And so if people have that type of irrigation capacity or a little bit better, their yields are going to be average to above average. You know, we're, we're cutting some really good corn where we have good irrigation water. Now where we have less than that, you know, we have it all the way from starting at 5 gallons per acre per minute all going all the way down to 2.5 to 3. You know, the less water we had, the, you know, the less the yield's going to be.

So Those customers with lighter irrigation water probably will see a below-average yield, uh, this year just because we just didn't get any help. But we have adequate irrigation water, uh, we're seeing yields really pretty good. I've had one, one customer cut 250 acres of silage that made 40.15 ton to the acre at 68% moisture. That's an unbelievable yield. Uh, we've had some high moisture corn coming out on dry bushels in the 300 bushel per acre range. So, you know, we're going to cut some really good corn here in the area, but we had to have adequate irrigation water.

Shay: Absolutely. Any stresses outside of weather that you had throughout the year there as far as insect or disease pressure? And, you know, is that showing up in the yields as you're jumping in here?

Russell

French: Well, we had one of the worst spider mite infestations I've seen in several years here. That, you know, with the hot dry weather, you know, we started out cool and wet, so we had very few spider mites early, and which means we didn't have any beneficial insects that like to keep those spider mites in check. And then as we just turned hot and dry, those spider mites really took off after the corn tasseled, pollinated, and with few beneficials in place to keep them in check. They really, they really got going quickly, and a lot of our miticides are not geared to handle populations, you know, moderate to heavier populations of mitis or mites. They just need to get on early, and with the hot windy weather, and we just put a lot of pressure on our miticides getting sprayed on time.

And so we've seen a lot of spider mite damage this year, and it's probably going to have some effect on yield. Some of them come in late enough that maybe they will not affect the final grain yield, but they're affecting late season plant health. So we're starting to see some stalk rots come in. You know, when you lose all that live tissue, the plant can't do enough with photosynthesis, so it begins to cannibalize carbohydrates from the stalk trying to finish out that big ear that's on there, and, and that's going to cause us some stalk rot. So hopefully, uh, we'll, we'll be able to get in and get it cut before we have too many issues, you know. But if we would have a wet, wet October, above average precipitation, it could cause some problems for us.

Shay: How's the near-term forecast looking for your area?

Russell

French: Well, right now it looks pretty good. I mean, we're still been in the, uh, in the 80s to low 90s, and, and looks like the, the 10-day forecast will be in the, in the mid-80s. So, uh, that's all good for us, and, and not much rain, just scattered hit-and-miss thunderstorms. So that should be good to finish out our late planted crops because we've got a lot of, a lot of corn that went in later than normal. And, uh, you know, it's about quarter, half milk line. You know, it'll finish up probably pretty good here in the next couple of weeks. We've got a lot of grain sorghum that went in on the late side, and we need about another 4 weeks of decent weather to get our most of our grain sorghum matured. So, uh, but right now the forecast I'm looking at, at least the next 10-day forecast, looks promising. After that, I really don't know what's going to happen.

Shay: Right, no one does. Glad to hear that and hope it keeps up that way for harvest as it continues to roll in your area. And how's farmer attitude, um, as you are getting into, you know, the combines are rolling here? Are they looking at what they kind of expected, or what are you seeing?

Russell

French: Well, like I said, if, uh, if, you know, I think most people, again, where we, uh, where we had adequate irrigation water, uh, they're gonna be pleased, you know. I mean, they're pleased right now. And we have some situations on limited irrigation with these new hybrids we have that we can thin down and they got tremendous ear flex. I mean, uh, just as a quick example, I had a customer the other day, he's got 170 acres under one center pivot. He only has 300 gallons total for that whole 170 acres, which is very, very limited irrigation. 85 acres was in corn, 85 acres are in grain sorghum, and he got the corn cut out and it made 195, which would be better than what he's done in the past. And then, and he attributes a lot of it to the new hybrids, just happened to be Pioneer 1366, and it's got tremendous ear flex, and he was very pleased with that.

And the grain sorghum looks outstanding on the other side. It'll be, you know, a month before we cut it, but it looks like it'll make 140 or 150 bushel grain sorghum with only about 3 or 4 inches of irrigation water on it and virtually no rain.

Shay: Anything other than 1366 standing out to you as products?

Russell

French: Oh yeah, we, we You know, for our area, 1828 is, uh, is there going to be our big gun hybrid. It looks fabulous everywhere in the field. It's the one that made 40.15 ton silage. It's the one making 300 bushel or better dry corn right now in some fields that's been cut under good management, good irrigation water. It's going to have a really good year. And then, then another product, 1370, uh, both the AM, AMXT, Q, all of it looks really good, really solid out in the field. Good early yields on it so far. So, uh, these hybrids have amazing ability to flex based on the conditions that they have. And let's just plant these moderate seeding rates, and then Mother Nature's kind to us, everything goes right, they'll make up for it. If not, they're not— we're not planting so thick that we get too much stress on it.

So everybody's pretty excited about that, the new AML hybrids with the with the Laptrotreat, kept the earworms, Western bean cutworm out. People like that. And our chrome products look really, really strong on heavy rootworm pressure fields. It's been in continuous corn for 30, 40 years or more. So I'm, you know, you, you probably heard Pioneer talking about the corn revolution. I'm here to tell you, in the High Plains, it's for real.

Shay: Time is now.

Russell

French: Yep, it really is.

Shay: Now, what have you heard from your colleagues, I guess, as harvest is moving forth? Anything else, uh, you know, that's been standing out to you, uh, not necessarily product-wise but just as far as yields?

Russell

French: Well, uh, again, up in, you know, the whole area that I cover, I would say, uh, yields are with, with good, with good irrigation water, timely rain, yields are average to above average, uh, with with less than adequate irrigation water, you know, limited irrigation, no help, no rain. They're probably a little disappointed, but like I said, there's going to be some people are pleased with it. I mean, there's some people that, you know, would have last year might have made 120 bushel dryland corn, this year it's 80. But when they look at what they got for 80 bushel and no help, they're pretty amazed at how tough these new hybrids have been.

Shay: Good. Any last thoughts or advice, you know, kind of the neighbors as the north is we're anxiously awaiting moving into harvest.

Russell

French: Well, I would just tell everybody to continue to monitor their, their crop all the way to harvest because I know talking to my colleagues in the, in the Midwest, there's a lot of stalk rots showing up, you know, Gibberella stalk rot, Fusarium, Diplodia. It sounds like the whole alphabet soup's out there in the Midwest. And so I know speaking with my colleagues up there, it would be good to be Monitoring your fields and kind of, you know, targeting which fields need to be harvested first. I think that's the main thing because if you got a crop, you know, you want to get it out before it starts to fall down or have any issues like that. But so far we're okay. We're just, you know, like I said, we got these spider mites that's caused some issues in our area.

Up in the Midwest, you know, they might move more foliar diseases they're looking at, but anything that caused you to lose, have poor leaf health late, uh, and, and you had a pretty good crop coming on, it's gonna cause stock quality problems because, you know, that plant's trying to fill that ear all the way and it's gonna rob from the, from the stock to do that if, if it can't make it from sunlight because the leaf area is damaged.

Shay: Time to finish strong and put our heads down and go.

Russell

French: Yep. So, uh, we're, we're going along pretty good here. I'm Uh, you know, grain sorghum is definitely a bright spot in our area this year. Uh, I see some really strong grain sorghum yields, uh, for little input costs. So everybody's really— the buzz is a lot about grain sorghum next year. Maybe, uh, might even take out some of our cotton acres with the cotton price dropping down. It's just so much cheaper to put out a sorghum crop, less risk, less inputs, and sorghum is just as tough as cotton. And, uh, You know, the price isn't great on it. Uh, some guys look like they're going to make some money this year because they did not spend a lot of money raising their grain sorghum crop. That, that's one of the bright spots I've seen from— for the High Plains.

Shay: At the end of the day, that's why we're here to do is make money.

Russell

French: Yeah, I've got some guys that'll make some 140, 150 bushel irrigated milo with very few inputs, and it may make them more money than 250 bushel corn. I mean, that's— I've had a few tell me that just because they didn't spend any money on that sorghum. So, uh, kind of amazing, you know. It's not always going to probably work out that way, and sorghum doesn't fit on every acre, but it can fit on a lot of acres for us here, dry land, very limited irrigation. So, um, we've got some new sorghum products that look excellent, have good sugarcane aphid resistance or tolerance. And, uh, so not only do we have a good corn revolution going on, but I'd say we have a good sorghum revolution going on in Pioneer too. They look really strong out in the field.

Shay: Great. Well, if it works out for you here, Russell, we'll probably check back in at the end of the season.

Russell

French: Yep, you do that and I'll be glad to update you further. But, uh, right now I think overall, I think most people will be satisfied, uh, when harvest is over. If we, if we can get it in, in the elevator, in the bin, we'll, we'll be in pretty good shape.

Shay: Well, we're wishing you and your clients, the rest of the customers around the area, a safe harvest and You know, thanks again for joining us today, Russell.

Russell

French: You bet. Thank you, Shay.

Shay: And thank you, listeners of the Ag View Pitch. We will catch you next time. Thanks for joining us on today's episode of the Ag View Pitch. As always, you can reach out to us at cbarron@agviewsolutions.com or duanel@netins.net. We'll catch you next time on the Ag View Pitch.