Status of crops

What a learning curve for 2012, dry early spring that turned cool in lat April and Early May, then no excess of water. June then turned very dry and then wow, late June and early July blasted us with a furnace that killed pollen and delayed silking which means we have very little to no corn to harvest. To let us read about what heat and drought can do to soybeans and corn look at these two articles:


Effect of Heat and Drought Stress on Corn Pollination  and

Drought Effects on Grain and Pod Fill in Corn and Soybean
For a better illustration on Corn and planting dates look at the page that I compared here with 2 different dates a month apart, one on April 11th and then on May 11th. This year the one planted on April 11th, 2012 will have very little corn on it because of the stress, if you have any questions, please email me.

WOLF CHART – 2012 Growth Hi/LO Hi/LO

GDD is defined as the number of temperature degrees above a certain threshold for a crop not under stress.

Phase Development Stage GDD Stage Date Temp Date Temp

Planting 0 4/11/2012 50/30 5/11/2012 71/43

Spike 125 VE 4/28/2012 78/49 5/20/2012 84/58

Vegetative Two leaves fully emerged 200 V2 5/2/2012 86/65 5/24/2012 84/60

Three leaves fully emerged 270 V3 5/5/2012 77/62 5/27/2012 90/66

Four leaves fully emerged 345 V4 5/9/2012 71/54 5/29/2012 79/67

Six leaves fully emerged (growing point above soil) 476 V6 5/19/2012 84/55 6/7/2012 79/50

Eight leaves fully emerged (tassel beginning to develop) 610 V8 5/26/2012 89/65 6/14/2012 82/55

Ten leaves fully emerged 740 V10 5/30/2012 84/48 6/19/2012 90/68

Twelve leaves fully emerged (ear formation) 870 V12 6/9/2012 73/50 6/24/2012 91/64

Fourteen leaves fully emerged (silks developing on ear) 1000 V14 6/16/2012 84/66 6/29/2012 103/71

Sixteen leaves fully emerged (tip of tassel emerging) 1135 V16 6/22/2012 86/64 7/2/2012 97/66

Reproductive Silks emerging/pollen shedding (plant at full height) 1400 R1 6/30/2012 102/71 7/10/2012 89/66

Kernels in blister stage 1660 R2 7/5/2012 98/72 7/19/2012 94/68

Kernels in dough stage 1925 R3 7/17/2012 94/73 7/28/2012 84/65

Kernels denting 2190 R4 7/24/2012 92/76 8/7/2012 89/67

Kernels dented 2450 R6 8/4/2012 89/73 8/18/2012 82/55

Physiological maturity 2700 8/14/2012 83/66 8/28/2012 89/70

Please compare the two dates, especially the (red) early planting and the (green) late planting.  Even though planting a month apart the early planted corn matures only 14 days before the same corn planted a month later.

2011 Crop year, What to Expect!!!!

2011 Crop Year, What to Expect!!!!





Monday, March 7, 20112011 Crop year, What to Expect!!!
It looks like 2011 crop year will start and stay like a bang with corn prices over $7.00 and soybeans over $13.oo. How will that affect you, will you contract all now or wait a while? Just depends in what situation you are in, know what your costs will be for this crop year and try and lock in a profit so that you can farm again. I remember in 2008 crop prices skyrocketed but turned around and drop in about 3 months. Can you afford to have prices go down to $4.00 corn and $8.00 soybeans? I'm not saying that it will but make sure taht you stay profitable.
Chad Lee and Jim Herbek have two blogs listing things a grower should do if they are planting into sod both for corn and soybean. I will list the URL for these and you need to check these out if you are going to do anyone of these. Chad Lee and Jim Herbek, University of Kentucky, have this about planting corn and soybeans into sod:
http://graincrops.blogspot.com/2011/03/planting-soybean-into-sod-2011.html
http://graincrops.blogspot.com/2011/02/planting-corn-into-sod-2011.html

These are excellent readings for anyone.
Does anyone spray fungicide at a half rate on corn at the V4-V6 stage of development? This seemed to be the scuttlebutt at the Farm Machinery Show of things to try when you are going with your postemerge herbicide pass. This would be the only way we could do it by land as the VT-R1 stage would cause to much damage to the corn. Very interested in this for a few hybrids that might need a little extra help as the plant is forming the ears lenght and girth at this time. May help the plant stay healthy and not become stressed if you miss one rain then.
If you need some help with your any of this feel free to ask or contact your local county extension agent. Better get that planter ready!!!!
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Condition of crops

Sorry for being late, but have been busy. corn crop looks good and hopefully next week will have some tassels. We have been getting timely rains but not in excess right now. Got some liquid nitrogen down 3 weeks ago as a sidedress and it has really taken off. This is a first for us as we have used dry urea to top dress but corn got to far along and we wanted to try this anyways. Saved our men some time and effort and I think we will reap what extra this cost. Traveled to Ohio last week for a meeting with Lee (youngest son) last week and we decided that we would not trade our corn crop right now for any other that we saw. Ours is very consistent and even with very little holes for stand losses.

soybeans are looking good and just need to harvest wheat to get the last ones in the ground. Ours are a little later as we are trying to improve seed quality of our beans as they are all potential seed beans. had something unusual happen in our no-till soybean field this year. It looks like alien circle in the field, but field mice have taken refuge in the corn residue last year and have eaten the soybean plants we have in this one field. I don't know that there is any thing we can do to remedy this for this year.

Pleasse post a comment up as that would spur me on to write more.
Thanks and have a great week.

Almost done planting corn

Today should winds us up for corn planting except for some spots that may have to be replanted due to being under water. I would say less than 10 acres for us total in some low spots in our fields. We have started planting beans and will move forward with that just as soon as possible. May 11th is very early for us to get this going for us as we are concerned with seed quality of the production acres this year. this has been a very unusual spring here in Central Kentucky as we have gone from 80 degree days in April with very little rain to a deluge of rain where we had about 12 inches in 10 days. That stopped all planting for us. Hopefully we can get our test plot planted this week, I'm anxious to walk the plot and look at how the new varieties emerge compared to some of the varieties that we have had for awhile. It really gets interesting after grain fill and you can see how they react to stress and heat. some central corn belt varieties just don't cut it down here with those combinations of heat and stress. Hope everyone gets their corn planted with great stands and vigor and can get soybeans in the ground also.
Sprayed wheat on Monday with Caramba (fungicide) and Warrior II (insecticide) to see how they will work to help with wheat diseases and germination as the wheat will be for seed. If you have any questions or comments please post or send me an email.

Floods, rain, early planting, soybean rates

I hope everyone survived the deluge of rain this past weekend. We have 600 of the anticipated 750 acres of corn planted. We started April 7 (earliest ever for the farm)and planted until the rains of April 23rd came. We have slowed down since then as we don't want to get on fields to wet and cause compaction problems. We have only about 3 acres of corn under water so we won't have to replant too much. Corn looks good so far and we will start sidedressing and post herbicide spraying next week. It will be good to compare some of the earlier planting of corn results to a later planting of corn this year.

Just as soon as corn is finished we will be planting soybeans. We will be using some new things for soybeans this year and I will keep you posted on how they work out. All of are beans will be treated with Trilex 2000, Gaucho 600, and most will be inoculated with Optimize 400 which has an LCO promoter to promote better plant health and we hope better quality beans and yield. We also will be using AMP(LCO promoter) to spray on some beans and corn under a program with EMB for growers. It will be a busy and interesting year for me to look at what is happening. Our main goal is to increase the quality of our soybeans as these are all seed beans.

Late as usual!

Again late, but I thought I would have a few words to say, WOW what a different spring. We need some rain, our target date to start planting corn was April 15th but we started on April 7th(earliest ever for us) and now have 350 acres in the ground (some up). I have been busy getting test seed ready for our test plots and will be looking at several new varieties for soybeans, grain and silage. Hopefully we can get the test plot planted late this week or next. We will have about 20 acres of test soybeans and corn for this coming year. I'm really excited about the next new hybrids and the new soybeans that we are growing and looking at. We have a new CF 491n (supply limited)that really looks good in tests and will be a full season/double crop bean for KY and TN. This is a late indetermate that has southern breeding into to it to take the heat and stress. We are doing the same for our corn hybrids in that everything developed for the central corn belt does not exactly work well here. Hopefully we can hit a home run or a grand slam with some these new silages and corn hybrids that we will have.
Everytime I open up a magazine or see a website one of the things always discussed is weed resistant. I hope to be able to go to a conference in Memphis and
listen the guy from Australia to hear more about this. He says that glysophate will be ineffective in the US in a number of years unless we change the way we use. All articles say that you want to keep resistance off of your farm by using residuals on all crops and not just roundup. As a cost saver, you might want to look at going to either Liberty corn and or soybeans for next year. You could use LL soybeans this year on your double crop beans and change up the chemistry in your fields. theri is no known resistence to IGNITE herbicide. No new herbicide since 1998, roundup was a one in a 100 year discovery. Be sure and reply and I will try and get back to you. Anyone else have any thoughts please post!!

Slow to Post

I am about as fast posting this as it was for us to complete our harvest this year. I won't complain as we had a record crop of corn and soybeans to put in the bins. I have been to many different conferences and seminars since I last posted. I would like to share with you the one thing that has been a central theme with all of these seed conferences. The five pathways to success to increase yields and profitability: 1. Plant quality seed, yes Caverndale Farms Brand Seeds can deliver this to you. 2. Make sure soil conditions are right, so you don't have stand and compactions issues down the road. 3. Use the right variety for each field that will give that field a chance to shine. 4. Make sure seed placement depth is correct, check that planter out to be sure that it is doing the right job for you. 5. Evaluate your past practices, nuture your 2010 crop by looking at your soil tests and fertization requirements for this year. Do you have weed problems or insect problems? With more and more resistant weeds to glyphosate do you need to change chemical modes of actions or are you seeing different weeds than what we use to be battling? Are you getting a price for crops above the average price? Do you need to lock in a price to cover your input costs plus a profit?