“It’s not in the bin yet,” says Benton County farmer Andrew Winger, “but at this point, I would say we have a good shot at a record crop in our area.”
Winger is excited about the potential of his corn and soybean crops this year even after last week’s heavy rain and wind events that brought anywhere from 3.5 to 5 inches around their fields. Winger says the winds weren’t as bad as they were in other parts of Indiana.
The ground took up the 3.5 to 5 inches of rain pretty well. Winger won’t wish for more rain any time real soon, but in order to get those record yields he’s hoping for, “We need another good rain probably the end of the first week of August or second week to finish the beans and add some kernel depth on corn, and I think we’ve got enough moisture to go the rest of the way.”
Tar spot has been rearing its ugly head around the state. From a management perspective, Winger is looking at that fungicide pass here pretty soon.
“From the people that I work with, they’re saying it’s probably in every field at some level. Obviously, it’s not at detrimental levels yet, but it’s anybody’s guess, depending on the weather, whether we get there or not. It’s a concern. We do some preemptive stuff early to try to keep it at bay the best we can. And we always plan on a late fungicide pass.”
Winger tells Hoosier Ag Today that he’s “not, not worried” about tar spot, but he’s not losing any sleep over it either at this point. He’ll be making that fungicide pass for soybeans soon too.
