Indiana weather has been hard on crops this year but one agronomist based in the state is thinking positive thoughts. Kirby Bacon says many fields are improving a little bit after overcoming problems like seedling blight right from the start.
“The conditions in a lot of places other than those areas that are drowned out have improved to the point where we’ve gotten the right amounts of rainfall at the right time,” he said. “So, I actually feel a little bit better about most of the circumstances that we have out there than I did earlier on. A lot of these plants that had seedling blight issues early on have recovered reasonably well because we haven’t gone through that extend dry period.”
One part of the state even shows signs of excellent crops.
“Further north as we get closer towards Michigan we’ve got a lot of those sandier soil types that move a lot of water through a soil profile very quickly, we do have some areas in that part of the state I think that look as good as they ever have. So, I’m very encouraged to say that despite the fact that we’ve got some real challenges in some of our productive areas, we’ve also got some areas that are looking as good or better than they have in the past.”
He told HAT farmers should be most concerned right now with plant populations and stand counts. Scouting now to have that information is a must.
“While you’re scouting of course, that’s a great time to pick up those ideas about how much weed pressure you have in those low areas of the field where you have a reduced stand count in your population. There’s a good chance you won’t have as good a canopy, so therefore you can have some weed breaks in those areas. So, I’m absolutely a huge proponent of getting out there and doing those stand counts, seeing what that population wound up being and making sure we’ve got good weed control in places where our population isn’t as dense.”
Bacon is a technical agronomist with DEKALB-Asgrow. Hear more in the full HAT interview:Mid-July crop update