Drought in west central Indiana is a concern for some growers. About an inch of rain has fallen in the last week and a half in the Lafayette area but further south only about a quarter inch fell. But overall in that part of the state Area Agronomist for Pioneer Keith Diedrick says corn and soybeans are growing fairly well with the recent warmup.
“We went from 60 degrees here to 80 degrees for daytime highs, and that’s just about perfect,” he said. “You’ll recall a couple of weeks ago we had very cool weather then very, very quickly very warm weather. Crops grew quickly. We sometimes saw some twisted whorls and some leaves having a hard time unfurling. We’re seeing some effects of that. You might see bright yellow plants out in the field.”
Diedrick says that’s purely cosmetic and the best thing is to try not to look at it. They’ll unfurl and return to normal soon.
“Right now most plants are V6 to V9 in some places,” he added. “That means that most herbicides are off label if you broadcast them. So do read all the label recommendations if you have to kill some weeds.”
And Diedrick says weeds are the number one pest concern right now, partly because bugs are not much of a problem, but also because he’s seeing fields with plenty of out of control weeds.
“I see a lot of giant ragweed now that might be two foot tall. Well, are you going to knock it down or not? We need to hit weeds when they’re small and rapidly growing, so in this cooler part of the week after we had some rain, this when plants grow rapidly and herbicides have a lot of affect. So let’s make sure our rates are correct and we’re identifying our weeds properly at the right stage, and we’re doing it timely. Those three things are going to help us get the best control of weeds that we can.”
So if you have weeds, knock them down now for the quickest way back to good yields.[audio:https://www.hoosieragtoday.com//wp-content/uploads//2012/06/Keith-Diedrick-says-treat-the-weeds.mp3|titles=Keith Diedrick says treat the weeds]
Hear the full field update at the HAT Agronomy page.