Management

Soybeans are an important crop across the Midwest, and with recent high prices, have taken on an even more vital role in generating farm income. Producers are looking for ways to maximize soybean production and grain yield. Enhancing fertility is one potential way of achieving higher yields and higher income per acre from a soybean crop. Fertilizer is an expensive crop input, and close attention needs to be paid to managing this, so as to maximize the return on investment for the soybean crop.

Source: Carrie Laboski, Extension Soil Fertility Specialist, Department of Soil Science, UW-Madison.

Several inches of rainfall over the past week and a half have many growers and agronomists concerned about the potential for N loss. The amount of N loss is dependent on soil moisture and drainage along with the form and timing of N. Nitrogen loss can occur through denitrification and leaching.

Denitrification

Memories of the fast quick start to the planting season of 2010 have faded, and we are now in the process of considering what happens when planting is delayed due to weather related events. Corn planting has stalled in most regions of the Corn Belt. Crop planting progress ranges from 1% or less of the acres planted in Ohio and Minnesota to 28-29% of the corn acres planted in Kansas and Missouri. Let us consider that this current spring is somewhat similar to 2009 in many areas of the corn belt.