MSU Extension Field Crops

- All right, I have 7 o'clock. So, I wanna welcome everybody to our second week of our webinar series. Tonight, we're gonna have Mike Staton and Mark Seamon talk about soybean management practices, I'm gonna get started here, let them introduce their selves, after I do a few things here, I just wanna point out that to everybody that all of our programming that we do is available for everybody. We accept everybody. We want everybody to get access to our information. So, that's what the slide is telling everybody. And with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Mark. He's gonna give his introduction. - Great, thank you, Kaleb. Hey, Kaleb, maybe before I start that, would you mind introducing yourself? - Sure, I can introduce myself. I'm Kaleb Ortner, I'm the Newfield crops educator based out of the school (indistinct) up here in Thumb. I have 50%, part of my job is working with these guys on the Soybean On-farm Research Project. And then I also have a, Precision Ag is another part of my specialization. So, (indistinct) turn it back over to Mark now (laughs). - Okay, thanks, Kaleb. We're really excited to continue to work more with you and figure out how we can adjust things, as you're new to the position and new to working with our on-farm research team, we're really excited to have you join us and look forward to the great skills that you bring and will add to our system. So, as Kaleb said, I'm Mark Seamon, I'm the research director with the Michigan Soybean Committee, which is your soybean in checkoff in the state. I work mostly on production research projects and programs. We also have other folks within our group that work on, things like outreach and communications and market development. So, lots of different directions but my specific role is with production. I live near Saginaw and work out of that area. Have a small farm there, have some, the background in education, worked with Michigan State University Extension for about 16 years, before I came to the Soybean Committee about seven years ago. So, Kaleb, could you go to the next slide please? So, I just wanted to take a, just an opportunity to talk about the 2021 crop. So, for some people, their most recent memory of last year's crop isn't so fond as we work through a lot of challenges in the fall, trying to get harvest done, and not always in the greatest conditions. And a lot of the times we went a little bit later on the calendar when we'd like to, a lot of soybeans harvested in November and even some into December. So, there were a few curve balls. There were some places in the state that were really dry through parts of the year, and then turned really wet through other times. So, really some tough conditions in some areas, but if we look at the overall production and how things worked out for the year, it wasn't too bad. So, if we look at the total in the U.S. soybean production was over 4 billion bushels again, and that's getting to be more common than it is to be below that number. It's just a huge number of soybeans that we continue to produce. And we just continue to have this great demand to go along with the supply. So even though we continue to build and supply these large amounts, we've got a lot of great demand going on, especially with our livestock industry and on the food side with the oil products, those things are going well, also. So the USDA National Ag Statistics Service, gives an estimate of what they expect the yield to be, by state. This past year, they're now saying that we should have in Michigan, a 51 bushel per acre, average yield for the state. And if that turns out, that will be a record yield for the state of Michigan. Not a record by a lot, a couple years ago, we were at 50 and a half bushels. So, it's not a blow out of the water, like some other crops had this last year, but still a really cool thing to have a record yield and really grateful for the conditions we had and the blessings that came along to make that happen. And I've been working around farmers long enough to make sure that I don't get over confident with prices, but I think we could say today, that prices aren't too bad. That strong demand is really pushing or supporting the prices worldwide, as well as some other issues in South America that they're having with production. So, things are giving some opportunities for both our old crop from 2021, for those growers that have some of those left, as well as opportunities to maybe lock in some prices for the 2022 crop. So, I think we've come off a year that had its challenges, but I think overall, if we can kind of selectively remember, what the season was like, we could remember that we had a pretty good yield in most cases and follow that with, not a bad price. Next slide, please, Kaleb. So, each year we ask growers, to help us set priorities of what kind of research we should do? We really take a lot of pride in, Mike, as well as myself and our whole group to get input from growers and get input from the industry to make sure we are well grounded and that we are doing things that are of most interest and importance to farmers in Michigan. So, this past January, we did a series of on-farm grower meetings, where we shared the results of 2021 trials. And these are the top six categories that growers said that, they would like to see more research done on. So, just wanted to share those with you. I know they can be pretty broad but I think we really like to use these to shape what we'll look at in the future. And if you have input on directions or specific items that you think we should be looking at, we're wide open to input at any time. So, please share any ideas that you have with us, but just wanted to share these as an example of what the industry is telling us that they would like to see more research on. And we intend to address these throughout, the 2022 growing season. That's all I have, Kaleb. - Right, Mark, that's a tough act to follow. I'm Mike Staton, I'm a soybean educator with MSU Extension, and my position's pretty unique in that it is jointly funded, 50-50, right down the middle by Soybean Committee, the Michigan Soybean Committee and Michigan State University Extension that allows me to focus 100% of my time on soybean production issues. And, the biggest part of that is our on-farm research. But our overall goal is to look at educational materials, look at research, look at educational programs, try to help you, as soybean producers in Michigan, be more profitable. But the biggest part of doing that is the on-farm research. And we'll be talking about some of that here. We do educational field days as well. In that picture at the top there, that banner is actually taken from one of our soybean harvest field days. The one that we had down in Burlington, and we learned a lot that day. And it was interesting, actually, and we're hearing this more and more. It's not so much the equipment 'cause the equipment is all really good. It's basically how we have the equipment set up and operated. And it's interesting because the oldest smallest combine, that day actually performed the best. So, a lot of it is in the setup and the operation. So, we've learned a lot over time, but again, I'm Mike Staton and I kinda lead this on-farm research program and Kaleb introduced himself, but he is really gonna take a leadership role in the precision Ag part of the program. It's such a critical part because we know, we have a couple (indistinct) with our on-farm program. We wanna create the easiest possible protocols. We wanna make it as easy as we can for our farmer cooperators, but yet, we wanna generate credible data. So, we want it to be easy, but yet generate credible results that we can all act on. Well, precision agriculture, is gonna play a critical part in that. It's gonna make it so that, we can plant our treatments seamlessly. We could spray them and track 'em over time. We could even use the yield monitors and get our yield data that way. So, it really is gonna streamline our on-farm trials. So Kaleb, you're definitely a welcome asset. And I'm looking forward to working with you, next slide, please. This is just a slide of, Mark mentioned that, we do a lot of trials and this past year, we actually had 67 trials across the state of Michigan, just in 2021. 45 cooperators helped us do that and you can see where the trials are located. That's why I wanted to put this map up. It does two things, it shows you, the legend on the left shows you the topics that we evaluated. And then the map shows you where those topics or trials were located. And so, one other (indistinct), I mentioned simple and credible, one other (indistinct) that we have is, we want to conduct these trials over multiple years and multiple locations, because no two locations are the same. No two years are the same. So we really want to produce those credible, reliable results for you. Next slide. This is (indistinct), on the left side of the slide, is a copy of this last year's report. Every year, since 2011, we've produced a research report. The last five of them, I'll tell you have been a lot better than the first several, the first ones were on newsprint and big floppy things that wouldn't last very long. These newer ones are printed on a really nice glossy paper and mailed right to 11,000 soybean producers in the state. These are more durable and it's actually cheaper than the news print that we used to use. So, there's a link there where if you haven't received that or you read it so much that it's worn out, you can get another one on the internet here at michigansoybean.org That's all I have, Kaleb. - All right, Mike. Now we're gonna get into kinda the more of the discussion that we kinda had planned for tonight, between Mark and Mike. So, these are some of the questions that we were kinda, thinking about having for a general direction of our discussion tonight, but we wanted to make sure to invite you guys to invite as many questions as you can possibly give us I want this (indistinct) to be more interactive between you and us, rather than us having a program set. We wanna answer your guys' questions. So, don't be afraid to put your questions in that Q and A, and we'll be happy to answer anything that comes up. So, now I'm gonna stop sharing my screen and we're just gonna have kind of a discussion here, where you'll see just their faces talking. So, our first question that we are gonna go with is, so what has changed in the soybean production over the last 20 years or so? And I'll let you guys start from there and let us know (indistinct). I'll turn it over to you, Mark and Mike. - Okay. I would say the biggest thing that I've noticed, and I'll just put a general one out there and then we can get into more specifics. But the biggest thing that I've noticed is that farmers are telling us, when we do the surveying of you. You're telling us that, you don't think you're fertilizing your soybeans as intensively as you think they need. You really think we should be using a more intensive, nutrient management approach towards soybeans. And that just comes up year after year. Mark, what's something that you hear? - Yeah, I think that just over time, and it's not really a new thing, but I think over time we have more growers that have kind of switched to this system of fertilizing in the year of their corn crop. You know, kind of assuming that a lot of growers are having just this corn and soybean rotation. I think there's a lot of growers that are putting on enough fertilizer to feed both that corn and soybean crop, but kind of relying on that, the corn to use what it needs. But then that second year, when the soybeans come around they do a pretty good job at scavenging, what is available there and using that wisely. So, I think I've seen that as a change over the years and it seems to be pretty effective. I think as we listen to folks like Dr. Kurt Steinke, he talks about making sure that we have our soil nutrients imbalanced, and having things at critical levels. So, that makes a lot of sense to me that we just make sure that we have the nutrients that the soybeans need. And I think you're right, Mike, there may be some opportunities that we can push soybeans a little harder if we can figure out which nutrients at what time, in which products and how we apply it. There may be some things that we can figure out in the future with more research. But for now I think a lot of growers do well with just using that system of applying the nutrients, but kind of on a two year cycle. - I really like that and I think it fits your part of the world really well. Some of our finer textured soils, we can actually bank those nutrients. And I think it makes a lot of sense as we get down into the coarser textured soils, we have lower CECs, that might be a little bit more of a challenge with our potassium, because it would be susceptible to leaching. But I think if your CECs are above five milliequivalents per a hundred grams, I think that's fine. I think it's a really good method of growing and you hit a couple of the highlights, Mark, is that you wanna put on enough for both crops. You definitely wanna fertilize ahead of corn and not ahead of soybeans, and no, and it works really well. So I think that that is a good trend that we need- I think we can continue on those kind of soils. - Yeah, I agree- - One of the things I've noticed, when growers tell us, they wanna do something more intensively, they're looking at in season fertilizer applications, whether that starts at the planter as a starter, two by two or in furrow or they're looking at maybe a foliar application. Another topic that continuously comes up is nitrogen. Should we be applying some nitrogen to our soybeans? So, those are just some of the specifics when we talk about, should we be coming a little bit more intensive or can we take our fertility to a higher level on soys? Those are some of the areas. And our program because the producers have asked us for those things, we've actually put on-farm trials, out evaluating each one of those practices. So, foliar fertilizer, for example, Dave Pratt actually started this. He was my predecessor in the old STARS program. And Dave had started some trials, looking at foliar fertilization back in 2009. So since 2009, until 2021, we've had 141 foliar fertilizer trials across the state of Michigan, 141. So, all different products, all different timings, all different materials. And, what we found is that, soybeans typically don't respond to foliar fertilization, very well. The nutrient that they respond the most to is manganese, it's a micronutrient, it's not needed at very large quantities. And foliar fertilization is a really, it's the best way to correct a foliar deficiency of manganese. But by and large, we just have not found any home runs. We have found some, there was, I think, 14 out of those 141 trials were profitable. So, foliar fertilizer at this point, doesn't seem to be the magic bullet, but we're always looking. So, if someone has, if you're from a company or something and you feel very confident in a foliar fertilizer program that you have for soybeans, I think Mark and I would be, and Kaleb would be very interested in hearing about it. So. - Yeah, that's right. You know, we all hear anecdotally about some of these high yield producers and sometimes in the yield contest, we gather data about some of the production practices and I wouldn't say it's everyone, but by far a huge majority, use some kind of a foliar nutrient system. So, I agree with Mike, I think we've got some things to still learn about this system. It just is really logical to me that through the life cycle of a soybean there's times, when that soybean is able to produce and take up more nutrients than it actually needs for the plant. But then there's some other times like during pod fill that it really needs a lot of nutrients and maybe sometimes struggles to be able to take enough nutrients in. So, just logically it makes sense that, there are some times that we can help this plant out. And we just need to learn more about, what are the cases that we are able to help it. Because I think we, like you said, Mike, these 140 some trials have showed us that just broadly, if we expect to treat the 2 million acres of soybeans in the state, we wouldn't expect many of those to respond, but wouldn't it be really cool if we could figure out, these are the situations that we would expect a response. And then, like you've asked Mike, which are the nutrients or what is that package of nutrients that is best at what timing and what rate. Those are things that we certainly will continue to try to push to learn more about. - As I visit with company reps, they pretty much say by and large, it's gonna be the micronutrients, that's what's better suited for foliar uptake, just because they're needed in such small quantities. And because leaves are really, more designed for conducting photosynthesis than they are up taking nutrients, roots perform much better in that. So, that's kinda the direction, we need to focus on that, but that doesn't mean that we can't look at some in season applications of something, Mark. It could be, maybe a soil application of late season nitrogen, might be something that would respond or maybe even a late potash application in our coarse-textured soils, with really high yield environments. So, I think there might be some in season opportunities. We just haven't found out yet. - Yeah, Mike, I see that there's a question that's come up about, recommendations of using starter fertilizer in soybeans. And if we have an idea of which nutrients, I think maybe I'll take a crack at it and you can talk a little bit more about, maybe some of the on-farm research that we've done, but we have funded some research with Dr. Kurt Steinke at MSU, looking at different fertility and some of his treatments have included starter fertilizer, and he's really been able to get lots of crop growth response. So, the amount of biomass early in the season, he's really done a great job of showing differences in those, treated strips compared to untreated or different nutrients. But in the end, he's really struggled to follow that through with consistent yield results. So, I think by way of small plot research, I would say that we continue to push for learning more about that, but not really a consistent response to say that that's a recommended practice. - I would agree with that. And I think our on-farm data really supports that too, Mark. First thing, before I go any further on the (indistinct), I would say that Kurt and I are pretty much aligned in that, if you are gonna place a starter fertilizer on soybeans, we both really feel that the two by two placement is better than in direct contact with the seed or an in furrow application. There's several reasons for that. The in furrow application, could be too hot for the seed is one thing. Soybean seed is very sensitive to salt injury. The other thing is we typically are, inoculating our soybean seed. And if we put a fertilizer in direct contact with those Rhizobia bacteria, we could be diminishing their viability. So, those are the reasons why we typically don't like in furrow as much. Two by two is a- And the other reason would be, in two by two, you can get a much higher rate of potassium without damaging the seed. So that's a nutrient, I think the questioner asked about what nutrients should be in there? I think potassium should be one of the nutrients, I'd like to see in there. The reason I say that in our on-farm trials, we had a couple of really nice yield increases. It was one up in Kent County. Oh gosh, probably eight years ago, now. It was a dry fertilizer, so not very common, but when you look at the analysis, it was high in potassium and it really was nice yield increase. It was something like six bushels per acre. Now, we haven't been able to duplicate that at that site. The other reason I say potassium, is 'cause the other time we saw some nice increases was with a potassium thiosulfate product that we had used in some coarse-textured soils. And there was a site down in St. Joe County that came up with 3.6, 3.8 bushels per acre. And I wish we could have done that one again, but we just didn't get the product to the cooperator in time the second year. So, I think potassium should be in there, but having said that, we've done 24, two by two trials in the state of Michigan, 24 of these over time. And they've been all different products, but only seven, actually yeah, only seven of those had a yield increase, 7 outta 24. So, not a high probability, but they are there. We just gotta find 'em. Two of them actually happened this last year. It was kind of a new trial because what we did is we gave the growers a chance to pick whatever two by two starter, they're using on their farms. And they picked the rate, they picked the product, they put that in the field and two out of our eight trials came out to be profitable. So, it is possible, but they risked, basically $40 to $45 an acre to net $4 an acre. So, I think I agree with Mark's comments going back to the beginning, I think soybeans do respond to just really good basic fertility. If we can keep those critical levels up, keep our pH, that was some (indistinct) thing, Kurt really talked about when he gave his presentations at our soybean meetings, is how important pH was. And he was surprised how low, some of the pH levels he had seen in the state of Michigan. I think he said something like as low as four and a half, didn't he, something like that on soybean fields, it was just unbelievable. So, really pH is something we really need to pay attention to. A matter of fact, I think Kurt said, that's the most important thing to pay attention to, going into 2022, would be making sure we have our pH adjusted. - Mike, your comments about starter fertilizer with planter applied makes me think about, other planting time management tactics and kind of how those have changed over time. And one of the things that I think of is seed treatments, I don't know what the exact time period, but what I hear maybe from some industry folks is that, we may be close to 80% of the soybeans planted in the state, may have a seed treatment on 'em. So, I wouldn't try to defend that number in any way, but I think it's anecdotally, maybe pretty close and I guess just gives me the idea that, a lot of farmers are confident that they're getting some benefit out of that seed treatment. So, I would say over time, we've increased the use of seed treatments and I think in a lot of cases, that's a combination of an insecticide and fungicide, what do you think? - Yes, and I think there's a couple things at play there. One of the biggest things is you think about our transition to bulk seed, you know, 20 years. And that happened about in that 20 year timeframe, really in a big way, we've gone to bulk seed and that's allowed us to do, downstream seed treatment. Instead of having to order your seed with the treatment on, which you still can in bags, but you can wait and make that decision until it arrives, the naked seed arrives at your supplier. So, that's given us a lot of flexibility, having that downstream capability for seed treatment. We did a test, I was a little bit concerned, is there any chance that we could beat up the seed, by running it through these downstream seed treaters? And I was concerned about that back in 2012, we did some analysis here in Allegan County with two different companies, Pioneer and Asgrow, And boy, I'm telling you, Mark, the seed came out. I'd followed it all the way from naked seed till it went into the planter. And we had it tested at Michigan crop improvement and there was no damage whatsoever. They really are, I have a lot of confidence in our seed treating facilities and the abilities of the personnel. So, I think that's one of the biggest reasons we're seeing it. Yes, we have good products, but we also have gone to bulk seed with this downstream seed treating option. We talk about good products. I think that probably the ones that I think Dr. Martin Chilvers and I can agree on the most is probably our SDS products. They really have performed well in our on-farm trials. Matter of fact, I think Marty's gone so far as to say, if you have a moderate level of SDS, Sudden Death Syndrome, in your fields at any time, because rotation doesn't really take it out like some diseases, it's pretty persistent. So, if you've ever seen the foliar symptoms at a moderate level in a field, you will get an economic return to using either Saltro or (indistinct). He's just very confident of that. So, there's some real proven yield benefits. We've done a lot of seed treatment trials. We had 31 trials and this is kind of interesting because again, we let the growers choose, whatever they were gonna put on, their seed treatment, their rates, their varieties. And we had 31 of those across the state and nine of 'em were profitable, but the rest of 'em were pretty much breakeven. So, there's not a lot of risk, I guess, is what I'm saying with seed treatments. You don't have a lot of downside potential. It's almost like an insurance policy, but the base seed treatments, nine of 'em were definitely profitable and a couple of 'em were really profitable. And one of the things we noticed Mark and Kaleb is that with, and this is true with some of our foliar products too, is that they're very site specific, site dependent. The characteristics of that site, will determine whether or not you get a response, which I guess is intuitive. But we really saw that with our data. We saw it with seed treatments. There's a place up in Saint Charles, heavy ground. And he sees a benefit every year. One year he saw 10 bushel per acre benefit, but definitely economical returns to seed treatments. - Yeah, and so easy to use, right? Some people would say, we should only use pesticides where we need them, but the ease of use, the product safety, like you said, Mike, a lot of growers are handling, bulk seed now, would means they're not handling it much because a lot of it's pneumatic systems or auger systems or conveyors. So, there's not a lot of that contact with these pesticides and relatively low rates on a per acre basis and really targeted to where we want to put that. So, I think there's a lot of things that are really logical about that, that seed treatment being minimally, having negative effects. - The only thing I would say to that would be, maybe the insecticide component. There is some potential downsides with using the insecticide component. One of the biggest ones is for no tillers because slugs, actually, we can diminish our slug predation. The critters that that feed on slugs are ground beetle. And if we're using these soil insecticides, it diminishes the population of ground beetles that feed on the slugs, so there are some downsides to that. I'm trying to think of anything else on the fungicide side. I really don't see anything there, that I can think of. Just the cost. You're not always gonna win, but I think it's pretty consistent. I think it's a breakeven proposition. There's very low risk financially to seed treatments, I think. - Yeah, I would agree with that. If we stick with these planting time issues and we think about how things have changed over time, we take a look at planting population. I think, it doesn't need a couple soybean guys to talk about what's happened there. I think it's obvious across the industry that we've had a reduction in soybean seeding rates or populations that are being planted. And to me it seems like, there's probably a few different reasons for that. We've kind of figured out that, soybeans are a lot more flexible than some of us thought that they're able to really flex if there's a significant gap in a row or a lot of area around them, they can branch out and kind of make good use to that space. But I think another part of it is also improvement in, planting technology or planter performance. We're just doing a really good job. A lot of growers have adopted some new technology and really invested a lot in their planters and make sure that they get as good performance as they can with that. And I think that's really paying off, so that more of those beans that are planted in the ground as seed, make it up to a mature soybean plant. So, I think that's part of the reason that we can get away with lower populations than in the past. - Before we get too far, before we get too far on that, we got quite a few questions in the Q and A, before we get moving on too far, - Okay. - (indistinct) other topics. So, one of the first questions here was, how much manganese per acre would you recommend, I guess?. And I wanna add onto that question a little bit is, what is your level on your soil test that you're looking for before you wanna include this into your application? - Good questions. I really don't follow the soil test for manganese. Really, the only thing you could do, would be a band application and the only profitable or economical band application is a dry material, it's manganese sulfate. So, I mean, if you're gonna apply a chelated material in a band, it would be so expensive, it'd be prohibitively expensive. So, you're really not fertilizing the soil with manganese. You're actually, this is one of the few exceptions that you'll ever hear me say that foliar application is the recommended method. So you really, with soybeans, you wait till you see those yellow leaves. Usually you look when the plants are about six inches tall, you go out and it'll always occur in the same place in the field that it occurred in the past, because we really cannot build up manganese in the soil. We just can't. It just gets too fixed. And we're just not available to build it up in the soil. So, really the strategy for managing manganese as a post emergence, foliar fertilizer application, when the plants are about six inches tall, the best product to use is manganese sulfate, it's the cheapest and most effective form. The downside of it is, you cannot apply it with glyphosate. There is an well known, well-documented interaction and both products suffer. So, your weed control is gonna suffer and your nutrient uptake's gonna suffer. So you just don't wanna do it. You have to separate them by at least three days. It doesn't matter which one goes first. You can, as long as you wait three days, when you separate them. And usually when the plants are only six inches tall, the question was about rates. You want one pound of actual manganese per acre, when they're six inches tall. And that first application should be, when you see the yellowing, but you don't see any height difference between the yellow plants and the green plants. You want them to be about the same height. If you start to see some yellow stunted plants out there, you're starting to lose some yield there. So, you may have to come back a second time on a true muck or a black sand or maybe a high pH lake bed soil. And if the plants are more like 10 to 12 inches tall, then it's gonna take two pounds. (indistinct) so never more than three pounds of manganese sulfate to correct the problem, in a given year, I believe. - Mike, I think another point that might be of interest is, where we would normally see that, you mentioned high pH soils. And I think if you look at the chart that a lot of people have seen about the availability of nutrients by pH, that would show us that, as the pH increases, above that seven or so, we really limit the availability of manganese. And you mentioned, Mike, a good example of that is lake bed soils, where we've got lots of calcium in that system that really binds up, in some cases phosphorus as well as manganese, but manganese can be limiting in that situation. - It really can, and Mark, and one of the most disturbing ones to me is over here in this side of the state is, I've actually seen manganese deficiency, where we shouldn't have seen it. We typically think of dark colored, high organic matter soils or high pH soils. I've seen it in coarse-textured, outwash plains, just sandy loam, loamy sands, no organic matter whatsoever. And you'll still see manganese deficiency. And in that case, what we've done , is we've overlimed. We've created that, that's a man created situation. Human created situation, we overlimed and it's because those coarse-textured soils, don't have much buffering capacity. It doesn't take much lime to raise the pH. And on those kind of soils, you mentioned seven or above on lake bed soils, on these outwash plains, if it gets up above six, five, manganese can start to be deficient. So, it's a big deal. It's such a big deal that it's one of the big three reasons why I'm a big believer in grid sampling or sampling by management zones on soybeans and applying variable rate lime. Because if you put on too much, you're gonna hurt yourself. If you don't put on enough, you're gonna hurt yourself. The nutrients won't be available, biological nitrogen fixation, isn't gonna function like it should. And if you get it too high, not only will you tie up manganese, but you can actually promote SCN reproduction. So yeah, we really do need to pay attention to our pH, those of us that have the luxury, up in your area, you can't do much about it, except for your Sandy Knolls maybe, but down in the rest of the state, we don't over apply lime, 6.5 is really the target for soybeans. Don't go above that. - So, we got another question here. Is there any response to sulfur in soybeans, like there is alfalfa? - Yes, just not in Michigan. (laughs) No, Sean (indistinct) down in Purdue in Indiana has found phenomenal results, but even Sean will tell you that it's been site specific. A lot of these things are gonna be site specific. I just read his most recent recommendations and he says, if you have a sulfur responsive field, so it's not statewide by any stretch, it's their sulfur responsive fields but he's seen huge increases, Mark. I can't remember, but at least 10 bushels per acre, something like that from just something as little as a hundred pounds of AMS, thrown out there prior to planting. So what we did, Kaleb, is we tried to duplicate what Sean found, a couple years in a row. And I'm trying to think how many trials we had, I know we had at least eight of 'em across the state and only one was profitable, one out of eight. And what's interesting about this one, is he was also one of the cooperators that used our potassium thiosulfate as a two by two starter. And he showed a positive response from that as well. So, he's one of the sites or his fields or some of those sites that, so we have the one in Saint Charles that responded to the base seed treatments. Well, this person responds to sulfur, his fields respond to sulfur. So, the answer is yes, but kind of a low probability. It is something looking at, but we're not gonna see the kind of responses, we do in wheat, no. - Yeah. So we have another question here, kind of going back to the two by two and he says, any practical liquid potash two by two starter materials? - Oh, they're gonna be expensive. I used to know these because I did look at 'em. When we were looking at the potassium thiosulfate trials, we were looking for a high potassium product. We arrived at potassium thiosulfate, so I'm wondering if that was probably as high in potassium as anything, for the cost. Back when we looked at it, we were looking at three gallons per acre. So, it's definitely gotta be two by two. You cannot put that in furrow, it'll burn the seed. So, the two by two, seemed like that was back then, it was 14 bucks an acre for the three gallons. So, pretty reasonable, I'm sure it's more than that now. And according to Kurt Steinke, the thiosulfate form of sulfur takes a while to break down. I didn't realize this at the time, I thought we were getting a twofer. We were getting the potassium and we were getting some available sulfur but Kurt has enlightened us. And he says, no, the thiosulfate form takes a long time to get to that, actually that sulfate ion. So, I think our benefit was primarily from the potassium. So, I would look at that. - Yeah, we'd really like to find some opportunities to use it because most of the planters that are set up with two by two systems are liquid. It'd be nice to have some more options, but I think Mike's exactly right, that we just get really cost prohibitive. And even though the cost of potash is crazy now, but over history, it's really hard to compete with the cost of a 0-0-60 that we can broadcast, at whatever rates and get a response out of that. So, we'll continue to look for that and keep our eyes open in the industry to see what might be available in the future. But at this time, I think Mike's exactly right, that there are some things available, but just for the amount of plant food that we get, unless we're in a deficient situation that we're correcting in short term, it's pretty tough to beat just straight old potash. - I agree, hundred percent, I do. And, I think really, when we look at fertilizing soybeans in general, I think taking care of the soil is number one. And potash is just a huge part of that. Keep it above those critical levels. If you don't know what the critical levels are for potash, you really need to learn those by your soil type. The new Tri-state fertilizer recommendations, break it down into two soils, kind of a finer textured soil and a coarse-textured soil. And they make that distinction by the CEC on your soil test, the cation exchange capacity and the line that they draw is five. So, anything above five is considered a fine-textured soil. Anything below five is considered coarse and they have the critical levels. If it's a coarse-textured soil, the critical level is a hundred milliequivalent, per hundred grams, no, I'm sorry. No, that'd be the CEC, it'd be a hundred parts per million. And if you're in a finer textured soil, I think it's 130 parts per million, maybe 120 parts per million is the critical level. So, you want to be above those and very important to know those. And then also there's some upper limits, where if your soil's, and this is almost just as important, there's some opportunities to save your potash because you've banked it on many of our soils. And this is a chance to draw down on that bank account. And if your soil tests are above, let me just flip a page here, because I don't have 'em memorized, I should, but if you are above 130 parts per million in those coarse-textured soils, you don't need to put on any potash at all, no maintenance or anything. You'll get a hundred percent yield potential without putting anything on. If you're in the finer textured soils, anything above five CEC, then it's 170. Once that gets above 170 parts per million, you don't need any fertilizer whatsoever. And so, those are some really important numbers going into 2022 for you to remember. - So we have one other question here. I think it's more kinda related towards the prices of nitrogen this year, probably more towards corn but, how long does it take for nitrogen to be available from legumes, soybeans or beans and how long does it last in the soil like coming into the next year? Is it available that next year, or is it? - This is a really tricky question. This is gonna use the rest of the time, (Mark and Kaleb laughing) because I mean, we were all taught that soybeans contribute nitrogen to the soil. And they're such a high user of nitrogen, that that is basically not the mechanism to where the corn crop, we still give the corn crop 30 pounds per acre of actual nitrogen, we do, we do that. So, that's the number that you can count on. When you're following soybeans, plan on getting 30 pounds, what's happening though, Kaleb, is you're not getting that from the actual legume, you're not, it's not producing that. It's not those Rhizobia that are making that and putting it into the soil, what's really happening instead, is that you're planting a soybean crop that has a low carbon to nitrogen ratio. So, you're not tying up the soil nitrogen that's there in the residue, where if that was corn following corn, that corn residue is going to just tie up through immobilization, it's gonna tie up a lot of that nitrogen, as it breaks down. The microbes are gonna tie it up as they breakdown the corn stocks. So, that is really where that 30 pound credit comes from. It doesn't come from the soybeans making it, it actually comes from the rotation effect of the soybeans having such a low carbon to nitrogen ratio. So, it's really a weird phenomenon. - All right, so we had one more question, going back to manganese again. Yes, how about a third application manganese? - Yes, I mean, yeah, under your really hardcore soils, you probably see that, a muck soil, a true muck, you'll probably see that, but only if you see the foliar symptoms, again, if the new growth is not showing those yellow leaves, you don't need to put it on. You're always looking at the new growth. It's a nutrient that is immobile in the plant. So, it cannot move from the older growth to the new growth. And so, you always look at those upper leaves, and if they're showing that interveinal chlorosis, yes, by all means, put it on. If you're not seeing that, if they're green enough. One other thing with manganese is typically dry conditions cause the deficiency or will aggravate a deficiency. So, if you start to get some nice rains after seeing it, you start to get some more soil moisture, some deep penetrating, soaking rains that should help alleviate the condition as well. But you will know your fields because the same fields that exhibited it last year, will exhibit it probably the next time you raise soybeans, there's a high probability, the same areas of the field and everything. - So, we just had another question come in now, kinda switching gears away from nutrient fertilizer management, any comments regarding cover crops and soybeans. - Mark, do you wanna take a stab and then I'll? - Sure, yeah, I think it can be a really good fit. I think one of the challenges that we have with soybeans is, as we look at a comparison to wheat or corn or something like that, we don't have the biomass and the return of residue to the soil. So, I think there are opportunities that we can squeeze in some kind of cover crops in some situations, we're not left with a lot of the growing season left or a lot of sunshine to use up, but there are some places and some folks that are using things like cereal rye, seeded after their corn crop and planting their soybean crop into it with some success. So, I think there are some people that are learning more about it every year and becoming more successful with it. So, I think it's a really good opportunity to kind of improve soil over time and maybe return a little bit back to the soil that we might be missing if we're growing a lot of soybeans. - I really like that, Mark, I agree a hundred percent with all of that. And I really like the cereal rye for a corn-soybean rotation. Cereal rye offers a lot of benefits that cover crops offer. It traps nutrients as well as any cover crop. What I like about it too, is it has the living roots, that are just so critical because that keeps the microbes going year round. You basically have a, you don't have a non crop period. If you use a cover crop, you have year round cropping and you get that root exudates and you just get better soil quality. It just is really a good thing to have. The other thing I like about cereal rye is it is a grass so it's got the fiber (indistinct) system and it's very good at controlling erosion. I live in a county that has 13,000 acres of HEL ground and really extreme slopes. And, so wheat, any of those small grains, can really help protect us from erosion. So, I'm a big fan. One of the questions that we got a couple years ago is what about planting green? There's been a lot of interest in planting green. If you're gonna grow a rye cover crop, how do you manage that? How do you terminate it? When do you terminate it? And I think some of the things that you factor in, when you're terminating a rye cover crop, are the soil moisture, I think is one of the biggest things. Do you want to dry out the soil or is it the soil getting dried out too much? So, that kinda is probably the first question about when you terminate it, I think. The second question would be, what are your objectives? If you're trying to manage mare's tail, Christie (indistinct) had some really good results with using planting green and managing mare's tail. You do need to let it get up, (indistinct) a little bit taller to do that, and then roll it, really improve the weed control as well. You end up with basically a mat of cereal rye that just sort of shades out the mare's tail and really is a benefit. So, no, and we actually had really good results with our on-farm trials. We've had five planting green trials over the last two years, no yield difference whatsoever. Whether you controlled the rye before planting, or you controlled it at or after planting. So, no yield difference, except for one site, we had one site that did go backwards pretty bad, but they did wait almost two weeks after planting, before they controlled the rye. And you remember how dry it was this spring? And I think really the dry soil conditions, was the biggest culprit with that. We had thinner stands where we left it later and controlled it later, but it was about a six and a half bushel yield hit. It was a very high yield environment though. I mean, 80 bushels versus 74 bushels. So, very high yield environment. And maybe the grower got some additional benefits out of that by waiting. But that was the only one, the other four were fine. We didn't see any yield depression by waiting. - Mike, I see- - There's a couple - Okay, - I'm sorry, Kaleb. We got a couple questions about the planting green. We had a question about what type of roller on the green plant would you use? - Yeah, I think Christie had gotten that question before and I'm trying to think, Mark, what her answer was. I think she, when Christie was asked that question, I think she said for rye suppression, Of course, now let me qualify this. We're not trying to kill the rye with the roller, necessarily, if you're gonna do that, then you need the crimping roller. If you're just trying to create that mat and you're using a combination of herbicides and the roller, then just a regular field roller, just a smooth drum, I think Christie said will work well, 'cause you're really trying to just lay it down and create a mat. But if you are trying to control it and get some level of death because of it, you do need the crimping roller. - (indistinct) another question kinda related to that is, you see an increased slug problems with planting into green rye. - Yeah, I think you could, you certainly could. One grower I've talked with says, he doesn't see slug problems anymore in his fields. He used to battle 'em quite a bit, but the same grower does not use, the neonicotinoid insecticides either as a seed treatment. So maybe he's got a higher ground beetle population, I just don't know, but yeah, slugs can be an issue. Basically, slugs are, it's a race against time. You're trying to get those plants ahead of the slug damage. So that's one of the advantages of, usually they say early planting is a real benefit to reducing slug damage because you can get those crops, get that plant growings to where it'll outgrow the slug damage, but no-till and serial cover crop, is probably gonna promote slug damage. Having said that, let me tell you a benefit though, that we made, before we move on, the small grain cover crops have another benefit. And if anybody struggles with white mold consistently, you may wanna consider a small grain cover crop, whether it's wheat or triticale or cereal rye, what happens is when you plant those ahead of soybeans and leave them growing a little bit, they will create a microenvironment that fosters the Sclerotia germination and the apothecia, the mushroom promotion, and releases the spores before the soybeans have even flowered. So, you're getting early spore development and release before you have any vulnerable, sites of infection available, and it is proven that it is a strategy. So, I'd like to experiment with that, a little bit further. - So, one more question about cover crops here. We need to have more people trying to intercede cover crops into corn as early as V3 to V7. Do you know of any similar research being done in soybeans and what is the ideal time to establish cover crops following soybeans? - Boy, I don't have much to add to that, Mark. I have not really- We've had such good cover crop specialists in the state, Dean Baas and Paul Gross and Christina Curell, that I really have not followed that. - Yeah, I don't know a lot about it either, but I know there's opportunities to do some aerial seeding, of something like rye or wheat into soybeans before they drop leaves, that we can get pretty good establishment at that point. So I think some of the challenges as we compare corn to soybeans is that we don't get too much growth, when we're out there trying to clip soybeans as low as we possibly can. We don't want a lot of growth on that soil surface. So that's just some of the challenge of trying to get that biomass, but hoping that we can get in there timely to harvest the soybeans and everything will be fine. But as we learned last year, we don't always have that option. - I was gonna say, I'll give you a quick update on that too. I guess I'll add on to that one just (murmurs), part of my master's research, you can see in my background is interceding corn with cover crops. So, the problem, what you have it in soybeans is the canopy. There's too much humidity below the soybean plants and you don't get that good establishment. And it's not an ideal environment for cover crops to grow underneath the canopy of the soybeans. And then, (indistinct) the only option you really have to do (indistinct) planting earlier than after harvest is to, have it flown on, like mark was saying with the aerial seeding at leaf drop, so. - Okay. - So, we have, I guess there is one more cover crop question. Do you recommend soybean after soybean systems with cover crops? - I think the cover crop would help. There's a grower, very successful grower in Allegan County, where I work and he basically, it's not quite the same thing, but it is soybeans-wheat rotation, no corn in the rotation at all. It's just soybeans, wheat and been doing it for 20 years. No problems whatsoever. Excellent crops, excellent wheat crops, excellent soybean crops. So, you're shortening it a little bit. There was some rotational research that came out of Wisconsin, probably has the longest and the best crop rotation research, University of Wisconsin and their data shows that back to back soybeans, is not a big deal. You might have a 5% yield loss, something like that. It's not really that significant, two years of soybeans. You go to that third year and things start to change, whether it's higher SCN, whether it's more white mold, whether it's more SDS or Phytophthora or Pythium, any of the soil-borne paths. I don't know if they know exactly what, but you start to see some challenges. You really do, yields drop by 12%. Once you start to get to that third year. So, it is, I know there's gonna be interest in back to back soybeans because of the fertilizer prices on corn and maybe the questionable availability, but just go into the decision carefully. And if I was gonna make that decision, I would try to choose fields that had the lowest SCN pressure. The reason I say that is, SCN, Soybean Cyst Nematodes, respond very well to rotation just by throwing one extra crop in there, between your soybean crops, makes a big difference in soybean cyst nematode populations. I would say that's second only to using resistant varieties, or it might even be above using resistant varieties. Rotation is a really solid way of managing SCN. - Yeah, I would agree with that, Mike, that that's a huge consideration. I think you said it well, that if we're going to plant soybeans after soybeans, this cover crop just benefits that system. So, maybe we wouldn't say that's the ideal system, but if you're going to do it, that's a good way to get another small grain in there. A grass crop that breaks up some of those concerns that we have. It probably wouldn't be on top on the list of management situations, but it's better than not including a cover crop. - Yes. - Another one on planting green that just came in. If you no-till green into a rye cover crop, would you include an the insecticide in the seed treatment? - I would say, no. When I think of the soil borne insects that are really give us problems this last year, probably everybody read about the problems we have with seed corn maggot, in soybeans. And if we're waiting until the rise up like that, and, you haven't incorporated anything into the soil, you're not gonna have seed corn maggot problems. Seed corn maggot is, the adult flies are attracted by decaying organic matter, whether, it's typically fresh plant material, weeds, things like that, that have been incorporated into the soil with tillage. There's about a two week period where that is really attractive to the flies. They lay their eggs in this attractive site, 'cause they want their young to have lots to eat, kind of survival of the fittest. So they want to provide them with a lot of food so they lay 'em in these sites and then your soybeans germinate and start to emerge and the maggots just really feed on those. So, a seed treatment really is not gonna pay, I don't believe in a cover crop situation, where you're not telling, matter of fact, Chris DiFonzo, just wrote an article for the next Michigan soybean news magazine, and Mark, she said something really strong in there. She said something like, the seed corn maggot guru from Ohio state had said that you will not have seed corn maggot in a no-till soybean field. It just won't happen. You just don't get that decaying situation. And I saw that just recently in the spring in a field in Allegan County, a grower had worked a part of the field. He had one of these new high speed discs that he wanted to try out, tried it on 50 acres and sure enough, we had seed corn maggot in that 50 acres. We went across the lane, same environment planted the same day, everything, just not worked, no seed corn maggot damage at all. So, just one of the things, where no tillage can be a real boon. In addition to white mold management and lower costs. - Yeah, maybe just an exception to that would be, something like trying to plant into a sod. So, I know you mentioned cover crop was the question, but maybe the except is trying to plan into a sod or a field that has had large amounts of manure applied. Those might be things that attract more insect pests that we might want to think about a insecticide. - That makes sense, especially a sod, Mark, because what you have going on there too is then, you've got the long term insects. You've got the true June bug, you know, true white grubs, are a multiyear pest. They will build up in a grass sod, Wireworms are another one. So, I would agree, a hundred percent, in a sod situation, definitely insecticide seed treatment for those two pests alone. And then some of the other white grubs, maybe there as well, so. - Okay, so that's, we got some more questions here. We'll get to 'em here in a second, but our hour is up. So, we're gonna be going here for, let me get this started. Oops, didn't want to go there. Oops. (Mike indistinct) - Yep (chuckles). Everybody wants their credits, so, - Yep. - But before we go on, I just wanna remind everybody that next week we're gonna be talking about corn management. So, stay tuned and be ready to join next week for some more discussion. And so, now I think Eric's gonna post on the chat, the link that you need to get, fill out the survey and get the credits for your RUP and for your CCA. And we're gonna leave this slide up and (indistinct) continuing on, so that people can ask more questions, if they have issues with stuff they can let us know. But, here I'll ask the next question for you guys while that's coming in and people are working on that. So, what's the earliest we can plant soys without yield loss? - (chuckles) I love that question, Kaleb. Mostly- - Well then you can, you can answer it, Mark. - (laughs) I'm not sure that I have an exact date, but I really get excited about opportunities with early planting and it's not all based on research, but some of it's anecdotal about what I have seen soybeans survive and some of the success stories of being able to get, in some cases, a yield bump. But in other cases, maybe it's just that we see a flat, a yield response to early planting compared to, on more normal planting date. So, last year I saw some soybeans that were planted in March up in the Saginaw valley. So, those survived, there was some loss from a couple of events of frost that came through, but they were very cold nights, like down in the low twenties. And I saw some of those soybeans that survived that made the crop, that matured were soybeans that were up at that time and made it through those temperatures. So, I'm sure not saying that we should switch to March planting of soybeans, but I think what it does indicate is that, we have an opportunity to probably push a little bit earlier than we have historically. And I think we've done, a lot of growers have had some experience with that, where they can get out in good field conditions and their planters are, like we said earlier, really tuned in, really well to do a good job of having pretty consistent depth of that seed. So, we don't have soybeans that are emerging erratically or at different times. Maybe there's some change in genetics over time that make these things tougher and able to stay in the soil if they have to, for sometimes several weeks before they emerge. But I think it's a really cool example of how soybeans, are tougher than most people expect them to be. And maybe even more than is logical to think about, how can a seed swell up with moisture and then maybe even freeze in the soil and still emerge and be as happy as one that didn't have that experience. It doesn't make sense, but I think a lot of growers have seen a lot of examples, where it can be successful. - I would agree with that. I've talked to some of those producers and we actually have a yield contest winner from probably, oh gosh, I don't know, maybe eight years ago. And he had 93 bushel per acre, I believe, 92, 93. And it was planted that first week of April, way back then. And he had planted same variety and everything, same soil type a week or so later, under really good conditions and did not see that same benefit from the same variety, same soil type, everything. So, there is something there that can really click, but there's also a lot of risk. We've done 21 planting date trials here in Michigan, working with Dr. Manny Singh. And, 10 of those, we saw a statistically significant yield increase, almost half of them, 10 outta 21, and there was only one case where we saw a yield decrease, but it was big, it six and a half bushels and down in Branch County. And when you ask the producer what happened, it was a marginal soil type, poorly drained soil. It was no-till, trying to think if there was anything else, he wished he would've worked the ground, is what he said. And that's one thing I will tell you, is that whenever I've seen, really serious freeze damage to emerged soybeans, it's been in a no-till condition. And the worst damage was where the residue was the heaviest. So that works two ways. What happens there is that, residue reflects the sun's energy during the day and doesn't allow it to warm up. But then at night, instead allowing whatever heat it did build up in the soil to radiate and keep those little plants warm at night, it's insulating the ground and not letting that warmth that was accumulated in the soil away, and get around the plants. So, if you are afraid of frost damage, a couple things and, Mark, you don't have much of the choice of this, but maybe choose higher elevation sites. I had a hard time finding a sledding hill, when I lived in Bay County, for the kids. But no, so not a lot of relief there, but cold air likes to sink to the lowest spot. So, choose maybe some upland areas. If you were gonna plant really super early. I think our coarse-textured soils, really quite honestly, are the ones that are more suited to those ultra early planting. And when I say ultra early, I'm saying anything before April 20th, anything after April 20th in our major soybean producing areas is fair game. If those soil conditions are good, that's fair game. It's like Mark says, you might not see a yield advantage, but boy, given some of those wet springs, we've had in the past, if I can get that crop planted that last 10 days of April and have it outta the way in good conditions, I'm feeling pretty good about that. Now, the one exception of that would be really marginal drained soils that you typically year after year have stand problems with, emergence problems, crusting, those kinda soils, you probably better wait until you get some really warm conditions, get the seed up out the ground fast, in those kinda soils. - Yeah, I've heard a wise soybean agronomist say that, maybe one of the advantages to planting early is that, we avoid planting late. So, even if we don't get a great benefit to that early planting, Mike Staton may agree that, it's good that we avoid those situations, where we get delayed, that we aren't now trying to plan into June and hoping for the best. So, that's another benefit. - I really think it is. I like that. Matter of fact, our colleague, Mark's and (indistinct) colleague from across the Lake Michigan, at over in Wisconsin, Shawn Conley, he basically says the early planting benefit is so good that even if your stand is down to 50%, you have around 50,000. If you have 50,000 plants per acre, which would be about 50%, you don't have to replant. If you planted timely or you planted early, those plants have such a good start that they're gonna really branch out and produce a lot more nodes per plant. So, current recommendation is not to tear a stand up, it's to preserve those existing plants and supplement them if you ever do replant. So try not to tear 'em up because those early planted plants are worth a lot to you. They're very productive plants. - So, Eric Anderson wants to say something real quick, but we're still getting more questions coming in here. So, we'll let Eric talk here for a second, and then we'll get back to these questions. - Thanks, Kaleb, so for those of you who did not, for whatever reason, get a chance to go online and take the survey last week and request those credits. Don't request the credits tonight for last week's seminar. If you forgot, go ahead and send me an email and we'll get it taken care of that way. When you click on the link for tonight, that is for tonight's, if you're a certified crop (indistinct), the QR code, that's gonna be at the end of this survey tonight. That is for tonight, it's not for last time. So, just to clarify that, and I've already had a few folks asking me questions about the seminar code. So what happens if you're new to the series, is about a week after the series or excuse me, about a week after the session. So, sometime in the next couple days, we've got one staff member, who will be looking at all of your requests from last week and cross-checking them with the zoom log. And then everyone that she can verify, she'll send those up to (indistinct) and then she'll send you out the seminar codes. You can keep that for your records. So, just give it a week to 10 days, and then you'll get the seminar code, so that you can have that for your records. Thanks, Kaleb. - So, the next question that came in here is, are glyphosate applications contributing to manganese deficiencies on lighter soils? - I would say, no. And the reason is, I looked into this several years ago, back when the yellow flash was a big issue and a hot topic, and there was a weed scientist, Christie's counterpart from Iowa State. I think Bob Hartzler, I think if I've got that right, he wrote an article that was really revealing on that subject. And he basically just said, flat out basically said that what's happening there is the yellowing that we're seeing is actually a metabolite of the glyphosate, in most cases, it's a byproduct. It's what the crop is, how the crop is metabolizing that glyphosate, ends up with the yellow flash. So really, I think manganese was overused, I think, and especially the EDTA chelates, they can be mixed with glyphosate because they don't have the antagonism for weed control or for nutrient uptake, but they're more expensive. And I think a lot of that was applied in situations where it wasn't necessarily warranted. Matter of fact, there was one study I saw from Ohio state, where you actually saw a yield decrease, by applying manganese within the absence of foliar deficiency symptoms. If you don't see the yellowing and it's gotta be the interveinal yellowing, green veins on the new growth, if you're not seeing that, you really don't need to apply manganese. It's not a hidden hunger situation. It's very visible. - Okay. So, the next question is with the high potential for demand coming from renewable diesel and SAF, is there any research being done to breed added traits or higher oil profiles with these potential markets in mind? - Great question and for those folks that aren't familiar with renewable diesel, it's really pretty similar to biodiesel from soybean oil. It has a similar feedstocks. It's just that the process of making it is a little bit different. It's more similar to petroleum refining. So, it gives us some opportunities to then turn that renewable diesel into things like, Sustainable Aviation Fuel, which is the SAF that was mentioned. So, great opportunities for huge markets. There is some work being done with high oleic soybean oil and how it fits into that. It looks like there are some opportunities that it may provide some benefits in that market. So, there is some work going on that direction. And I think it'll continue, if this market really takes off, like some experts think it may, we're gonna have some challenges keeping up with the demand for soybean oil to feed this renewable diesel industry. So, I hope it comes true and we'll continue, to push for opportunities like that, to maybe look at some traits that may benefit that use. And we'll definitely try to continue to increase the value of soybeans that way. - Okay, the next question here is we have, has there been any trials for stressing beans with spraying to promote additional branching and nodes for more pods? I know rolling has been done in the past with minimal yield gains from studies or something similar to that. - Yes, we have. We've done rolling as was mentioned. And again, it's interesting because either the site or the manager can make it work. We had one producer that consistently, did this for multiple years and got a yield advantage from rolling at the V1 growth stage. If you're trying to stress the beans, you don't wanna go past V3, the third trifolia, there's been a lot of research done on that. And if you are trying to stress them with a roller, typically middle of the day, you don't want to snap 'em off. You don't want 'em to be real turgid. You want them to be flexible, real flaccid and kind of wilty. So, roll 'em during the heat of the day. And you're probably not gonna get a yield advantage, by doing that. But what you do with a roller by doing that is you, what one grower told me is, I've spread out my rolling window. I don't, if the weather's not right, when I originally wanted to roll, I've got another couple days or week or, so that I can wait for the right conditions, then roll the ground. So, that was, one of the benefits or downsides of waiting though. And I know rolling is just one of the stressful things, but if the soil gets too dry, you won't punch the rocks in like you wanted to. So your main objective with rolling remember, is as a harvest aid. You're leveling out that soil, you're punching those rocks into the ground. So that it's not a harvest problem. And if you wait too long and that soil gets too dry, you're not gonna punch those rocks in the way you want to. So, keep that in mind as well. We did also use Cobra, Dan Riser, Mark, I don't know, I don't think you were on board at the time, but maybe you were, but Dan Riser actually had a very innovative grower in Allegan County that wanted to look at this with their agribusiness and the three of 'em put their heads together. I can't remember exactly the rates, but I think it was a pretty aggressive rate. I think it was eight ounces of Cobra and it was put on just before flowering. And the idea was to set 'em back and stress 'em and we didn't see any yield advantage. It was really flat. The one thing I will tell you about trying to use Cobra to do that is the research that we've seen for white mold suppression, Cobra is definitely labeled for white mold and does a good job on white mold. If you know, you're gonna have it, if you don't have white mold, basically what the research data shows that I've seen is that if you use Cobra as a white mold product and you don't have it, what happens is you will suppress yields a little bit, you've dinged the plants and you'll suppress yields. If you have mold, it's gonna make yield, money for you. - Yeah, that's right, Mike, I've seen those same results that are pretty consistent that way. I think over time, there's also been some folks that have tried other growth regulators to try to affect the soybean growth. So, things like Dicamba or 2,4-D, they're not labeled and we don't suggest that, but I think what we've learned from some of that is that they're pretty touchy. It's not always the same response and we really don't have a good handle on, when that's possible or if it works, consistently. So, I think there are some things that have been tried over time, just with that concept of, can we ding these things to try to create some response in that plant to put on more pods or more branches or whatever the case is. And I don't think chemically that we've got products to do that today, but it's interesting to think about what the future may bring, so if we get to the situation of having products like they do in wheat with things like Palisade, that will try to control the height of the plant, maybe there's some opportunities in some situations that we can control things and kind of adjust how that plant physiology works out. But at this time, I don't think that we have silver bullets in that direction. - No, and actually, we almost might wanna look at it from the other standpoint, instead of stressing the plants to get more nodes or more pods per node, could we put a nutrient on that would promote that. And so boron is kind of known to in the literature to produce branching and more pods. And so, we did look at boron. We looked at it in two different ways. We looked at it as a foliar product. Solubor, applied at R1, because there was a body of research that came out of just west of us. Several states looked at it in the early 90s, and they showed a positive response to just a very low rate of foliar boron. So, we looked at it in Michigan on our coarse-textured soil. We didn't find anything. We also looked at Granubor, which is what they used down in Arkansas, where boron deficiency is more prevalent. So, what's nice about Granubor, is it's the same density and same particle size as potash. It mixes really well with potash. So, where you just blend it with potash and you broadcast that, it slings the same and just works really well. And you get the job done ahead of time. We looked at that and didn't find anything, with either one of those products over multiple years, there was another one that, Radiate, is a product it's, and rather than mentioning the product name. I shouldn't have done that. What I really wanted to do is look at a class of products and it's plant hormones, Mark, you mentioned the growth regulators. Another class would be the cytokinins. And that happened to be one of the components in this product "Radiate," but cytokinin is been shown to promote potting as well. So there might be some things hormonally or with the right nutrients to maybe promote, more pod development as well. - Okay, we have one more question here. If anything else comes in, we'll answer it offline. If you have any other questions that you think of later on, you can either contact me or Mike or Mark, if you can, or I can get it to them, if you just wanna send 'em to me. But the last question we got for tonight is, what's the best option for high SCN fields, seed treatments, in furrow products? - I don't think of seed treatments or in furrow products as a consistent way to control soybean cyst nematodes. I think in the fields that we have significant populations, we just have so many nematodes that will overwhelm the system. So I know that there been products that have claimed some effect on nematodes in the past, but at least the ones that we've looked at, really don't quite show the numbers. (indistinct) I know there have been some claims that, even if we don't affect the numbers, we could still have a yield benefit. We really haven't seen that. We continue to hope for a product like that and really have some hope for the future that we will see some things. But I don't know today that we have that. What do you think, Mike? - No, Mark, I couldn't agree anymore. And I think Marisol would say the same thing. I think rotation is just, it's a really big one. It just, this pest responds to rotation. If we can just get an extra crop, non host crop in there, that makes a really big difference in their populations. The other one of course is resistant varieties. We have some of the best resistant varieties out there. The Peking varieties, even some of the PI 88788's are holding up. So, definitely rotate to a different source. One of the things that Marisol found though, if you're using Peking, one of the things that she found, and I think she's the first person in the country to show this, but, is that the nematodes can overcome the Peking variety, source of resistance faster than they can the PI 88788. So, we really do need to use those judiciously and rotate back out of them. Don't plant Pekings back to back. You're just asking for the development of resistance. So, I think resistant varieties, a really good testing program. You utilize the soybean checkoff's testing program, what an outstanding program, 20 fields a year that you can sample and get your results back. And the other thing you is, I used to think, and I hope I'm not speaking outta turn, Mark, but I thought we were limited to one type test per farm. But I think that growers can actually get more than that in a given year, if they have enough pest pressure. - Yeah, that's right. So that's possible and what that system does, is tells you, which of the sources of resistance are best to use on your farm. So, Mike mentioned the type test. And so if they can do a type test for your farm and they'll only do it on those soil samples that have high SCN numbers. So, that's where you're most likely to see a return in switching up your resistance. So, that is important. Mike, you mentioned Dr. Marisol Quintanilla's research and she has also or we have funded, the soybean checkoff has funded some research for her to look at some other applications that may improve soil quality with things like, compost and manures. And while she doesn't have multiple years to say that, here are the recommendations, it looks like there is some promise in that direction. And I think, Mike, you were involved with a research project that also showed a benefit to, some hog manure in a soybean rotation, showing some benefits in yield and maybe some effect on soybean cyst nematode populations. But, that pest is a crazy pest that seems to overcome whatever things we throw at it, but we are seeing some things that hold some promise and really look forward to new technology in the future.