To view archived newsletters, click on one of the links below.

 Cedar Basin Crop Consulting 2010 Early Spring Newsletter

Subject: Cedar Basin Crop Consulting Meeting Notes 27 March 2010

AgLeader – Mike Vos – covered their new ParaDyme precision Ag system incorporating DOT Cors RTK signal.

Bayer – Jack Schroeder - Enclosed is a brochure on most of their products. The significant product for this year is Proline fungicide. It is labeled for White Mold in soybeans and also for applying to small corn at the V4-V6 stage. Preliminary results look favorable however as with any new product I would recommend doing a trial on part of a field.

BASF - Mark Storh – went through their line of products most significant was the KIXOR family of products – Optill for soybeans and Sharpen for corn and soybeans as a burndown preplant/preemergence program. Mark also covered results of Headline fungicide on corn and soybeans. They are still claiming a 12.5 bu/ac. yield response on corn sprayed at VT-R1 stage and 5 bu/ac. sprayed at v4-V6 stage. For soybeans we are finding positive results most years and when mixed with an insecticide there is a synergistic affect giving 5-6 bu/ac. yield response. It is interesting that Tracy Blackmer from the Iowa Soybean Association also recommends the combination fungicide-insecticide sprayed at R3-4 stage.

ISA – Tracy Blackmer - Tracy went over the 2009 research results. Again they got a good positive response to fungicide-insecticide combination on soybeans. Also covered were nitrogen trials. Anhydrous ammonia still is the preferred N source with respect to minimizing N loss. UAN (28-32%) is the least desirable as a total N program – the best results were obtained when a split application was used. Early preplant and “Weed and Feed” programs are not recommended. Tracy also covered their planting population studies. For corn nothing was conclusive and designing management zones for corn population variable rate still needed more information. An interesting finding on soybeans was that higher populations tended to cause beans to pod higher on the plant thus less harvest loss. But that has to be balanced with higher seed cost. Cedar Basin still recommends dropping around 140-145,000/ac.

ISU – sulfur study - For 2009 ISU found a 9 bu/ac. yield response for corn across Northern Iowa. It seems the break off for soils is about 3-3.5% or less. I am recommending for 2010 either 50lbs/ac. AMS or Gypsum for high organic matter soils (2-4%) and 100 lbs/ac. AMS or Gypsum for sandy soils or low OM soils (< 2%).

Adapt-N - I covered the work we are doing with Cornell University on real time nitrogen management using a web based nitrogen model that incorporates precision Doppler weather data. I will be testing this on your fields this year. No need to change your nitrogen program.
I also enclosed a book written by Dr. Harold Van Es – author and also principal investigator for the Adapt-N model.

Shannon