Tom Bechman

3 weeks ago | farmprogress.com | Tom Bechman

“We planted soybeans in our date-of-planting study on March 25 [2024] near South Charleston, Ohio,” explained Laura Lindsey, Extension soybean agronomist at Ohio State University. “They began emerging, but a late April freeze occurred. We lost lots of seedlings, and the final stand averaged 42,000 plants per acre.

3 weeks ago | farmprogress.com | Tom Bechman

Double-cropping soybeans spreads out cash income and can be as profitable as any other crop choice. However, unless you take time to do some “soil fertility math” and replenish nutrients accordingly, this practice could put pressure on soil test values over time. That is especially true for potassium. Potassium is removed in wheat grain, wheat straw in most systems, and soybean grain, all in one year. Typical fertilizer application choices before wheat don’t take that trifecta removal into account.

3 weeks ago | farmprogress.com | Tom Bechman

The only people who grow soybeans in the U.S. not worried about soybean cyst nematode farm in West Virginia or Brown County, Ind. SCN is documented everywhere else. Even those growers might keep one eye open!“Soybean cyst nematode continues to spread, with yield losses increasing every year,” explains Greg Tylka, an Extension specialist and researcher at Iowa State University. Thirty-one new counties confirmed SCN across the country from 2020 through 2023.

3 weeks ago | farmprogress.com | Tom Bechman

If you sat through any marketing meetings recently, you know that breaking even growing corn and soybeans in 2025 could be challenging. Something in the budget must give. Should it be potassium fertilizer? You probably can guess the answer: It depends. Largely, it depends on the status of potassium soil tests in each field. “Understand as much as you can about the nature of potassium before deciding,” explains Jamie Bultemeier, supervisor with A&L Great Lakes Labs.

4 weeks ago | farmprogress.com | Tom Bechman

“All the gold in California is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills in somebody else’s name,” or so the 1979 hit by the Gatlin Brothers claimed. Maybe Elon Musk will finally determine if some of that gold is truly in Fort Knox. What’s certain is that if you grow corn and apply nitrogen, “gold” will be in your fields, waiting for plants to use it or other forces to snatch it away, whichever happens first. Your job is to protect the gold.