BioBuild® and StandUp® products work together to improve crop nutrition & yield potential. BioBuild N198 w/MIC Nitrogen Management Aid combines a select group of concentrated beneficial microbes with an organic food source applied as a nitrogen management aid for enhanced early growth, vigor and to develop a larger root mass in a corn crop. StandUp Fertizol® Zn increases the length of time zinc is available to the plant. It allows zinc, phosphorus and other micronutrients already present in the soil to be more available for plant uptake.
In a 2-year average BioBuild N198 w/MIC Nitrogen Management Aid had a +3.7 bushel advantage for corn. Find more information on the BioBuild N198 w/MIC Nitrogen Management Aid sell sheet.
In a 3-year average StandUp Fertizol Zn had a +3.8 bushel advantage for corn and a +2.7 bushel advantage for soybeans. Find more information on the StandUp Fertizol Zn sell sheet.
Have further questions? Reach out to a PCT | Sunrise representative today.
Every year, PCT | Sunrise® deploys research plots across Ohio. The plots test current and future products available for growers. The datasets help with placement and recommended environments that PCT products can be utilized to improve crop performance!
Check out the latest PCT in the Field video that covers the 2020 PCT soybean trial data set! Leading the discussion is PCT Sales Agronomist Jonah T. Johnson and Research Agronomist Bryan Reeb.
Don’t let your soybean field retreat too easily
The death of a soybean plant follows a pre-determined path. You first notice a few yellow leaves on plants. Then several more yellow leaves follow with the leaves rapidly falling off the plant. At this time if you walk through a soybean field if you touch the petiole still attached to the stem it will break off the plant with just a light touch. Stems go next.
The plant is simply digesting all available starch and minerals remaining in tissue in order to maximize grain fill. When we hear complaints of green stem in beans at harvest this typically is associated with higher grain yield as the soil was able to mineralize more nutrition late season and provide beans a more peaceful end.
Later this summer, soybeans in their early reproductive stages will similarly march toward
self-destruction, believing the short-term goal of filling seeds is aligned with your broader production targets. Soybeans will sacrifice roots and abandon nodules at late V5 and V6, cutting off nitrogen supply. Leaves, unable to maintain protein, will lose photosynthetic capabilities and, in turn, be cannibalized to fill beans. Yields will retreat from what they could have been if they had better command of the plant’s resources.
Plant development must include a balance of resource allocations. Some resources should be used for immediate needs, while others maintained for future plant needs.
In the soybean plant at R3, a balancing act should occur with sugar. The plant has an immediate need to develop pods and nourish developing seeds. At the same time, the plant must invest in roots and nodules for nutrient uptake and nitrogen fixation to produce new leaves that make sugar to fill future pods and seeds.
However, too often at R3, a soybean plant fills the first seeds and invests in the future. It doesn’t maintain roots. It doesn’t make new leaves. It raids nutrients from existing leaves to move them to seeds. Early-setting seeds, seize all the sugar they can get, then release a barrage of hormones that force pods to abort.
A soybean plant exemplifies this poor strategy for two reasons. As a legume that requires far more nitrogen than corn for grain fill, it’s decision to prematurely stop support for the roots and nodules that supply this nitrogen has a dramatic effect on crop yield and quality. Secondly, soybean yield is not determined early, like corn. Late-season behavior continues to affect seed number and yield.
What can be done about it? As growers we may better command these processes with soybean finisher products that improve crop growth and seed production. Unlike many other yield-improving practices, these new technologies are deployed later in the season, instead of being crammed in with other early-season applications.
Our most fundamental tactic is to ensure soybeans have adequate nutrition. Potassium, manganese and boron are critical in maintaining leaf tissue and the adequate movement of sugars throughout the plants. Micronutrients are best fed through the leaf; in dry soils, foliar potassium is important.
Supplemental nitrogen can be used and may increase the amount of nitrogen as protein harvested with the crop. Beans use about 6# of N for each bushel produced. However, mid to late season N applications have been highly inconsistent providing return on investment.
Plant growth regulator gibberellin will help facilitate sugar movement to roots, while auxin and salicylic acid (aspirin) will suppress production of ethylene – a gas that triggers plant stress responses, including leaf senescence (death). Properly timed foliar fungicides have also demonstrated ability to reduce ethylene senescence as well.
In the future, the solution to soybeans that mature too soon may be to “apply two aspirins and call me when your bin is full.”
Progressive Crop Technology offers a late-season nutrient product, PCT Soybean Finisher to consider.
Soybeans and PotassiumPotassium’s primary plant function is to regulate the direction of water flow between cells and different plant tissues. The xylem and the phloem, which is the plants “plumbing,” relies on potassium to direct its direction of flow. The xylem moves water and nutrients upward and outward while the phloem moves sugars and water downward toward roots. Just as in your home plumbing, higher pressure in one plant region (like your water main) will push sap towards areas of lower pressure (like an open faucet)
Leaves act as solar panels that are switched on during the day. Just as a lightning rod absorbs static electricity and harmlessly channels it to ground, leaves depend on converting potent solar energy to sugars that can be safely transferred and stored. Plants absorb sunlight which is converted to energy via photosynthesis. The plant uses water – H2O + C – carbon from carbon dioxide in the air to make plant sugar or sucrose – C12H22O11. Plant sugars are then respired at night through chemical reactions in the plant to fuel plant and seed growth. The ultimate goal of a plant is to simply produce as many potential offspring as possible. Our goal is to manipulate the plant into producing large numbers of offspring and have the offspring be as large as possible.
Potash soil test levels have widely declined during the past several years, and need to be more closely monitored. Growing conditions that limit uptake of nutrients include reduced root mass from excessive soil moisture early for some and periods of very dry soil where potassium and other nutrients are held tightly to the soil and thus are not available for plant uptake. Potash is a mobile nutrient in the plant so deficiencies typically show as yellow tips at the lower leaves of the plant. One interesting aspect is that aphids love beans that are low in potassium levels. It is very common to the largest aphid populations on soy plants with low K levels.
If you are witnessing these conditions in your crop, what can you do? Consider a foliar fertilizer that directs potassium directly to plant leaves. Often, it is tempting to reduce foliar fertilizer cost by focusing on one or two nutrients. Effective fertilization, however, depends on having adequate potassium to distribute sugars (and foliar nutrients) to other plant parts.
Don’t stand by while your soybeans go into shock. Give them a shot of potassium with their next foliar feeding.