June 10, 2010

Greetings,

I finally feel caught up. Finished with the beans last week, and got the corn sprayed, which got weedier than it should have. I Touched up some of the weedier plots before the corn came up and probably should have just done all of them. The laudis Roundup atrazine combo looks like it is doing a good job. The burn down we did with the Valor-Roundup-2-4d did a good job as well. This was the first year we did the spring burndown. We have usually applied the pre-soy spray in the fall after corn harvest but that just did not work. Spring and winter heat were sprayed with Huskie and Puma, which is looking good. The flax got 6 oz of Calisto right after planting which is holding well. Weeds just never seem to go away.

The beans are coming fairly well. The rain we got last night should really bring on any that were a little slow. I used the 7200 John Deere to plant the beans with and did not use the residue managers. When there is little rain after planting you can get a little anxious. The soybeans came up the fastest on a strip tilled plot. I might have to put strip till soybeans into one of the rotations. Otherwise, the crops are a mixed bag. The problem is the lower ground. Some of the corn rotted, the flax did not come in the low ground either. I replanted some corn and flax last week. I used our Amity twin disc drill for the flax replant and it looks like it is coming up pretty nicely. Where I seeded corn the 21 of May in the non-plot area it came up so nice and uniform. You just don't know how many growing units you are going to get each year, other wise it would be nice to wait. The winter wheat has a lot of spring wheat in it. Of course the winter wheat planted on the soy and flax looks nice.

Our Field day is a little more than a month away, July 15. We have quite a bit going on. We are happy to have the NDSU winter and spring wheat variety trials being done on our site and that will be a new tour stop. Mick Kjar will be broadcasting live once again. So, mark the date on your calendar. I have not set a start time but would expect mid afternoon.

Have a good week.

Kelly Cooper- farm manager