Cropping Issues in Northwest Minnesota

Yesterday morning the Marshall County Corn and Soybean Growers Association hosted a soybean plot tour event at the Garth Kruger farm outside of Warren, MN.  The soybeans in the plot looked great: nice and healthy plants between the beginning flowering and podding growth stages, nearly closing their 22 inch rows.  While I am sure that people were glad to see such healthy looking soybeans, it was likely more than just soybeans that event participants were interested in seeing.  Folks were hungry for a bit of friendly, adequately-social-distanced conversation with their fellow northwest Minnesotans. There are three upcoming August plot tour events that northwest Minnesota soybean producers might consider putting on their calendar: David Swenson Farm near Shelly in Norman County - Monday, August 24, 2 PM Rick and Lauren Proulx Farm near Dorothy in Red Lake County - Tuesday, August 25, 9 AM Harlan and Wayne Olson's Farm near Fosston in Polk County - Tuesday, August 25, 2 PM Please stay

This article was written by Angie Peltier, University of Minnesota Extension educator in crops and Phyllis Bongard, educational content development and communications specialist. While a human pathogen has changed many of the ways that those in agriculture interact with one another this year, the threat from plant pathogens remains unchanged. If specific weather conditions favor the interaction between a susceptible variety or hybrid and a plant pathogen, disease will occur. This summer, COVID-19 precautions have limited how UMN Extension personnel can interact with growers to diagnose diseases of agronomic crops in Minnesota. Because the need for this ‘detective work’ still exists, members of the UMN Extension crops team have launched a new online program called MN Digital Crop Doc ( z.umn.edu/digitalcropdoc , Figure 1).

Figure. The growing degree days included in each box are specific for the location listed in the box. The number in bold font is the GDDs that have accumulated between May 1 and July 9, 2020, the number after " '19:" is the number of additional GDDs that have accumulated in 2020 than 2019 and the value after "Norm:" is the number of additional GDDs that accumulated in 2020 than the 30-year normal period from 1981 through 2010. Data source: North Dakota Agricultural Weather Network (NDAWN). 2019 corn in NW MN left a bit to be desired. After a wet spring that led to delayed planting for many in Becker, Clay, Mahnomen and Norman Counties (among a few) and the cooler than normal temperatures that prevailed for parts of the growing season, the 2019 corn crop was unable to accumulate enough growing degree day units to accumulate starch in kernels.  This led in many instances to low test weight corn and discounts at the elevator ( see article ).  As it did not pa

Last fall I wrote an article summarizing an annual UMN Extension European corn borer survey organized by Extension entomologist Dr. Bill Hutchison and IPM Specialist Bruce Potter.  Some of the results of this survey and the implications for planting non-Bt corn hybrids were discussed in this article .