DTN Progressive Farmer • 02/20/2025

2025 Corn Belt Planting Weather Outlook

Confidence levels in predicting April planting weather this year are fleeting due to a weak La Niña that is likely heading toward neutral as planters roll.
Forecasted initially to arrive last summer, this January’s arrival of the Pacific Ocean’s La Niña Southern Oscillation (ENSO) index lacks its usual strength to deliver a more predictable northern U.S. cold and southern warm and dry climate.
Come early March, DTN Meteorologist John Baranick says current weather models show colder than normal...

DTN Progressive Farmer • 01/20/2025

Optimize Corn Emergence

Modern planters and monitors, advanced hybrid genetics and seed treatments help achieve better corn emergence. However, mother nature and farmer impatience can be the most significant risk factors to corn emergence.
“Each spring, I get farmer calls about delayed or uneven emergence, missing plants or comments like the corn looks terrible,” says Dan Quinn, corn production agronomist at Purdue University. “Upon examination, the number one reason is planting too wet, and number two is planting too...

DTN Progressive Farmer • 12/20/2024

Early Planting Creates Added Challenges

When that soil thermometer finally crests the 40-degree mark, it’s hard for anxious farmers to keep from plunging corn planter units into chilly soil. But planting early can present challenges, from corn emergence to weed control.
While everyone knows corn begins germination when soil temperature reaches 50 to 55 degrees, farmers throughout the Corn Belt feel that race to get all their corn planted by May 10 when yield potential begins to decline. That gives farmers approximately 30 days to pla...

DTN Progressive Farmer • 11/20/2024

How Weeds Spread in Corn Fields

Taking notes of the weeds you see from the combine seat each fall offers a glimpse into weed challenges next spring. It also provides you with important data to how weeds may be spreading in fields and/or contaminating clean fields.
Rodrigo Werle, a University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-M) weed scientist, says step one is taking good notes of weed locations and infestation levels to understand how weeds move in and between fields. “With this information, you can be more strategic about herbicide...

DTN Progressive Farmer • 10/20/2024

Consider Cover Crops as Weed Control Tool

Growers with cover crop experience in the Corn Belt know firsthand the soil health and other benefits the practice brings. Many also see cover crops as a tool in their weed control arsenal.
In her 10 years of research and teaching about cover crops, University of Nebraska agronomist and cover crop specialist Andrea Basche believes that weed suppression can be a goal and a tipping point leading to more cover crop acres in corn and soybeans. (The 2022 Ag Census showed that cover crops were seeded...

DTN Progressive Farmer • 09/20/2024

Herbicide Resistance or Tolerance?

Identifying your weed spectrum by field is critically essential for control success. Yet, to reduce current and future problems, you need to know which weed species is resistant or tolerant to specific herbicides.
Evolving weed genetics and pollen flow across fields also help species survive. This is especially true when controlling the toughest Corn Belt weeds, such as waterhemp, marestail, lambsquarters, Palmer amaranth, and common and giant ragweed. Individuals within each species have also...

DTN Progressive Farmer • 08/20/2024

Harvest Weather Hinges on Start of La Niña

The hot summer predicted by most spring weather models didn’t happen in the Corn Belt until August because La Niña has not yet developed in the Pacific Ocean.
The global atmospheric circulation remains in the neutral position after leaving El Niño (warmer-than-average Pacific water temp-atmosphere coupling). The arrival of cooler-than-average La Niña pattern (the opposite phases of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation, or ENSO) has yet to occur, but is forecast to happen in September or October. Fo...

DTN Progressive Farmer • 07/20/2024

Stop Weeds from Stealing Nitrogen

Weeds can do more damage than just robbing a field of yield potential. If weeds get 4 inches and taller, plan on them outcompeting corn by stealing 30 to 40 pounds of nitrogen per acre, according to Fabian Fernandez, University of Minnesota nutrient management specialist. That’s not counting other nutrients and water weeds consume.
Replicated university research in the mid-2000s helped quantify nitrogen and yield loss in corn as glyphosate-resistant weeds intensified during that era. One two-ye...

DTN Progressive Farmer • 06/20/2024

Evolving Climate and Weeds Increase Corn Yield Risk

The goal is to stop weeds to preserve your corn crop’s yield potential. However, the process is often full of pitfalls as climate and weed species evolve each growing season.
Nature and farmer weed/crop management choices have increased resistance mechanisms in weeds to reduce herbicide effectiveness. Overuse of the same herbicide and/or mode of action, rate cutting, reduced crop rotation diversity, and reduced tillage have all contributed to selecting weeds that survive herbicide chemistries....

DTN Progressive Farmer • 05/20/2024

Summer Weather Outlook for Corn Belt

As the tropical Pacific Ocean temperatures continue to cool and expand, El Niño’s reign is waning. Weather patterns are transitioning to neutral conditions through June, with La Niña impacts predicted to arrive by mid-summer.
The biggest change headed into summer is that May rainfall has reduced drought area across the Corn Belt and slowed crop planting.
“This neutral transition period continues to keep rainfall systems moving through the Corn Belt at a relatively frequent pace,” says John Bar...

DTN Progressive Farmer • 04/20/2024

Optimize Timing for Corn Foliar Fungicides

Tighter corn margins heading into spring can cause a pause when thinking through crop protection inputs. But foliar fungicide applications on corn have proven too valuable to cut for most growers, especially as the threat of tar spot continues to expand across the Corn Belt.
Results from over 2,000 Pioneer on-farm foliar fungicide trials from 2007 to 2020 showed that disease pressure is the most critical factor determining the value of fungicides. When weather conditions favor foliar diseases,...

DTN Progressive Farmer • 03/20/2024

Watch for Early Flush of Winter Annual Weeds

When April-like temperatures hit in February, you are not alone in seeing some green weeds in your fields. Coupled with a lack of snow cover, these above-average temperatures in many regions could jump-start early winter annual weed growth.
That makes March critical to reexamine your 2024 herbicide plans and watch for potential insects hosted by these weeds that could harm emerging corn.
“Farmers often have a good handle on their winter annual weeds, especially in my area [central Iowa] where...

DTN Progressive Farmer • 02/20/2024

Spring 2024 Corn Belt Planting Outlook

A very different and currently less predictable spring is shaping up for Corn Belt farmers, according to weather models in late-January.
After three consecutive years of La Niña-influenced spring planting seasons, a super El Niño is peaking now and may not diminish until summer or fall. Historically, this rare and strong weather phenomenon (almost two degrees above average) reverts quickly to a La Niña.
“The speed at which El Niño decays will be a huge factor in what happens this spring and su...

Corteva Agriscience • 01/31/2024

Overcome Residual Herbicide Failures

Dry weather increased across the Corn Belt last spring, as drought and abnormal dryness ballooned from 29% to 66% in that region during May. Many farmers lacked the 0.5 to 1 inch of rain critical during this time frame to activate residual herbicides.

“In our area, drought was one of the big reasons we saw many residual herbicide failures,” says Dwight Lingenfelter, Penn State University Extension weed scientist.

DTN Progressive Farmer • 12/20/2023

Stack It Up

Keeping track of fields, herbicide-resistant crop traits and widespread occurrence of herbicide-resistant weed challenges seems like a never-ending task to avoid severe misapplication mistakes. Yet, University of Nebraska weed scientist Amit Jhala says confusion about these trait stacks among growers continues as farmers raise questions at field days and winter meetings, and through e-mails and social media.
“Most growers now select corn and soybeans resistant to two or three herbicides because...

Corteva Agriscience • 12/01/2023

Weed Control Beyond the Jug

Weed control has come full circle now that the glyphosate “easy button” no longer automatically works. The challenge is implementing the right cultural tools with herbicides to ensure current chemistry remains a viable option longer.

Corteva Agriscience • 10/18/2023

Combine Cleanout Reduces Weed Problems

Research proves that combines easily spread weed seeds across a field. However, few farmers want to take 30 minutes away from harvest to blow out biomass and resistant weed seed from the combine between fields or after harvesting weedy patches.

But will you stop to clean if:

DTN Progressive Farmer • 09/25/2023

A Worrisome Weed Problem

Your goal at harvest is not only to bring in the corn crop safely but also to minimize adding more herbicide-resistant seeds to the weed seedbank. Even if successful, you’ll still likely have to contend with herbicide-resistant weed species on your farm.   
Weed scientists place the blame on what they call a fitness cost associated with a weed species’ herbicide-resistant mechanisms. That means herbicide resistance in waterhemp, for example, that evolves target-site resistance or metabolic resi...

Corteva Agriscience • 08/28/2023

Planning for Harvest ’23, What the Forecast May Bring

Looking at the late-July weather models, DTN Meteorologist John Baranick has a somewhat optimistic outlook for the rest of the growing season – as far as the forecast is concerned, starting with a relatively normal August.

NCGA 2022 Corn Yield Contest Winners • 08/11/2023

New NCGA Yield Contest Category Targets Nitrogen Management

If high inputs for high corn
yields aren’t your jam, maybe
the new pilot category in
the NCGA National Corn Yield
Contest can help you join the band
in 2023.

To kick off its 58th year of the
prestigious bin-buster contest,
NCGA will reward member
growers for creativity in nitrogen
management and...

Corteva Agriscience • 07/24/2023

Understanding Metabolic Weed Resistance

When a weed scientist says a novel weed resistance issue is not well understood, it’s a little concerning.

Most farmers understand the need to apply multiple herbicide groups and rotate them to reduce the number of herbicide-resistant weeds going to seed. This practice reduces target-site weed resistance when a weed alters its genetic code so the chemical no longer fits the protein it was designed to attack.

However, some weeds are evolving to deploy suites of enzymes that work together to metabolize (detoxify) a chemical before it can kill a weed—known as non-target or metabolic resistance...

DTN Progressive Farmer • 06/21/2023

Improve Residual Weed Control

When Mother Nature or irrigation provides ½ to 1 inch of timely rainfall within 10 to 14 days to activate preplant or preemergence herbicides, corn wins against weeds. But what environments allow weeds to gain the upper hand, and why?
Like most years, the spring of 2023 delivered everything from cool and wet environments causing issues across the upper Midwest to more severe drought areas lingering from Nebraska into the southern plains and Missouri.
“Dryland crops in Nebraska currently suffer...

Corteva Agriscience • 04/19/2023

How the Right Adjuvant Can Optimize Weed Control

Selecting the right adjuvants can make or break the effectiveness of the corn and soybean herbicides in your weed control program.

Choosing the right product begins with reading the herbicide labels. “Every grower or their agronomist or ag retailer recommending products should review each herbicide’s label as a starting point,” says Joe Ikley, North Dakota State University (NDSU) Extension weed specialist. Labels contain specific recommendations such as types and amounts of spray adjuvants, environmental and water quality influences, and mixing procedures.

Ikley says the next step is to...

Corteva Agriscience • 03/27/2023

Sprayer Ownership vs. Custom Application

Deciding between investing in your own self-propelled sprayer or relying on a custom applicator requires evaluating multiple factors beyond how many acres you farm.

First and foremost, you need to explore spraying timeliness and labor considerations before any price shopping begins. Also, factor in which tasks the machine will perform beyond weed control, such as in-season fertility, insect control, multiple fungicide sprays and maybe even cover crop application. Do your business and team have the chemical knowledge, buying savvy, risk aversion, mechanical prowess and proper pesticide/equipment storage facility? And what about considering custom application for neighbors to reduce your costs or sharing ownership with another farmer?