Written by: Steve McQueen, Alpine Agronomy Manager
As wheat season slowly wraps up and we begin to prepare for fall, there are many lessons to be learned as we harvest. By gaining knowledge and experiences throughout harvest, we will become better equipped to develop solutions to enhance our 2024 crop. I would like to share a few thoughts that I trust will elevate your awareness.
During spring planting, seed varieties and fertility programs were put into place. We checked our planting depths and spacing to make sure we had even germination and emergence potential. Once we had emergence, we then moved forward with crop protection and side-dressing or y-dropping nitrogen on corn. As the spring quickly turned to summer, we monitored our crops to maintain plant health and weed control. As so many things are advancing across all our crops, we can sometimes become complacent and even skip steps that we had planned. It is during harvest that many of these skipped steps become measurable, and our harvest lessons begin.
As I mentioned elevated awareness, I would like to start with considering your winter wheat. If we had a chance to gather tissue samples throughout the 2023 season, you can match the results against your soil samples. If the soil samples are aging, there is plenty of time for an update. Remember, you can only manage what you can measure, and supplying soil applied nutrients builds the best base. It is also important to recall any insect or disease areas that may need micronutrients to improve plant health. As planting season is fast approaching, a crop plan to match yield goals alongside nutrient availability is key.
When we are harvesting our corn and beans, it is a great time to revisit stand count as well as uniformity of spacing. There are also some great lessons learned from the flag test, or just comparing plant stalk size over a specific length. 17.5’ in a 30” row spacing will give you a number times 1000 to equal population being harvested. Variation with seed cluster positioning on soybeans, along with pod counts and seed numbers per pod will outline plant stress throughout the growing season. With corn, check that you have uniform cob height, kernels around and length discounting any tip back.
These quick checks can lead to a better understanding of where we can adjust for the future. If we have soil samples in-hand, and tissue samples that may reflect nutrient uptake, we are positioning ourselves for a great start. Checking our planting success during harvest will give an opportunity for winter maintenance and upgrades as well.
With this gathered information available, your ALPINE Dealers and District Sales Managers will be happy to look at ways to reallocate your resources for improved results. Having our ALPINE Bio-K® strategies to amplify the genetic potential of our crops, along with planter programs to support upgrades, there are benefits of including ALPINE fertility products into your program. We also want to wish everyone a safe and prosperous harvest, and if you have any questions, we are never too far away.