Making soybean yield pop

[steeringwheelholder]

What have you done on your farm to make bean yields increase? With the prices hanging above $10+, we all need to be squeezing every bean out of an acre we can. I have been no tilling the past few years but will be tilling my flat ground next year. I thought about digging the cultivator out of the shed for next summer too. We have some 30" rows as well as a 15" drill. Yield is about the same between the two. Do RR2 beans make up for the extra seed cost?

[Mike M2692830]

Not sure of what you have done in the past but I would seriously look at a couple of things here( I am a seed dealer and these are my experiences)..First, buy treated seed, I prefer Cruiser Max Plus. Select a variety with a good IDC score, cyst resistant, and a good disease package. In 30" rows plant at least 130-140 thousand seeds per acre. I had a customer plant a variety of ours last year at 100,000 by mistake and they turned out to be his best bean..it was the bean not the pop. I wouldn't recommend them that thin. Use multiple forms of a herb program, not just 2 passes of a glypho. Try a fungicide for more then one year. It never fails that the one year test never shows a positive result. When applying a fungicide, use a low cost insecticide with it. These costs can dollar up quickly but positive yield results will follow.....MikeM

[Pat in CMO]

 One thing most agronomists seem to agree on is to fertilize anually, instead of applying 2 years of fert. ahead of corn in a corn/bean rotation. The theory is that the corn will use up extra fert. if it is available and bean yeilds will suffer. As far as RR2, from what I've seen locally can't tell much difference. SDS is a common problem here so that is a major consideration when looking at seed catalogs.  Patrick

[steeringwheelholder]

Historically, I can grow decent beans. High 50's to low 60's. But I see some test plots close to me that are showing 70's and even an 81 for yields. NC IN area.

I had been no tilling 30" rows. Treated beans from 2.9 to a 3.4 maturity. 145,000 pop. 200 potash and 50 phosphate for beans, 200 potash 100 phosphate in corn. Roundup and 2,4 D as burndown before planting and roundup as post. Never tried insecticide or fungicide. Never innoculant. Tried the drill with 15" no till last year with 145,000 and it was minimally better than 30". I did chisel/f cult some and they went 6 bushel better than the no till. Flat black dirt with some clay knobs. As always, drainage could be improved. Never have enough tile around here.

I do good, but I want to do great. Thanks for the info guys.

[Blacksandfarmer]

Steeringwheelholder where are you located? My wife is from the North Manchester/ Wabash area and farmers down there can never seem to have enough tile either. It sounds to me that you are doing a lot right.... I would give innoculant a try. I tried some last year and was pleased with the results. In our variable soils the beans seemed more consistent than normal.

[steeringwheelholder]

I am roughly an hour or so SW of Wabash. Soils are very similar to what they have up there. I know them boys got repeatedly kicked by the rains this spring and had real late corn planting there. We finally missed some that they got.

Seems like a we used to hear about innoculant years ago, but not so much anymore. All the magazines and know-it-alls want to push now is strip-till, cover crops, vertical tillage, and auto steer to push yield. Conveniently enough, those products are the ones with the advertisements in there! Hmm.....

[old man]

Because of the potential profits from the high TECH fees, the seed companies are not going to put their best and latest genetics into non GMO seed