Harvest is underway

The first field for SoyMVP 2010 was harvested on Tuesday, September 7. This field was planted in Henderson County with a 3.9 maturity soybean on April 22. We achieved a yield average of around 78 bushels per acre across the field. If your yields aren't up there, don't worry, this isn't going to be the norm for this year. The Henderson County location received several timely rains that we really didn't get anywhere else in west Kentucky this year.

I'll keep updating as harvest continues.

250 acres in 11 minutes!

A new Guinness World Record was set in Winkler, Manitoba, Canada when 200 combines simultaneously harvested a single field. The combines took care of approximately 250 acres of wheat in 11 minutes. The event was held in an effort to raise money for children's camps.

Check out the website http://harvestforkids.com/ for more information.

Field shots

Just some pictures taken along the way this season...

Crop update

Depending on where I go in the state, the looks of the soybean crop can change quite dramatically. I would describe the majority of our program fields as good or excellent, while a couple are extremely dry (see below).





To view weekly crop reports, go here.

We've reached R4-R5 in most of our fields, with the double crop fields being around R2. Disease and insect pressure is noticeably lower than usual and is vastly different than what we saw last year, particularly with diseases. I've seen some SDS but you really have to look for it to find it. I'll be really interested to see what kind of effects we get from fungicides this year. We'll have several comparisons on.

Taylor County Extension Field Day

I want to send out a Thank You to Pat Hardesty and the rest of the folks at the Taylor County Extension office for having me out to speak about SoyMVP at their field day on July 20. They had an excellent turnout and I got to meet a lot of good people in an area of the state I don't get to often.

Farm subsidy debate could play major role in U.S. Senate race

From the Lexington Herald Leader

Much needed rain

While corn has been showing signs of being dry for the last week or two, soybeans in most of the areas I visit were just starting to show. Considering most of our full season beans are between R1 and R3 right now, this rain across much of the region is coming at a very important time. The replenished moisture will aid in pod set for those plants still flowering and will assist in early seed fill for those plants a little further along.

This rain event will also be a huge aid to those double crop beans that have been planted in the last three weeks. Dry soils in some areas were causing struggles in these late planted beans to get up and get going. This rain combined with the forecasted temperatures over the next few days should really make them take off.