By Darren Hefty
When everyone thinks things are going one way, that’s usually when they do the exact opposite. While 2012 looked like a great year for more corn acres, high fertilizer prices and falling corn prices have made soybeans a more attractive offer than they looked back in August. However, for soybeans to dollar out well, you’ll need great performance. Here are some things to help your soybean yields in 2012.
Adopt New Trait Technologies
I had it all wrong. I thought glyphosate-resistant weeds would be the end of the original Roundup Ready soybean trait (RR1), but it’s the performance of the Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybeans (RR2Y) that has made the RR1’s obsolete. The number of RR1 beans that we’d even consider planting on our farm I can count on one hand and still have fingers left over. If you are serious about wanting more yield from Roundup Ready soybeans, the RR2Y trait is a must. Beans like Hefty Brand 23Y10 and 20Y11 have been game changers on our farm. 43Y12 has been a huge step forward in southern Missouri, and 09Y11 and 00Y12 have been outstanding further north.
Soybeans with LibertyLink technology give you the option of using Ignite herbicide in-crop. Right now, they are most popular in early northern varieties, in areas where farmers are looking for alternative herbicide technologies to break up a Roundup-Roundup-Roundup rotation, and in areas where glyphosate-resistant weeds have taken over (like in the Mid-South). What many guys are missing is how the LibertyLink varieties have performed even in the tough ground. We’re excited to have a 0.2 relative maturity bean (Hefty Brand 0212L) and a full lineup in the 0’s that handles high pH and wet soils very well. Groups 1, 2, 4, and 5 all have excellent varieties with LibertyLink technology that you should consider for your farm.
Fertilize Well
You’ve likely heard this on Ag PhD TV several times throughout the year, but a 60 bushel soybean crop (just for the grain alone) takes 48 pounds of actual phosphate and 84 pounds of K2O potassium out of the soil. When you consider a 200 bushel corn crop takes 76 pounds of P and 60 pounds of K2O out of the soil, as well, that would take about 250 pounds of MAP (11-52-0) and 250 pounds of potash (0-0-60) just to replace the nutrients lost every 2 years! Are you putting that amount of fertilizer on your ground? Not many farmers are. I bring this up to emphasize this point: FERTILIZE YOUR SOYBEANS if you want to have a successful crop. Yes, it means investing more dollars per acre, but if you invest those dollars wisely, you could see a great return.
Use Proven Technologies
I’m not taking a shot at things that are new and “unproven.” I’m really just saying to actually USE the things that we KNOW WILL WORK most of the time. Nothing is 100%. Even rainfall and sunlight can be bad things if we have too much of them. There are farming techniques and crop protection practices that work with proper management. On our farm, those things include seed treatments like Inovate, Acceleron, ROOTastic, and QuickRoots; foliar fungicide application at R3 (first pod); pre-emerge herbicides like Valor; and insecticide when bugs are at financial thresholds for 2012.
None of these things are earth-shattering discoveries, so why aren’t you using all of them when the opportunity to gain yield and profit exists? Soybeans should be a profitable crop for you to raise in 2012, but I encourage you to invest your time and resources into producing more yield and even more net profit than you usually see out of your soybean crop.