2013 Trials
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The 2013 crop growing season was split up into two different weather patterns. The early half of the season, from early April through July 1, was far above average for rainfall, and it was far below average for temperature. In the second half of the growing season much of the rain shut off in areas. Thankfully we had cool conditions during grain corn fill which allowed for excellent kernel set.
Due to the cold, wet conditions, the majority of the corn was planted the week of May 13 to the 19th in many cases less-than-ideal conditions. We received some heavy rains after that period that caused ponding, saturated soils and stand loss. They heavy rains caused severe nitrogen loss and a very shallow root system on corn. This world certainly impact yields later, depending on when various areas ran out of nitrogen, and/or some of our soils became more moisture stressed. These conditions have caused extreme variability in yields across the area, and within the fields.
On the positive side, we have received plenty of sunlight and experienced little disease in the corn. The crops with adequate nitrogen, a good stands and placed on soils with good water-holding capacity have had better-than-expected yields. Corn-on-corn fields tend to be yielding a bit less than corn planted on soybean ground due to several reasons - heavy corn rootworm pressure, inadequate amounts of nitrogen and more drought stress in those fields.
Soybeans were planted over a long period of time from mid-May to early July. Many soybeans yields have been below normal for several reasons. The most critical factor impacting soybeans was the lack of rain from July 1st to September 15th. In general, the pod counts were low. The pods that were retained aborted beans, and the resulting seed size is smaller which really lowers yield. The best performance tends to be the fields planted in mid-May that caught rain in early August and were on soils with good water-holding capacity.