Protect your Seed Investment

When you buy seed you buy potential.  Getting it in the ground is a good start, but we can’t leave it all up to mother nature.  We’ve had some weather challenges along the way, but overall, crop conditions in SW IA look pretty good.  At United Farmers Cooperative, we have the tools to help you manage that potential and get the most out of each hybrid and each dollar.  One big management item that will be here soon is your decision on fungicide.
 
Through the R7 Tool, we have access to insights that can help you make a solid economic decision.  Combined with your knowledge of the fields, satellite imagery, and Response to Fungicide (RTF) scores can give you a much more predictable return on your fungicide dollar.  We have RTF scores and local fungicide response data on DeKalb, Croplan, NK/Golden Harvest, Mycogen, and Pioneer, along with local data on a few products from other brands like Channel, Wyffels, and Kruger.  We also work with our industry partners to better understand the relative risk of disease down to the field level.  Instead of a whole farm approach, let’s target the right areas of your operation to help protect your yield potential where it makes the most sense.
 
To see hybrid/variety scores on what you planted, contact your UFC agronomist today.  The optimum window could come and go quickly, so it’s time to get your fungicide strategy ready.
 
Fungicide On Soybeans Has Shown Consistent Return
 
Soybeans have had some challenges in some areas from hail or emergence issues, but for the most part have still left us with greater than 90% of maximum yield potential due to fairly early planting. Some beans have been a little slow to take off here in June with weather stress or some burning form PPO herbicides, but beans are pretty resilient, and you can beat them up early as long as you give them what they need in July and August.  So there’s still some yield protecting we can do.
 
A lot of early planted beans started flowering around the 10th-15th of June, but to hit that R3 timing for optimum fungicide response, we’re still probably looking at mid to late July in most situations. Watch your fields for the optimum timing. When it comes to bean fungicide, the things we look at are variety response, yield potential, disease pressure, and the weather forecast. We have lots of local and national data on soybean response by variety, and can help you prioritize which ones are most likely to give you a return on investment. In addition, we incorporate technology like the R7 Tool satellite imagery and Field Monitoring Tool to see how different fields are doing and potentially target the areas of a field that are most likely to give you an ROI.
 
Other Considerations

  • Give extra thought to fungicide anytime you have a corn on corn situation, or are in a high-yield environment.  We typically see more predictable benefits due to the extra stresses and top-end yield protection.

  • 1 qt of Max-In Manganese at R3 on soybeans has been worth 1.3-2.4 bu/acre over 2 years of testing locally. That’s a $5.50-$15/acre ROI when you’re already paying for the application! We’ve seen a lot of manganese deficiencies over the past few years, and this is an excellent time to supply a needed nutrient at a critical time in the plant’s life.

  • If you have a yield monitor and would be willing to share your harvest data with us, we can leave untreated fungicide check blocks in the field to learn what worked and what didn’t. This is another way we can help you make more informed decisions about fungicide in future years.

 
We look forward to being your fungicide partner of choice for the best data, best recommendations, and best return on investment at the end of the season. Let us work with you to help make your operation more successful this summer.  Get in touch with your UFC agronomist right away!