As soybean planting dates move earlier, agronomy plans change

NEOGA, Ill. — As farmers in southern Illinois make plans for 2023, planting soybeans early is one of their priorities.

“One of the big things growers are talking about on soybeans is maturity. With growers planting earlier, they are starting to look into earlier-maturing beans,” said Josh Tooley, DEKALB Asgrow technical agronomist for southern Illinois.

With all but a few soybean fields left to harvest in his territory by mid-November — “we’re 99% done,” Tooley said — growers are making plans for the 2023 growing season and getting an early start is one of the top things they’re talking about.

But as soybean planting dates move earlier, Tooley said there are some other factors to consider.

“We want to make sure we match our relative maturity with planting date, soil conditions and soil types,” he said.

Weed control and making adjustments to herbicide applications also need to be considered since it won’t just be soybeans emerging.

“We don’t really want our highest-powered herbicide out too early, because in southern Illinois, the first week of May is generally when waterhemp starts emerging. We want our residual herbicides as close to that expected emergence date as possible so we get the best bang for our buck,” Tooley said.

Tooley works with growers to customize herbicide application to meet the needs of early-planted soybeans and control weeds that emerge on schedule.

“We are working with growers to do a burndown before planting. If they are planting early, then doing a post-residual of their good residual herbicide and possibly their XtendiMax in that late April time frame. Then they are coming back, 21 to 28 days later, with their second pass with Liberty and residual,” he said.

“Where we have that system of overlapping residuals and good, post emergence products, our growers are happy and they’re the ones harvesting weed-free fields.”

Tooley said southern Illinois had a long planting window, resulting in mixed performance.

“The early planted soybeans were above average, and growers were pretty happy with those yields, but later planted soybeans were at or below the five-year yield average,” he said.

The old adage that “beans don’t like wet feet” played out in his territory.

“We had a lot of beans that were sitting in saturated soils and they just don’t handle that. Some areas had over 20 inches of rain in 30 days,” Tooley said.

Saturated soils in July contributed to less-than-expected yields at harvest.

Tooley said even with average yields, Asgrow XtendFlex soybeans performed up to expectations in southern Illinois this year, outyielding competitors by over two bushels per acre in his territory.

“We were exceptionally happy with our XtendFlex products this year,” he said. “They’re built to yield and that is what they’re driving — yield.”

Tooley noted that Illinois farmers can now receive digital harvest results via email, including the latest plot data from their area. Visit www.dekalbasgrow.com/harvest to sign up.

This column was contributed by Illinois AgriNews for Asgrow.