Tom Kelly, former Minnesota Twins manager, once said that baseball was a game for six months of the year, and a business for the other six months.Farming might be described similarly.Farming is an activity from planting season through harvest and fall tillage, but it is a business all year long.Now is the time to make sure your finances for the 2010 growing season are in order.Maintain good relations and communication with your banker.The better they know and understand you and your operation, the more they can help you.Hopefully, any spending decisions with significant 2009 and 2010 income tax ramifications were considered prior to Jan 1.
Your operating budget for 2010 includes all the usual costs, seed, fertilizer, chemical, fuel, equipment maintenance, rent, etc.Decisions for these inputs are extremely important.Now is the time to get the appropriate information to make these decisions in an informed and intelligent manner.Your Galena Genetics – North Country Seed representative has a lot of important information regarding our 2010 marketing and premium program that should be very attractive to your operating plans for the coming year.
Four conventional (non-GMO) Galena Genetics brand soybean varieties, 19G02, 21G02, 23G03, and 23G07, were added to our line-up in 2009.These varieties performed very well throughout the area.Seed supply of these four varieties for the 2010 season is good.Galena Genetics is also introducing four more new conventional soybean varieties for 2010 planting.Supplies of these four varieties will be more limited, but should be adequate.In addition, our Galena Genetics Excel soybean variety line-up contains four solid Roundup Ready® varieties.Check with your Galena Genetics – North Country Seed representative for the premium packages for both our conventional and Excel variety line-ups.
Soybean maturity
Maturity is an important consideration in choosing soybean varieties to plant on your acres.Generally speaking, for a given geographic area grain yield will increase with later maturity up to a certain point after which yield will level off and may in fact begin to decrease if maturity is excessively late.Since no one knows exactly what weather conditions will predominate through the coming growing season, it is impossible to know EXACTLY what maturity will be optimum for a given field on your farm.Therefore, it is advisable to grow 2 or 3 varieties of slightly different maturity each year in order to cover the optimum maturity range for your area.One useful strategy is to plant one earlier variety that will allow you to start soybean harvest earlier, and plant 2 or 3 later varieties that will have greater yield potential for your area.These later varieties will have opportunity to mature while the earlier variety is being harvested.Since soybean maturity, unlike corn maturity, is highly influenced by shortening day length in the fall, these later varieties will certainly mature regardless of temperatures throughout the growing season.Historically, the range of soybean maturities grown in the southern two tiers of counties in Minnesota is about 1.7 to 2.4
Conventional soybean herbicide options
Some growers have had questions regarding availability of conventional soybean herbicides in 2010.Many conventional soybean herbicides, both pre-plant and post-emerge, will be available for 2010.Be aware, however, that your local herbicide supplier may only order them if they know in advance that there will be demand for particular herbicides, and the manufacturer will only make enough to fill the anticipated demands.Therefore we are advising conventional soybean growers to order your conventional herbicides early so that supplies can be manufactured and acquired in the quantities necessary.
I have listed here some commercially-available herbicides that should be available if ordered early.The commercial names are followed by the generic chemical name in parentheses.
flexstar (fomesafen),
fusion (fluazifop+fenoxaprop),
prowl, pendant, pendulum, etc. (pendimethilin)
poast plus (sethoxydin)
thunder, pursuit (imazethapyr)
select, section, shadow, etc. (clethodin)
treflan, tri-4, trust, etc (trifluralin)
dual, dual magnum, dual II, etc. (S-metolachor)
sharpen (kixor)
optil (kixor + imazethapyr)
This is NOT a comprehensive list and I am not endorsing any particular products on this list at the expense of any other products.If you have been successfully using conventional herbicides that are not on this list, by all means talk to your supplier about obtaining more for 2010.
Please note that imazethapyr, previously sold as pursuit, might only be available as thunder in 2010.So if the chemical rep tells you that pursuit is no longer being made, impress him or her with your knowledge that it is now available as thunder.
Kixor is the base of a new family of conventional herbicides manufactured by BASF, which is available for use in 2010.It is an interesting new product to control broadleaf weeds in soybean.It can be used either pre-plant or post-emerge for control of broadleaf weeds.Sharpen is the formulation of kixor used for broadleaf weed control in soybean.Optil, a packaged mixture of kixor and imazethapyr, can be used for control of a wide range of both broadleaf and grassy weeds.
Please consult your chemical rep for more detailed information regarding kixor products or any of the other products listed above.
Happy New Year
On behalf of Galena Genetics and North Country Seed, I would like to extend my wishes to all of you for a happy and prosperous new year.
