The Importance of Recording Your Harvest Notes

BY Dairyland Seed Agronomy Team

2023 Harvest

As harvest 2023 continues across the Dairyland Seed footprint, folks are taking note of product performance as a measure of yield. As we do so, it is important to note how different management decisions impacted yield. We all try to make mental notes, but it is often hard to recall all the specific nuances of the growing season when we sit down for decision making and strategy formation for the next year thus documentation of noted field issues is important.

We have seen note taking in many forms from jotting down observations in a notebook, digital notes in a tablet/iPad and voice memos stored on a phone. Access to these notes and the ability to recall this information can help to formulate the best plan for 2024. The following are some noteworthy topics to monitor as you progress through harvest.

Weed Pressure: Many areas experienced decreased herbicide efficacy due to dry conditions after application. Documenting fields with the highest weed pressure/escapes as well as the types of weeds that escaped is important for selecting the proper herbicide program for the following year.
Disease Pressure: Diseases such as phytophthora, white mold, and tar spot survive in soils. The best management practice to curb these types of diseases is to rotate to a non-susceptible crop but, unfortunately, this is not always possible. When rotation is not possible, selecting a product with desired disease resistance in the next best solution. Fungicide applications are becoming more common place, and these applications are not free. It is important to note fungicide impact on your crop either good or bad. In areas of high disease, it is easy to see how fungicide applications pay, but in areas of low diseases the crops are still impacted. Plant health can be maximized to the point of delayed harvest with fungicides application in the absence of disease. Scenarios like this can help with fungicide application decisions in the future.
Fertility: Nutrient issues can be hard to identify in mature crop plants, but fluctuations in yield monitors can often help us to remember where fertility may be lacking, or where a misapplication of fertilizer was made during the growing season.
Crop Standability: Late season standability and intactness can be a function of any of the issues listed above, but accurate diagnosis of why a crop may not be standing well can often reveal other issues as well. Rootworm beetle feeding can cause standability issues, examining roots in fields with past CRW pressure can help to ID presence of this pest. Soybean standability can be impacted as well, we often see where soybeans will begin to lodge or lean in areas of high fertility and organic matter and high plant density. In these high OM and fertility areas noting lodging and making appropriate planting population changes next year can help to alleviate standability issues.

If you have questions on how harvest note taking or if you have questions about what you are observing in your fields during harvest, contact your local Dairyland Seed DSM or Regional Agronomist.