Get Out and Scout!

Early-season scouting can help you identify potential issues before they become bigger problems.

- By Adrienne Held

Early-season scouting can identify issues such as herbicide resistance, insect damage, and seedling diseases.

Although it’s still early in the growing season, weed, insect, and disease pressures will soon emerge in young corn and soybean fields. Keeping detailed records of planting conditions, emergence rates, and stand counts equips farmers with expectations for the current crop, as well as valuable insights for improving decisions.

Get an Early Jump on Weeds

Early-season scouting can be a great way to determine preemergence herbicide efficacy and detect herbicide-resistant weeds.

To keep fields clean, Kevin Bradley, a University of Missouri Extension weed specialist, recommends a combination of cultural practices, such as cover crops, tillage, and weed seed destruction, as well as the use of herbicides to keep fields clean. Bradley points to the following practices for turning around weed management issues:

• Use preemergence herbicides and postemergence herbicides at full label rates.

• Use multiple modes of action.

• Apply as close to planting as possible.

Bradley has also found that troubled fields can be improved by using a preemergence herbicide, followed by an effective postemergence-applied residual herbicide.

Reduce Insect Pressure

As crops begin to emerge, be alert to the potential damage that early-season insects may cause, said Bob Wright, an entomology professor emeritus at the University of Nebraska.

“Wireworms and white grubs are common in fields that have been pasture or CRP for over a year, while winter annual weeds or abundant crop residue attract egg-laying black cutworm moths in the spring,” Wright said.

Cutworms

In years when planting is delayed, corn emergence, dying annual weeds, and black cutworm development can coincide, putting corn at higher risk for damage.