Your Soybean Checkoff

...continued from previous page the stand is relatively uniform, the field has the potential to produce high yields. If your emergence counts are lower than 65,000 plants per acre, you should determine the cause of the problem so that you can make informed and timely management decisions.

There are three possible options for dealing with thin soybean stands – leave the existing stand alone, keep the existing stand and fill-in with additional seed, or till the field and start over.

Leaving the existing stand alone and managing it is the best choice if you have at least 65,000 emerged plants per acre. This is because soybean plants have a large capacity to branch out and produce more pods per plant when given space. However, additional time and effort may be required to control weeds in thin soybean stands. This is especially true early in the season before the plants are large enough to shade the soil. The use of effective residual herbicide mixtures having two sites of action and applying effective postemergence herbicides when weeds are small are essential practices.

Keeping the existing stand and filling in with additional seed is usually a good choice when stands are below 65,000 plants per acre. Planters set up for wide rows are preferred over drills as one of the keys to success is reducing damage to the existing seedlings. Whenever possible, use the same variety or at least a variety from the same maturity group and add enough seed to arrive at a final stand of around 100,000 plants per acre. Producers that use this method need to watch the fields closely at harvest time. Situations have occurred where the plants from the first planting date matured significantly earlier that those from the second planting date and the pods opened up prior to harvest leading to large harvest losses.

Tilling up thin stands and completely replanting the field is rarely recommended. The main reasons for this are the later planting date reduces yield potential and additional costs are incurred.