Soybean South May 2015

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ONE GROWER PUBLISHING, LLC

MAY 2015

AN IT PLATFORM FOR AGRICULTURE: TIMELY, GEOGRAPHICALLY RELEVANT INFORMATION PUSH YIELDS TO THE MAX MARKET UPDATE

A Supplement to Cotton Farming and Rice Farming Magazines

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Contents 3 Push Yields To The Max Insect growth regulator piggybacks with fungicides at the R3 stage and may be adding to plant health in a systems approach.

4 An IT Platform For Agriculture

Back in the catbird seat of Southern crops

To avoid pest-related yield loss, growers and other stakeholders in crop production need timely and geographically relevant information.

6 Growers Looking Beyond The Basics Experts weigh in on what it takes to control frogeye leaf spot and other diseases that are prevalent in the Mid-South.

‘Magic bullets’ have lost various degrees of efficacy.

7 Product News 8 Contrasting Views Dr. Kurt Guidry, LSU AgCenter ag economist, provides a timely soybean market update.

Cover photo by Phillip Roberts, University of Georgia, Bugwood.org.

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Perhaps Alan Blaine, co-founder of Southern Imagine that a soybean is a person who upon finding himself emerging in Southern soil that had Ag Consulting in Starkville, Miss., and former recently been cleared to make way for him, he soybean specialist at Mississippi State University, might have heard the other crops whispering, “He’s sums it up best on page 6, “When I first went to work for Mississippi State University in 1987, soynot from around here…”

“No, I’m not,” he thought, shifting his big brown beans were considered a relatively low-value, eye from field to field. As Dorothy proclaimed in secondary crop. Cotton got all the attention. Now the Wizard of Oz, “Toto, I’ve a feeling that we’re soybeans are exciting.

“It used to be that cotton also got the best ground, not in Kansas anymore.” the highest inputs and the most intense But what the soybean did have going management,” Blaine says. “That’s for him was charisma – personal magnot the situation today. netism or charm – especially when his “All of a sudden, soybeans are prices spiked. He immediately became being planted on phenomenal ground, the darling of early morning coffee shop and growers who are paying attention conversations and the main character in to details such as planting date, proper tales spun by farmers who held forth on variety selection, disease management, what they had booked their beans for fertility, drainage, etc. are getting that day. yields they couldn’t even imagine a And then the lean years arrived, and few years ago. I mean, who would the price of soybeans dropped. But, have ever thought we would see fortunately for the soybean, the South Carroll Smith, Editor 52-bushel soybeans?” didn’t give up on him. Farmers kept soyAnd, today, yields have risen far beyond that beans in their crop mix, dutifully rolled their combines through the field in the fall and just shook number – 75 bushels, 85 bushels and even 100+ their heads at the 22 bushels an acre that they bushels in some cases! It appears that soybeans are back in the catbird seat, enjoying a position of brought in at harvest time.

Meanwhile, soybean breeders worked diligently power or prominence on the roster of Southern to develop varieties that were more suited to the crops.

Now when the young seedling emerges from the Southern geography, and they succeeded! Yields began to rise, and farmers took notice. They began soil, he can look around and proudly say, “I might investing in more soybean inputs throughout the not have been born in the South, but I got here as season to keep the plant healthy and protected from fast as I could!” And judging by his stats in terms of acreage and yield, I think he is here to stay, y’all. disease and insects.

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Push Yields To The Max Insect growth regulator piggybacks with fungicides at the R3 stage and may be adding to plant health in a systems approach.

Deviney begins making fungicide applications at R3 soybeans. “Soybeans are a cash crop; they aren’t just a rotational crop anymore,” he says. “So we push producing high yielding soybeans. Last year one of my customers was the first grower in the state of Arkansas to grow 100-bushel soybeans. That really got us hyped up about producing highyielding soybeans.

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rkansas crop consultant Rick Deviney always encourages his growers to push their soybean yields to the max; his producers have averaged as high as 90 bushels per acre.

Before the soybean field is planted, he always sits down with his growers to discuss their plan of action for the upcoming season.

“During winter meetings or in a one-onone setting, I will go over what we expect for our fertility, insect, disease and herbicide control programs,” says Deviney of Southern Ag in DeWitt, Ark. “I’m a full-season consultant. I start looking once the crop is planted and look until maturity.

“I make visual inspections to make sure nothing is out of whack. I also take stand counts so I’ll know if there is a missing plant and if it was because of insects. Then our insect management plan goes into action.”

Deviney scouts each field weekly after the soybean crop has been planted. “We have pests like worms or stink bugs that can get in there and really devastate a crop,” he says.

“During the vegetative phases of growth, we mainly deal with foliage feeders. Then we start looking for pod feeders because they can really do damage to yields.

“We go by university thresholds with foliage feeders. When it comes to pod feeders, we have our own system that takes a little more thought process.”

Keeping an eye in the field Once soybeans start blooming, Deviney starts sweeping every week doing 25 sweeps per check. Since he also makes fungicide recommendations, he tries to piggyback his insecticide applications with his fungicide applications when possible. “We combine our insecticide sprays with other applications whenever possible because you never want to tell a grower to spray a field one week then come back with another spray the next.

Arkansas consultant Rick Deviney’s No. 1 goal is to produce high-yielding soybeans.

“We run two-shot fungicide applications on these high-yielding soybeans so there is another trip going across the field there. We have one shot of fungicide at R3 and the other application is two weeks later at R5.

That isn’t on every field by any means but only for the producers that are interested in very high-yielding soybeans.”

Since an airplane is already going across the field to apply fungicides, Deviney sometimes will lower his insect thresholds if there is a reason to add an insecticide.

“With stink bugs, for example, often you will scout one week and have a half threshold, and then you come back the next week and still have a half threshold,” he explains.

“Over time, they can do a lot of damage, so often, you pull the trigger early on treatment.

I bet half the stink bugs I sprayed last year were probably not at a full threshold and a lot of times it was because of the fungicide application on our really good soybeans.”

Identifying hot spots Deviney covers a large area from south of Dumas to Stuttgart so he know the trends and if infestations are coming in from one way or the other. “I’ve been on my growers’ farms for five years now so I also know the hot spots,” he says. “For example, every year worms may come out of a certain patch of woods. I go to that spot first because I know that is where they have always been. You need to catch insects early; armyworms, for example, can march across the field quick.”

Another way he stays on top of insect pressure is by talking with other Arkansas consultants. There are excellent consultants in Arkansas, and by staying in touch, they can see if there is a migration coming up.

“I have a good friend who I see at church every Sunday,” Deviney says. “He works south of us, so a lot of times they are a little bit earlier than we are. Plus, there is the southern migration of many insects. We talk all the time about what we are seeing.”

Insect growth regulator Additionally, Deviney has tried a new insecticide, Cavalier 2L, on his soybeans in three trials. This insect growth regulator’s active ingredient is diflubenzuron. It has shown him a two-bushel increase at a twoounce rate.

“I like what I have seen so far from Cavalier 2L,” he says. “It’s being applied at a time when we are going across the field anyway – fungicides at R3 – so we don’t have to make an extra trip during its application. It fits our program perfectly because we can apply it with the fungicide application at a time when worm pressure is likely coming.

“Cavalier 2L is an insecticide, but we’ve always considered it a fungicide. It has an insect suppression side that has an added benefit. Soybeans are our new cash crop so we look for ways to keep the plant healthy from the time it starts blooming until it matures.

Our goal is not necessarily controlling a disease that is present but preventing any diseases from taking place to keep the plant healthy during that important time frame.

“Cavalier 2L may be adding to plant health. At the same time, it hasn’t just been a coincidence that we have not had to treat worms where we have applied Cavalier 2L. A vigorously growing plant is better able to fend off insects as well as disease so it’s all a systems approach.”

Raymat Crop Science submitted this article.

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An IT Platform For Agriculture To avoid pest-related yield loss, growers and other stakeholders in crop production need timely and geographically relevant information.

By Moneen M. Jones and Joseph M. Russo

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gaining knowledge, supporting a decision or taking some action. The most popular form of information is data. Figuratively, we can view the computers and communication equipment as pipes and data as the fluid moving through them. With each technological advance, the pipes get bigger and more efficient at moving data as the fluid.

The result is a steady increase year-byyear in the flow of data. The flow has become so voluminous that a single person today has neither the time nor the skills to process and interpret data for decision making. When the flow of data is overwhelming, people cherry pick facts and ultimately begin to make poor decisions. The flow of data is only one of many challenges in information technology.

Organize data to discover patterns A second IT challenge is the space and time nature of data. We are able to recall that some phenomenon was observed (e.g. insect) at a place (e.g. on a plant in an agricultural field) and at a time (e.g. 3:00 pm EDT). By making repetitive observations over a period at one location, we can create a “time series” of data. By analyzing this time series, we can discover patterns, which allow us to predict future behavior of an observed phenomenon.

The space and time nature of data becomes a challenge when there are different data sets. It quickly becomes very difficult to analyze two data sets taken at different locations and at different times.

This difficulty is easily understood with the example of weather data.

Let’s assume we have two weather stations at different locations far from an agricultural field. Which one would best represent the weather conditions at the field? One would guess the closer of the two stations to the field would be most representative of its weather conditions. But what if the closer station is on the PHOTOS: KUDZU BUGS, BUGWOOD.ORG; SOYBEAN RUST, USDA; MAPS, ZEDX, INC.

ood security refers to the conditions under which individuals have access to sufficient amounts of nutritious, safe and culturally appropriate foods that are produced in environmentally sustainable and socially just ways.

On a national scale, food security can be threatened by war, economic collapse, social upheaval and extreme weather events, such as a widespread drought. On a regional scale, risks to food security tend to be more subtle,

such as a shortage of a critical resource or a disruption of a distribution channel. In agriculture, food security is synonymous with sustained crop production.

While a crop failure gets headlines, food security is more likely to be negatively impacted by incremental, non-catastrophic situations. Important among these situations is yield loss due to invasive, endemic pests.

To avoid pest-related yield loss, growers and other stakeholders in crop production need timely and geographically relevant information. This information can be in the form of weather observations and forecasts, crop conditions, pest alerts and management guidelines. This article is the first of a twopart series that introduces a reader to today’s information technologies and how they can be harnessed to support the information demands of integrated pest management (IPM) and food security. Part two of this article will appear in Cotton Farming and be posted on www.soybeansouth.com in June.

Information technology (IT) is the use of computers and communication equipment to collect, store, analyze and distribute information in a desired form for the purpose of

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side of a hill and the farther one is on flat land like the agricultural field? Would the weather conditions at the farther station be more representative of the agricultural field because of topography than the closer station?

To complicate things further, what if one station took observations four times a day and the other station made observations twice a day? Would we choose the station with the higher frequency of observations regardless of its location?

Let’s make things even more interesting by taking into account the landscape surrounding the stations. What if one station is more open (not close to structures or trees) versus the other station? Is the weather station with a more open landscape a better choice over the other station? Clearly, data sets from different locations and times present a challenge that must be considered when making a decision.

Unshared data lost over time The third IT challenge has more to do with human nature. All through history, the collection and analysis of data was for the most part a personal adventure. Individuals would survey their physical surroundings and look

for patterns in nature.

Making observations in the field and identifying repeatable patterns was the basis for the scientific method. One shortcoming is that observations were rarely shared with others. From the earliest days when naturalists made surveys, there has been a steady increase in depositories of unshared observations. Today, we call these depositories “data silos.� The real tragedy of data silos is that most of the unshared data is lost over time.

Besides the added expense and time to replace lost data, there is the irretrievable value of its legacy.

The challenges in information technology are magnified in agriculture. A grower must deal with both the physical and biological properties in a field setting when raising a crop, keeping track of the weather, soil conditions, crop development and growth and the presence of pests. A grower must make decisions on when to perform tillage, plant seed, apply fertilizers and spray pesticides among the many production practices.

Each practice requires timely information that is specific to a field and in a form that can be easily understood by a grower. In summary, whatever information technology solution is presented to a grower, its data and

other forms of information must be comprehensive, integrated, accessible, understandable and specific for a particular field, crop and set of management practices.

In the second part of this series of articles, we will introduce an IT solution that is in the form of a “platform.� An IT platform utilizes computers, communication equipment and mobile devices, along with software tools and applications so that a grower can access data and other forms of information in an easy and timely manner for field-level decision making. It allows all agricultural stakeholders to share data and contribute to the generation of products that promote integrated pest management (IPM) and ensure national food security.

In a nutshell, an IT platform is the solution for overcoming the three IT challenges discussed in this article. It is also a means by which information can make a grower productive, profitable and sustainable.

Dr. Moneen M. Jones is Research Assistant Professor, Entomology, Fisher Delta Research Center, Portageville, Mo. Dr. Joseph M. Russo, President, ZedX, Inc. has been dedicated to bringing IT solutions to the agricultural industry for over 25 years.

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Growers Looking Beyond The Basics Experts weigh in on what it takes to control frogeye leaf spot and other diseases that are prevalent in the Mid-South. ‘Magic bullets’ have lost various degrees of efficacy.

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ecord high soybean yields across the Mid-South are prompting growers and consultants to reevaluate their crop management inputs more closely than ever before.

“We’re achieving yields now that no one would have even dreamed of 15 to 20 years ago,” says Alan Blaine, co-founder of Southern Ag Consulting in Starkville, Miss.

“When I first went to work for Mississippi State University in 1987, soybeans were considered a relatively low value, secondary crop. Cotton got all the attention. Now soybeans are exciting.”

Cercospora control have lost various degrees of efficacy across the Mid-South.

“We started seeing a decline of strobilurin efficacy on Cercospora leaf blight starting in 2005, and efficacy has been steadily decreasing since that time,” says Dr. Trey Price, plant pathologist with Louisiana State University’s Macon Ridge Research Station, Winnsboro, La. “In 2014, some producers had to retreat more than once with different products to keep it in check.”

Shift in focus “It used to be that cotton also got the best ground, the highest inputs and the most intense management,” Blaine says. “That’s not the situation today. All of a sudden, soybeans are being planted on phenomenal ground, and growers who are paying attention to details such as planting date, proper variety selection, disease management, fertility, drainage, etc. are getting yields they couldn’t even imagine a few years ago. I mean, who would have thought we would ever see 52-bushel soybeans?”

As crop value increases, growers are looking beyond the basics of variety selection and planting date for improved yields. Even disease management, which was once almost an afterthought, is now being scrutinized for potential tweaks. This is particularly true when it comes to frogeye leaf spot (FLS) – Cercospora sojina.

The incidence and severity of frogeye leaf spot has grown increasingly problematic in Southern soybean production, partially due to resistance issues. Strobilurin chemistries that were once a “magic bullet” for

Dual mode of action As a result, other active ingredients have emerged as essential components of disease management. In 2014, Gowan Company obtained registration for Affiance Fungicide – azoxystrobin and tetraconazole. Gowan was already marketing tetraconazole under the trade name “Domark Fungicide.”

“The combination makes a lot of sense,” says Craig Sandoski, Gowan’s Southern Regional Development Representative. “The tetraconazole component is where we really fit in terms of Cercospora. When it comes to triazole fungicides, such as Domark, the active ingredient tetraconazole is the most active of the triazoles against frogeye, and the strobilurin component picks up other diseases that would otherwise go unchecked.”

University field trials in Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi have shown promising results in initial testing.

“Tetraconazole and other triazoles have been efficacious on FLS in my field trials,” Price says. “Furthermore, triazoles have a less specific mode of action than strobilurins, which lowers the risk of resistance. I only

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Dr. Trey Price discusses tools for soybean disease management with farmers in St. Landry Parish.

have one year of data for Affiance, specifically, but it was among the most efficacious fungicides on FLS in my trials in 2014. We also had good results with Domark alone last year and in years prior.”

Those results have been documented under moderate FLS pressure, according to Price. Blaine likes the combination because strobilurins are still very effective on other diseases such as aerial blight, stem blight, anthracnose and a long list of others.

“The advantage of Affiance is that it will target more diseases than just frogeye,” Blaine says. “There are a lot of other diseases out there that I call ‘nibblers.’ They’re not readily observable to the naked eye, but they’re working in the background eating away at plant health and yield. A lot of times you don’t notice the effects until the fall.

Once you see them, it’s too late.

“Strobilurins are still going to be the base program that we use for now,” he adds. “In combination with tetraconazole, the product works on a wide range of disease problems.”

Mid-South soybean growers usually only apply one fungicide application per season, according to Sandoski. “Frogeye shows up about the time the plant goes into the reproductive stage, so shortly after, they start to make pods at R3. That’s when most of these applications go out,” he says.

“I’m not afraid of frogeye because I know it can be controlled,” Blaine says. “If you pay attention to all aspects of crop management, you can make phenomenal yields with the tools we have available today.”

Gowan Company contributed this article.

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â– Enlist Duo approved for use in additional states The EPA has approved Enlist Duo herbicide for use in additional states. A key component of the innovative Enlist Weed Control System, Enlist Duo with Colex-D Technology is the only herbicide to combine the proven performance of glyphosate with new 2,4-D choline for exceptional weed control in corn and soybeans.

The label for Enlist Duo now includes federal registration in many of the key corn- and soybean-producing states. The newest additions are Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma and North Dakota. The originally approved states – Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin – were included on the federal label when the EPA registered Enlist Duo for use with Enlist corn and soybeans in October 2014. Dow AgroSciences will continue to work closely with state regulatory authorities to obtain local approvals. Regulatory approvals are pending for Enlist cotton.

To learn more, visit Enlist.com or the Enlist YouTube channel, and follow @EnlistOnline on Twitter. ■Fungicide approved for SDS suppression in soybeans Fortix fungicide has received EPA approval for suppression of Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS) in soybeans. Its use in most soybeanproducing states is under a FIFRA 2(ee) label. Fortix is jointly marketed and sold by Arysta LifeScience and Cheminova, Inc. Fortix is currently registered for use on corn, soybeans and wheat to control the major foliar diseases. The fungicide combines fluoxastrobin, the fast-acting strobilurin, from Arysta LifeScience and flutriafol, the longest-lasting triazole, from Cheminova. “SDS is prevalent throughout soybean-producing states,� says Dr. Dunk Porterfield, Arysta LifeScience Fungicide Development Manager. “It infects soybean seedlings shortly after planting, but symptoms are usually not apparent until mid-summer flowering.�

Research indicates yield losses range from 20 to 30 percent and in extreme cases can be as high as 70 percent. “SDS is caused by a soil-borne fungus that infects the root and moves up the plant killing the leaves,� explains Dr. Jim Barrentine, Cheminova Technical Director. “Optimum conditions for the disease are soil temperatures below 60 degrees at planting, moderate temperatures during the growing season, wet weather during the growing season and soil compaction. Unfortunately, highly resistant seed varieties do not exist.�

For more information, visit www.FORTIXFungicide.com. â– Geography expanded for soybean herbicide Syngenta has announced that its new BroadAxe XC herbicide gives growers more flexibility for soybean, sunflower and dry pea weed control programs. BroadAxe XC is a herbicide combination with two different modes of action that is ideal for weed resistance management programs.

BroadAxe XC herbicide will expand the geography where Syngenta soil residual herbicides can be applied in soybeans, sunflowers and dry peas. It will provide these crops with pre-emergence herbicide activity and multiple modes of action against a broad spectrum of weeds. “BroadAxe XC herbicide has the capability to maximize yield potential through early season weed management and long-lasting residual control,� said Don Porter, Herbicide Technical Lead at Syngenta. “It is a valuable addition to the Syngenta herbicide portfolio.�

BroadAxe XC herbicide provides broad-spectrum residual control of key broadleaf weeds, including Palmer amaranth, waterhemp,

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morningglory, kochia, lambsquarters, Russian thistle (including glyphosate-, ALS- and triazine-resistant populations) and annual grass weeds.

For more information, visit the Tools to Grow More Soybeans page. Join the conversation online at social.SyngentaUS.com. â– Lower use rate weed management solution available Anthem Maxx herbicide is a new and stronger concentration of Anthem herbicide by FMC. The herbicide is now available to soybean and corn growers.

Use rates range from 2.0-5.7 oz/A on soybeans and 2.0-6.5 oz/A on corn. These rates are half the rates of Anthem herbicide that was introduced by FMC in 2013.

Featuring a liquid formulation, Anthem Maxx herbicide provides ease of handling. For example, a 2.5-gallon container could treat approximately 80-100 acres, resulting in less mixing, less cleanup and less packaging disposal.

Anthem Maxx herbicide provides strong control of broadleaf weeds such as waterhemp, Palmer amaranth, lambsquarters and redroot pigweed with long residual performance. The herbicide also suppresses other key broadleaf weeds including morningglories, velvetleaf and kochia.

Additionally, Anthem Maxx herbicide provides control of annual grasses like foxtails, crabgrass and fall panicum with strong suppression on other tough grass weeds.

For more information, please visit www.FMCcrop.com. Like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/FMCcrop.

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Contrasting Views Dr. Kurt Guidry, LSU AgCenter agricultural economist, provides a timely soybean market update.

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ew crop soybean futures prices have found themselves trading in a fairly narrow range in the midto upper $9.00 per-bushel range for much of 2015. The inability of the market to make a sustained move one way or the other can really be viewed as both a positive and a negative. The inability to move higher can be viewed as the long-term bearish view of this market faced with record supplies and stocks. The ability of the market to maintain at these levels, despite the supply and demand imbalance, can be viewed as a positive sign of the strong underlying demand base for this commodity.

The contrasting views of this market continued in a series of reports released by the USDA over the last several weeks. The planting intentions report showed a record 84.6 million acres expect to be planted in the U.S. in 2015. While larger acreage and the

potential for larger supplies does nothing to suggest this market will start to ease some of the supply side pressures, it did have a slightly positive twist as many of the pre-report estimates placed acres as high as 88 million for 2015. Next, the quarterly grain stocks report showed soybean stocks on March 1, 2015, at over 34 percent higher than the previous year. Again, while this stock number did not change the current view of burdensome supplies facing this market, it had a positive twist in that total implied soybean use through the first half of the 2014/15 marketing year was nearly 12 percent higher than the previous year.

In the latest USDA supply/demand report, South American production was increased by one million metric tons and world stocks were increased to a record 89.55 million metric tons, over 35 percent higher than the previous year. These negative market factors were countered with the USDA increasing total U.S. soybean use and reducing 2014/15 ending stocks by 20 million bushels.

So, while the market has received its share of both positive and negative market signals, the bottom line is that world supplies are higher than they have ever been. And with

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planting intentions suggesting more acres and potentially more production in the U.S. for 2015, it is difficult to argue that just a strong demand base will be enough to keep prices supported. This is without the potential of actual acres coming in higher than the planting intentions report, which is a possibility given the corn planting delays in parts of the Eastern Corn Belt. It seems unlikely that without a production surprise in the U.S. or South America that the market could expect to see the type of demand growth needed to bring the supply/demand dynamics back to one that would support higher prices.

What the strong demand base can do, however, is provide enough short-term support to keep prices in their current trading range until the market is more confident in the potential size of the 2015 crop and help prevent prices from a complete fallout if production numbers do come in as high as currently projected.

In the short term, I would expect new crop prices to trade in a range from the lower to upper $9.00 per bushel. Anything at the higher end or above that price range should be viewed as a pricing opportunity. If conditions play out as expected, I would expect prices to come under pressure later this summer and generate a price range for the entire 2015/16 marketing year somewhere in the low to high $8.00 per-bushel range.

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