HOME:
Current Soil Health News from
Hoorman Soil Health Services

Farmers are again struggling this spring to get crops planted. Depending upon the amount and distribution of rain, some farmers may be almost done while other farmers are struggling to get their first field planted. In late April, there was a nice warm stretch of weather for a few days with some relatively dry weather. Some farmers got a lot planted. Others waited. Some fields of corn and soybeans are up but with the cool weather, some are struggling to grow. For slugs; cool, wet weather with slow growing crops are the best conditions for a “ slug fest smorgasbord"! Slugs like wet cool conditions and they love to eat plants under stress. Most plants, especially corn, can out grow slug damage with good weather. Soybeans are the most susceptible to slug damage. Once you see slugs starting to eat newly emerging soybeans, it is too late because once the cotyledon ( first new emerging leaves from the seed) is damaged, the plant dies. A lot of fields have either weeds still growing or...

Brian Doughtery, a Understanding Ag consultant, says compaction is a sign of a poorly functioning soil. Soil compaction is not a natural occurrence, it comes from too much equipment (heavy axle loads, too much tillage), not enough biology (lack of roots and living organisms), and excess nutrients. Well aggregated soils look like black cottage cheese; soil crumbles easily in your hand and water and gases move freely in soil. Well aggregated soils have 50% solid materials made up of ground up rock, minerals and water with the other half being pore space by volume. Compaction just means the pore space is reduced or eliminated resulting in denser compacted soil. For good plant growth, roots need to penetrate the soil to get water and nutrients and have adequate gas exchange. Roots need oxygen produced and released by the leaves to move down into the soil to break down the food produced by the leaves. Roots give off carbon dioxide after the oxygen breaks down the food in the roots. It’s a...

Beck’s Hybrids conducts annually extensive corn and soybean research to improve crop yields. They recently released a 256-page book on their recent results. Research is conducted throughout the USA, Midwest, and Ohio.  Over 2 decades, the yield penalty for late corn planting is less than on soybeans. The most important thing on corn is getting it planted at a consistent depth, spacing, population, and under the right conditions more so than actual planting date. In no-till, having good closing wheels to close the slot is essential. Optimal seed to soil contact is critical for uniform emergence and the yield benefit was 2.7 to 5%. Spiked wheels help crumble soil when conditions are not perfect.  Becks did significant corn nitrogen (N) research. Putting N fertilizer on both sides of the seed allowed more uniform root distribution and yielded an average of 7 bushels more corn. The highest average corn yield of 225 bushel per acre over 4 years was 60# N applied on both sides of th...

Many planters and drills were rolling this week in Northern Ohio. Some had to stop due to rain, others found conditions were not quite right. Soon, everyone will be moving again so watch out for the increased road activity during this busy planting season. When the weather warms up, and there is some rain, usually mushrooms start popping up. Taking a walk this past weekend, I was looking at the trees. Many trees are very slow putting on leaves. Upon further inspection, many trees appear to be dead. Not small trees, fairly large trees, anywhere from 6 to 18-inch diameter trees. Upon inspection, 9 large trees were dead out of 12 trees in a fence row. Two weeks ago, after walking through a woods, there were dead trees down everywhere. Having walked that woods several times, these were mostly new logs, not all old logs. The question is: What is killing my trees? The answer appears to be complicated. Maybe not just one factor, but several interacting factors. In the last several years, th...