Post-Harvest Activities to Consider
It is nearly September, and soybean harvest is well under way in the Midsouth. The Aug. 26 NASS report estimates that 2%, 23%, and 7 % of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi soybeans have been harvested, respectively. These estimates are slightly above the 5-year average harvest progress for each state.
Thus, now is a good time to take note of the resources on this website that provide information to use as you consider some of the activities that may be or should be on your list of things to do following harvest of this year’s crop.
Soybean Storage
Are you planning to store your harvested soybean crop on-farm? If so, check out the University of Arkansas–Division of Agriculture’s publication “On-Farm Soybean Drying and Storage” for complete guidelines that you can use to ensure proper handling and storage of harvested soybeans. Also look over the blogentitled “Soybean storage profitability and marketing strategies” that summarizes results from an MSPB-funded study pertaining to options producers can use to take advantage of higher prices for soybeans that are forward-contracted for spring or summer delivery.
Soil Sampling
Soil sampling and testing are activities that should be done soon after harvest so that an accurate determination of soil nutrient levels and possible nematode infestations can be made in preparation for next year’s crop. For a complete guide to this process, check out the information in “Sampling Soil for Fertility and Nematodes” White Paper on this website.
Doublecropping
Some of Midsouth’s crop acres will be devoted to doublecropping, which in most cases will involve planting wheat behind a summer crop, usually soybeans. The perceived general and subjective advantages of doublecropping are:
• Increased cash flow that results from having income from two crops in one 12-month period;
• Reduced soil and water losses by having the soil covered with a plant canopy most of the year (in effect a cash cover crop);
• More intensive use of land, machinery, labor, and capital investments; and
• Harvesting more of the solar radiation available in a given year by deploying two crop canopies.
Doublecropped acres in the Midsouth have declined in recent years, but there will still be a significant acreage that could be planted to wheat this fall. For details, production guidelines, and links to useful references on this subject, go to the Doublecropping White Paper on this website.
Cover Crops
Some producers may be considering seeding cover crops following harvest of the summer crop. Cover crops are grown in most cropping systems to provide environmental and soil productivity benefits. Thus, integrating cover crops into a crop production system should be considered a long-term investment for conserving and/or improving soil and water resources. The benefits arise from:
• Providing soil cover to prevent erosion in the off-season;
• Increasing water infiltration into the soil;
• Providing plant residues to increase soil organic matter;
• Reducing nutrient loss and leaching from the soil profile and/or lowering residual soil nitrogen (N);
• Reducing herbicide runoff in a corn–soybean rotation;
• Suppressing or reducing fall- and spring-emerging weeds and weed biomass; and
• In the case of legume cover crops, increasing N supply for the following summer grain crop that is grown in a biennial rotation with soybean.
For a detailed discussion of cover crops and their utility, plus links to many useful references with information about all phases of this practice, go to the Cover Crops White Paper on this website. Also check this article that provides insights into how residual herbicides might affect fall-seeded cover crops.
Fall Weed Control
This practice is being increasingly used to manage herbicide-resistant (HR) weeds that will emerge in the fall. Click here and here for articles that provide guidance that can be used to determine whether or not a fall weed control program might be a practice worth considering to assist with next year’s pre- and in-crop weed control program. The USB has posted “Five tips for fall herbicide applications” that provides points to consider when contemplating this option.
Harvest Weed Seed Control (HWSC) measures have been developed that target destruction of seeds of escaped weed plants at harvest in order to minimize new inputs into the soil weed seedbank. The adoption of such control measures during harvest may be a viable option in the near future.
Fall Tillage
The Tillage White Paper on this website provides an overview of tillage operations, including fall tillage, that may be an option for producers with certain soil types or soil physical problems.
A PMN Webinar gives an excellent overview of using a bed system for soybean production in the Midsouth. Using a bed system may be especially advantageous for ESPS plantings and for irrigated plantings made on the cracking clay soils in the Midsouth.
Click here and here for results from Mississippi research where fall deep tillage was evaluated on clay soils.
As producers know from past experience, the best time to start preparation for next year’s soybean crop is now. The above references and resources will provide you with much of the information you need to make decisions about fall activities that can be conducted to enhance crop success the following year.
Composed by Larry G. Heatherly, Sept. 2018, larryheatherly@bellsouth.net