Do you need to plant soybeans late this year? I often do…..

You see, I’m the proud owner of some river bottom land. Every so often, there’s a flood. Some years, the water table is really high and getting into the field timely can be a challenge. It’s all just part of the deal with this type of field, and it’s also why I didn’t pay as much for it as some of the best land we farm.

DO YOU HAVE A FIELD OR SEVERAL FIELDS LIKE THIS? OR
DID 2023 JUST DEAL YOU A BAD HAND?
HAVE YOU HAD EXCESSIVE RAINS OR EVEN SOME HAIL?

There are several reasons why you may find yourself needing to plant soybeans much later than normal for your area. I’ll share some tips and tricks we’ve learned over the years when planting beans late.

If you’re planting late and your normal fall frost date is cutting your growing season short, you need to switch to an earlier-maturing soybean. Our normal full-season soybean is a 2.0 relative maturity bean. If I’m planting a month late, I’ll switch back a full maturity group and go with a 1.0 bean. If it’s later than that, I’ll consider backing it down even more.

In terms of yield potential, is there less with a super-early bean?

Probably, but it doesn’t have to be terrible. It really comes down to how quickly you can get that bean out of the ground and growing well. If you really push for high yields and performance (as I’ll detail below), you can still do well.

One thing you may consider changing is how the beans are spread out in your field. Can you narrow up the row spacing? Are you willing to plant a higher population?

By closing in the rows (crop canopy) faster, you can catch more of the sunlight hitting your field.

You also have plant roots finding more of the nutrients and water in the soil faster which is critical in a shortened growing season. For those reasons, soybeans with narrow rows and a slightly higher population could be an advantage for you.

If you’re planting late, you have very likely been wet much of the season or just had a bad storm that may have delivered moisture. As we’ve seen the last couple of years, the opposite could be true and drought may have destroyed your first planting. Either way, if you’re planting late, you can’t take a chance that disease or insects might slow down your crop, hurt your stand, or take away yield. A complete seed treatment with multiple fungicides and insecticide is still important. Naturals can be a big deal, too. Extreme weather likely negatively impacted the number of beneficial microbes in the top 1-2” of soil.

Adding more of the “good guys” has been shown to bring more nutrients into soybean plants faster, and the impacts can be season-long.

WEEDS

If you’re planting soybeans back in a field where a pre-emerge herbicide was used weeks ago, know that the residual control will wear off soon. You can add more residual at this time, but don’t get carried away on the rate if you just applied a pre a month ago.

INSECTS

Scouting will be even more important than normal. As the latest-planted crop in the area, your bean field will be a target for a wide array of bugs. Don’t give insects a chance to chew away at your profits!

DISEASES

Just because you’re planting late doesn’t mean you will miss the window for certain diseases. If your crop doesn’t canopy or get very big at all, sclerotinia white mold is less likely to be a problem. However, diseases like frogeye leaf spot are just as likely to hit late-planted beans as any. One thing to consider in terms of fungicide products to use is this — strobilurin fungicides like Quadris and Headline can delay maturity a little bit. If that concerns you, use a combination of SDHI chemistry and a triazole, like the premix Lucento, for example.

What’s your cutoff for soybean planting? This varies by location. For our farm, July 4th is generally considered the cutoff. We’ve still had 40+ bushel yields when planting that late. With today’s market prices, that’s well worth planting for us. Run the numbers for your farm to make that decision. GOOD LUCK!