David Ostrem’s family has worked their homesteads just outside of Centerville, South Dakota for generations – and both sides of his family hold strong, far-reaching roots that stretch across the years. Back in the late 1800s, his great-grandparents on both sides of the family immigrated [...]
Please do not spray dicamba late. I don’t care if you are using safened dicamba in corn or XtendiMax or Engenia in soybeans. When dicamba is sprayed late, the volatility issues are far more likely to cup soybean leaves than when dicamba is sprayed [...]
When it comes to scouting your fields, maybe your line of thinking matches one of these statements: Something’s wrong in one or more of my fields. I have to find it quickly before I lose yield! I love seeing my crops grow and being [...]
Farmers constantly face challenges, and extreme situations sometimes call for unconventional solutions. The original author of the proverb, ‘necessity is the mother of invention’, has been lost to history, but it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to imagine the root of this phrase to be a [...]
One of the areas we have focused a lot of our attention on over the past couple of years is stress mitigation in plants, whether that stress comes from heat, moisture, or even herbicide use. As farmers and agronomists, we can’t control Mother Nature, [...]
You have to make so many decisions throughout the crop season. Some can make or break your yields. How do you make those choices on your farm? I’ll give you a simple guiding principle that governs how the most profitable farm operations make these [...]
Never, ever, ever run short on nitrogen. You and I both know if you want to maximize corn yield, you can’t run short on nitrogen, not even for a single day. How do you balance that with the environmental issues with nitrogen, as [...]
Bug problems can strike when you least expect them. About 35 years ago, we had “woolly bear caterpillars” invade our farm, causing us to spray most of our acres. I had never heard of that insect prior to them showing up in massive numbers [...]
“ARE WE GOING TO BE ABLE TO GET ANY CHEMICALS THIS SPRING FOR OUR CROPS?” That was the question a North Dakota farmer asked me the other day. Here was my response: “Oh, yeah. We should have an ample supply of everything. A lot [...]
If you’ve had Iron Deficiency Chlorosis (IDC) in the past few years, wouldn’t it be nice if you could find a way to permanently end your risk for having this issue on your farm? There is. If your soil pH drops below 7 and [...]