Scout Your Fields for Healthy Seedlings and Successful Crops

MIKE MULLINS

 MISSOURI 

With most seed in the ground by now, it’s time to get in the fields for early season scouting to monitor the emergence and eventual growth of the crop. A successful stand establishment of a corn crop depends on several factors, starting with the emergence of the seedlings. It’s also important to keep an eye out for common symptoms associated with seedling diseases. Here are some helpful tips and situations to look out for while doing early season scouting. 

 Make sure that before heading out into the field, you take a tape measure for checking stand counts. Another tool that might be good to have in your back pocket is a seed digger in order to inspect for seedling diseases.

While scouting, it’s important to know what a healthy plant looks like in order to identify seedling diseases. Healthy color and growth patterns indicate a healthy crop. While scouting for seedling diseases, be on the lookout for yellowing, wilted, stunted, dead or missing plants. Look for discolored or rotten mesocotyls, seminal roots and nodal roots in corn crops. In soybeans, look for seedlings that can be pulled out easily from the soil, are discolored or have rotting root tissue, or have lesions that form on the taproot or hypocotyl. These issues are all common symptoms of seedling diseases. 

Diagnosing a specific seedling disease can be difficult because symptoms are very similar. The best way to positively identify the cause(s) of the problem is to send samples of the diseased plants to a plant diagnostic clinic that offers microscopic examination and other laboratory analyses of diseased seedlings. 

As the growing season gets underway in Missouri, farmers can consider these tips to enhance yield potential. Once seeds have emerged, farmers need to be scouting their fields and taking stand counts to check the actual stand versus what the planter was set at to get a feel of what to expect for the growing season. As the season continues, if nutrient deficiencies are detected, extra fertilizer may be applied to keep on track with the yield goal that is desired. Fungicide application to the crop can also help protect yield if foliar diseases start to show up.

There are online tools available at Channel.com to help farmers evaluate the benefits of inputs, including a profitability calculator and a Population Optimizer tool. Using the recommendations from these tools and working with your Channel Seedsman can help maximize the potential of your Channel^® products. ∆

Mike Mullins, Channel Technical Agronomist