C.O.R.N. Newsletter: 2019-15

We have reviewed two prevented planting decision tools that can serve as a resource in your decision making process with your crop insurance agent. Both tools also provide resources for determining replant decisions.

In a recent Farmdocdaily article Schnitkey, G., C. Zulauf, K. Swanson and R. Batts. “Prevented Planting Decision for Corn in the Midwest.” farmdoc daily (9):88, Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, May 14, 2019 they highlighted their decision tool.

The farmdoc tool can be used to make calculations for expected returns from three options: 1. Take a prevented planting payment and not plant a crop to be harvested or grazed. 2. Plant corn. 3. Plant another crop.

The farmdoc Prevented Planting Module is used to aid in making calculations for each alternative. The Prevented Planting Module is part of the Planting Decision Model, a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet within the FAST series available for download on farmdoc (here). The specific spreadsheet is available (here).

Iowa State also has an article and tool that can be found at https://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/crops/html/a1-57.html.

The Iowa State model can be used to determine three options also: 1. Go ahead and plant the original crop. 2. Plant an alternative crop 3. Abandon the acres, and plant a cover crop.

The Iowa State model is designed specifically for Iowa but allows you to use your numbers. The farmdoc model contains Ohio data but also allows you to use your specific numbers.

Image caption: Grazing oats planted on Prevented Planting acres in very late fall is an excellent alternative for harvesting this cover crop.

Today, as we sit here on May 28, we know three things for certain:

• Ohio has the lowest inventory of hay since the 2012 drought and the 4th lowest in 70 years.
• Ohio’s row crops will not get planted in a timely fashion this year.
• Despite improvement in the grain markets over the past week or two, for those with coverage, Prevented Planting Crop Insurance payments may still yield more income than growing a late planted corn or soybean crop this year.

Prevented planting provisions in the USDA's Risk Management Agency (RMA) crop insurance policies can provide valuable coverage when extreme weather conditions prevent expected plantings. On their website, RMA also says "producers should make planting decisions based on agronomically sound and well documented crop management practices."

Today, insured corn and soybean growers throughout Ohio find themselves at the crossroads of a decision that pits the overwhelming desire to want to plant and grow a crop against the reality that financially and agronomically it might be a more sound alternative to accept a Prevented Planting insurance payment. Adding further support to the notion that today one might be better off not planting the corn or soybean crop is the opportunity to plant a 'cover crop' in those insured but unplanted acres and utilize it for cattle feed late this fall.

Let's start at the beginning. To an insured crop producer, what is Prevented Planting?

RMA says "Prevented Planting is a failure to plant an insured crop with the proper equipment by the final planting date designated in the insurance policy’s Special Provisions or during the late planting period, if applicable." The most common cause for the failure to plant a crop in a timely fashion is adverse weather. An insured producer in Ohio can elect to receive a Prevented Planting payment for corn on June 6^th and/or June 21^st  on soybeans if adverse weather has prevented the crop from being planted by then.

You may ask why I'm discussing this in a beef cattle publication. Once the decision to apply for Prevented Planting (PP) has been made, cover crops - including those a cow can eat - may be planted on those PP acres and hayed or grazed without affecting the PP payment beginning November 1. It may take some creativity to turn cover crops into feed beginning November 1, but considering that inventory of quality hay in Ohio is so low right now, it merits consideration.

Before we go further, if you’re considering planting a cover crop that you might hay or graze on PP acres, check with your crop insurance agent and Farm Service Agency for any restrictions or timing issues you might need to consider.

While there are a variety of cover crops that might be planted and make feed yet by fall, I suggest spring oats be considered as a viable, affordable and productive alternative. Not only are there plenty of jobs on the farm aside from planting cover crops that need immediate attention, soil conditions across much of Ohio remain too wet for planting them today, most fields are plagued with weeds that have yet to be controlled, and in many cases fields are still rutted from last fall's harvest. And, if forage and not grain is the goal, plenty of time remains to get oats planted.

Over the years we’ve found it’s not important to rush to get spring oats planted in order to grow lots of high quality forage late in the summer. In fact our experience has been that we get a greater yield and higher quality feed if we wait until the end of July or early August to plant oats for forage. Without getting into a science lesson, it seems the oats prefer the cooler average daily temperatures we typically experience beginning in August, and they are more likely to not push out a seed head, but remain vegetative until extremely cold temperatures shut them down completely sometime in December.

Not only does an August 1 planting date seem to offer more yield and higher quality oats, but it will also allow ample time for fields to dry, ruts from last fall to be repaired, manure to be hauled, and weeds to be controlled. Based on our experience beginning in 2002 in Fairfield County with oats planted mid to late summer, if you can utilize a forage for  haying or grazing late this fall or early winter, oats appear to be the most productive, highest quality, least cost, single harvest alternative available to Ohio livestock producers for planting during the summer months. In fact with some timely rainfall, when planted most any time before late August, there’s an opportunity to ‘create’ on a dry matter basis anywhere from two to five tons of forage while investing little more than the cost of 80-100 pounds of oats and 40 pounds of nitrogen.

Based on experiences with summer planted oats, Curt Stivison, who initiated this work in Ohio, and I offer these suggestions:

* Optimum planting date for oats from the perspective of forage yield is not until the first of August. Early August plantings also have resulted in the highest total amount of TDN produced per acre. Later plantings will be slightly higher in quality, but typically not enough so to offset the yield advantage of an August 1 planting. While being more conducive to a mechanical harvest in early Fall, planting in early to mid July reduces both yield and quality. The earlier oat plantings also have exhibited more susceptibility to rust.

* Regardless the planting date, or variety, no-tilled seeding rates of from 80 to 100 pounds of oats have consistently resulted in optimum forage yields.

* Optimum nitrogen application rate has been 40 to 50 pounds per acre. This application not only produces the highest yields, but at current values of nitrogen, it’s also the most cost effective rate. Higher rates of nitrogen actually depressed yields in our 2008 plots.

* Over the years, many growers have been successful using bin run ‘feed’ oats originating in Canada. Most of the concerns with utilizing ‘feed’ oats are obvious: no germination test, and the potential for bringing some weed seed onto the farm. Another problem we experienced once was that a few of the Canadian oats in the “feed bin” were apparently winter oats. After getting started in the fall, they went dormant over winter, and then elongated in the spring much like winter wheat does after breaking dormancy.

* The optimum combination of productivity and quality of August planted oats arrives 60 to 75 days after planting. Apparently due to the heat, oats planted in July mature more quickly and thus, rapidly decline in quality beginning 50 to 60 days after planting in most years.

* Oats harvested 50-60 days after planting and while still in the boot stage of maturity may offer some regrowth that could be grazed.

* A weed control application of glyphosate is a necessary and cost effective practice prior to oat planting.

An additional advantage observed when using oats for an annual forage crop is the opportunity to capture the total tonnage produced with a single cutting harvest if grazing is not an option. Crops that require multiple mechanical harvests increase costs of production significantly.

As oat forage harvest options typically beginning November 1 are considered, grazing provides the most effective and affordable alternative. In 2002, locally one family strip grazed oats all winter and actually began the calving season on them before the oats ran out in mid March.

Dry baling oats in the fall has been done around Ohio, but it’s a challenge considering that oats will dry less than half as fast a grass hay. Cut in November, oats typically require at least two weeks or more to cure. Wet wrapping them is an expensive alternative. Using an in-line bale wrapper/tuber is a little less expensive per ton than individually wrapped bales if the equipment is available locally.

Oats won’t die until temperatures have been in the mid 20’s for several hours. That means they’ll still be green and alive in December most years in Ohio. When they finally freeze, and if it’s not a wet winter, growers may be able to let them die and dry while standing, get a few days of dry frozen weather in January, mow them, rake them and quickly bale them after they’ve essentially cured while still standing.

In Canada, growers have sprayed their oats with glyphosate and let them dry out while standing. Then, after a few weeks and at a time when they get a dry week, they mow, rake and bale them all in a day or two. Locally, that’s been done once that I know of which allowed the oats to be baled in late December and January.

If grazing the standing oats is not an opportunity, while not presently approved by RMA as an alternative for cover crops grown on Prevented Planting acres, perhaps chopping and ensiling oats is the best alternative for harvest. This offers several advantages over baling or wet wrapping. Obviously the issue of curing the plants for dry harvest becomes a moot point. Chopping and ensiling into either a permanent structure or bags is also likely less expensive than wet wrapping individual bales. Perhaps even better, as detailed by Francis Fluharty a few years ago, chopped forages are 30 to 60% more digestible than long stem forages.

Admittedly chopping and ensiling is likely more expensive than rolling dry hay, but when you consider you get essentially no storage losses, the timeliness of harvest which is afforded, and the more digestible feed which results, it’s a good alternative. And if you’re able to bunk feed the chopped and ensiled oats, there will be no “bale ring” feeding losses to be experienced.

Keep in mind, if you plan to accept a full Prevented Planting Crop Insurance payment, cover crops can't be hayed or grazed until November 1. For more information on making the Prevented Planting decision, you may review this recent post from the University of Illinois farmdocdaily entitled Prevented Planting Decision for Corn in the Midwest.

During the winter of 2013 Ohio Forage and Grassland Council Annual Meeting, I was invited to share the presentation found here on YouTube: https://youtu.be/yW124VH6R6M, which includes a number of photos, about our past experience of growing oats late in the summer for forage. Oats, planted late in the summer, could indeed offer a productive and high quality forage alternative on insured Prevented Panting acres!

For additional information on beef cattle production in ohio, visit: http://u.osu.edu/beef/

Across the state, soybean planting is still on-hold due to continued wet weather. A few weeks ago, I wrote an article on recommendations for June-planted soybeans: https://agcrops.osu.edu/newsletter/corn-newsletter/2019-12/recommendations-late-planted-soybeans You can also find recommendations for late-planted soybeans in the Ohio Agronomy Guide available to download as a pdf here: https://stepupsoy.osu.edu/soybean-production/ohio-agronomy-guide-15th-edition (click on the picture of the guide to download).

I think June-planted soybeans still have a great deal of yield potential; however, it will depend on how the rest of the year turns out. (Will there be water limitations during pod-setting and seed fill? Will we have an early frost?)

Figure 1. Effect of soybean planting date on soybean grain yield at the Western Agricultural Research Station (WARS) (Clark County) in 2013 and 2014 and the Northwest Agricultural Research Station (NWARS) (Wood County) in 2014.

In Clark County at the Western Agricultural Research Station (WARS), we have observed a 0.6 bu/acre/day reduction in soybean yield (see Figure 1). Soybeans planted on July 2, 2013 yielded close to 60 bu/acre and soybeans planted on July 1, 2014, yielded close to 50 bu/acre. Interestingly, in Wood County at the Northwest Agricultural Research Station (NWARS) in 2014, yield was just over 50 bu/acre regardless of planting date, which spanned from May 8 to June 18. I’ve summarized some of our other late-planted soybean yield data in the table below.

We’re running about a month behind in many cases, and with respect to weeds we are a month later than normal in implementing herbicide programs.  The most important thing to know about this is that we are well into the period of summer annual weed emergence, most of which occurs between early May and the end of June, which overall shortens the period of weed control that we need and allows earlier application of POST herbicides.  There are some advantages to this - here’s what it means for those fields just planted or that will still be planted within the next couple weeks:

Because we are this late, the burndown has become a major part of what is usually our in-season herbicide program, and is taking care of a good portion of the summer annuals that residual and POST herbicides would usually control.  The big glaring issue at this time is nasty burndown situations, and we provided some suggestions for this in previous articles.  Lots of pretty yellow fields due to cressleaf groundsel.  Keep in mind that this and other winter annuals that have flowered are ending their life cycles, so they have died or started dieing on their own anyway.  Focus should be more on the large giant ragweed, lambsquarters, marestail, etc that are present.  We are also late enough that waterhemp is part of the burndown mix in come fields.  Don’t skimp.

Herbicide programs do not have to last as long in crops planted late.  When we plant in early May, we need an herbicide program that controls weeds from then until the end of June or so, which is in part why we use residual herbicides and frequently apply POST herbicides 5 to 6 weeks after planting.  Applying the POST too early in a crop planted in early May introduces the risk of poor control of weeds that emerge soon after that application, before the crop is developed enough to control them on its own.  This is much less of an issue with a late-planted crop.  Since summer annual weed emergence tapers off as we move through June, the POST herbicides can be applied much sooner after planting without sacrificing control.  Planting soybeans this late can therefore allow earlier POST applications when weeds are small – more like 3 weeks after planting.  This can help minimize carryover concerns with fomesafen, and also provide a wider window to look for the right conditions to apply dicamba (see below). 

In studies of reduced-rate POST applications that we conducted a couple decades ago, planting soybeans in late May or early June allowed us to use earlier POST applications (e.g 21 days after planting) at lower rates and still maintain control.  There were just fewer weeds emerging after planting and the duration of weed emergence after planting was also shorter.  It was not possible to achieve this in early-planted soybeans – we needed either two applications at reduced rate or a later application at full rates for control. 

One issue with later POST sprays is the potential for herbicide carryover from products such as mesotrione and fomesafen (Flexstar, etc), among others.  Fomesafen carryover has been rare in the state but risk increases with later applications, especially if rainfall subsequently becomes limiting.  Where glyphosate and fomesafen are being combined in a late POST application to control ragweeds, it may become necessary to replace the fomesafen with lactofen (Cobra/Phoenix) as applications move into July.  Our research indicates that the lactofen products are less effective than fomesafen in this mix by about 10 to 20%.

Another concern would be POST applications of dicamba on Xtend soybeans shifted later into the hotter weather that occurs as we move from June into July.  The consensus of the weed science community is that both of the approved dicamba formulations have potential to move via volatilization, and the risk of this would increase with increasing temperatures and increased frequency and duration of inversions.  The current long-range forecast also indicates a trend for hotter than normal temperatures as we move into mid-summer.  Current labels allow application through 45 days after planting or prior to the R1 stage, whichever occurs first.  For soybeans planted early, the 45-day limit is often the main determinant, but later planted soybeans progress through growth stages more rapidly so the R1 stage may be the more frequent limitation.  Movement of dicamba onto other types of soybeans later in summer also has increased potential to reduce yield, since long-term effects of exposure to dicamba are more severe when soybeans have flowered.  Bottom line here is that there is less weather and time suitable for dicamba application with late-season applications, and movement and injury that does occur can have more substantial impact.  Planting within the next couple weeks and looking for the right conditions to spray starting about June 21 would provide more flexibility with regard to weather and weed size than deciding to wait until about July 10 to spray when it’s hotter and weeds are already large. 

Can residual herbicides be omitted in late-planted soybeans?  Maybe.  Reduced weed populations could make this more feasible, but we really hesitate to recommend it.  Omitting residuals is never the right thing to do in fields with a history of weed control problems or high weed populations, or those with waterhemp and Palmer amaranth.  One advantage of omitting residuals would less risk of antagonism with burndown herbicides in mixtures.  Applying certain soybean residuals in June can increase risk of carryover.  The effectiveness of current soybean herbicide-tolerance trait systems makes this more of a possibility, but lack of residuals generally increases risk of problems and selection for resistant weeds, and makes timing of POST herbicides more critical.  The latter point is important because with a compressed season, applicators can be required to cover a lot of acres within a short period of time.  Keeping residuals in the program allows for more flexibility overall.

In late-planted corn, residual herbicides may be effective enough to reduce need for POST herbicides.  Or the residuals could be applied early POST, after the rush to plant is over (keeping rotation guidelines in mind).  Some corn fields are already in this situation, planted without any herbicide applied yet.  The table below shows restrictions on POST use of residual corn herbicides (source – U of Illinois).  This information can also be found in the herbicide descriptions in the Weed Control Guide , and is also summarized in this PSU newsletter article and this table from the MSU weed control guide.  Reminder that use of 28% UAN as a spray carrier is prohibited for POST application of herbicides with the exception of Degree Xtra.