Minnesota Crop News

In this episode of the Nutrient Management Podcast, we discuss carbon markets. What is soil carbon sequestration and how does it work? What are carbon markets and how do they work? What are the risks and benefits of carbon farming? What else should farmers interested in participating in carbon markets keep in mind? View the podcast transcript Guests: Anna Cates, Extension soil health specialist Jodi DeJong Hughes, Extension educator, Willmar Amy Robak, crop advisor, Centra Sota Co-op Additional resources: How to approach carbon market opportunities U of M Extension soil management and health Minnesota Office for Soil Health (MOSH) Ecosystem Services Market Consortium (ESMC) pilot project in central Minnesota All Acres for Our Waters project Minnesota's Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCDs) NRCS Registry of Technical Service Providers Carbon Smart Programming - Minnesota Corn Growers How to Grow and Sell Carbon Credits in US Agriculture (Iowa State University) --- For the la...

By Angie Peltier, UMN Extension crops educator, and Phyllis Bongard, UMN Extension educational content development and communications specialist Figure 1. Tar spot of corn. Photo: Dean Malvick Over the last couple of years, a new fungal disease has been observed in corn fields in southeast Minnesota. Called tar spot of corn, this disease was observed for the first time in the United States in 2015 in northern Illinois and central Indiana. As with any new disease, there is a steep learning curve to characterize risk factors and management strategies and field crop plant pathologists throughout the north central US have been hard at work in this endeavor.  On February 16, 2022, Drs. Dean Malvick, University of Minnesota Extension corn and soybean plant pathology specialist, and Nathan Kleczewski, Growmark technical agronomist, joined UMN Extension educator Ryan Miller for a wide-ranging discussion of how best to identify tar spot, what environmental factors favor disease and what re...

Phyllis Bongard, Content development and communications specialist Cover crop residue in corn (left) and soybean (right). Timing can mean a lot when it comes to cover crops. Drs. Anna Cates, State soil health specialist, and Axel Garcia y Garcia, Sustainable cropping systems specialist, joined Extension Educator Liz Stahl for a wide-ranging discussion on cover crop termination timings in corn and soybean and planting green in the February 9 session of Strategic Farming: Let’s talk crops! Benefits of cover crops Cover crops provide many benefits, from reducing erosion to increasing water infiltration and retention. They reduce nitrate leaching risk by taking up nitrogen and can suppress weed growth, and these functions are greater when cover crops produce more biomass. Why the focus on biomass? Why is biomass production so important? Biomass covers the soil, retains nutrients, and feeds the soil food web. According to Cates, the living roots of cover crops feed the soil microbes that bu...

By: Madeline Vogel, Graduate research assistant; Anna Cates, Extension soil health specialist; & Vasudha Sharma, Extension irrigation specialist What are soil health management systems? Soil health management systems are agricultural systems that prioritize the health of soils, by reducing soil disturbance and keeping living roots in the ground. Healthy soils should protect soil carbon and nutrients, capture and store water, and promote soil organisms. To promote healthy soil, we recommend:  Armoring the soil Minimizing soil disturbance Increasing plant diversity Maintaining continual live plant/roots Integrating livestock How can integrating soil health principles help farmers and the environment? The first soil health principle, “soil armoring,” is all about keeping the ground covered as much as possible. For example, farmers can leave crop residues instead of tilling. The residue acts as a shield, protecting the soil from wind and water and reducing soil evaporation rates t...

Phyllis Bongard, Extension content development and communications specialist Waterhemp in Minnesota field. Photo: Liz Stahl With increasing herbicide resistance and a decrease in effective management tools, weed management will continue to become more complicated. Drs. Tom Peters, Extension sugarbeet agronomist and weed scientist, and Debalin Sarangi, Extension weed scientist, joined Extension Educators Ryan Miller, Dave Nicolai and Jared Goplen for a wide-ranging discussion on effective weed management strategies in the February 2 session of Strategic Farming: Let’s talk crops! Weed management strategies Know your weeds Weed management is all about fundamentals, according to Peters. Learning about the characteristics that makes one weed different from another is crucial for managing them effectively. Identification Weed identification is not easy, since what you’re looking at in the field may be different from what you might see in a photo or in a greenhouse. Don’t be afraid to ask...

By: Chryseis Modderman, Extension manure management educator “Oh, sure, yeah, I got a manure pile that’s been composting for a few years now,” the farmer says as he points at a weedy heap that hasn’t been disturbed in years. While that pile will break down a bit over time, aged manure is not composted manure. I’ll say it again, and I may get this tattooed on my forehead: aged manure is not composted manure. I like to say that composting manure is as much of an art as it is science. Proper composting needs regular, active management with the right combination of temperature, size, moisture, oxygen, and carbon-to-nitrogen ratio to keep the microbes happy and make the piles break down into compost — that beautiful, earthy, soil-like product. Temperature Much like people, taking the temperature of a compost pile can show you if you have a healthy system or one in need of a check-up. In the life cycle of a compost pile, there are three temperature phases: Warm-up: The period from pile cons...

Sulfur study near Albert Lea in 2019. No sulfur applied on left plot. Sulfur applied in a 2x2 band on the right. By: Phyllis Bongard, Extension content development and communications specialist Sulfur (S) might be considered a secondary nutrient, but it is essential for crop production. Dr. Dan Kaiser, Extension nutrient management specialist, and Jeff Vetsch, Soil scientist at the Southern Research and Outreach Center, joined Extension educator Ryan Miller for a wide-ranging discussion on new findings in sulfur fertility in the January 26 session of the webinar series, Strategic Farming: Let’s talk crops! New findings in sulfur fertility Recognizing a change in sulfur needs Historically, sulfur fertilizer was primarily recommended on low soil organic matter soils and coarse-textured sandy soils. Then in a liming study that ran from 1999 to 2006, Vetsch started to recognize slight corn yield differences when S had been applied. One of the liming treatments in the Waseca study was gyp...