Bill Pickart is one of our observers for Friday Field Walk. You can find his comments and those from five other farmers in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio each Friday here on the Website.
Corn and soybeans are both planted in his area. Corn is up and after a cool start, starting to pick up steam as temperatures warm.
Besides weather conditions, Pickart also makes other observations. One is that there is less volunteer corn in fields than he expected. Portions of his part of Indiana were hit by hail last year late and some corn was knocked off. In other parts of the state there was premature ear droppage due to stress. He expected to see and hear about volunteer corn as an issue, but so far he hasn't.
It can be an issue particularly if it was Roundup Ready corn, meaning it won't go down with glyphosate. Weed control specialists say there are several options in soybeans that will take down volunteer Roundup Ready corn, but in some situations that's not the case, especially if you came back with Roundup Ready corn after Roundup Ready corn.
If you do have problems with volunteer corn in soybeans, check with your dealer for the best product to use. If you had planted non-GMO corn last year, a Roundup or a glyphosate product should take it out. If you planted Roundup Ready corn, however, you will need another alternative to clean up what volunteer corn is in the field.
The volunteers grow in clumps, obviously. Whether or not the clumps are a problem will depend upon how many there are within the field. If it's a limited problem as Pickart has observed than it may not pay if that's your only weed issue to come back with a special trip to spray.