Soybeans = Serious Late Summer Draw

[farm hunter]

The soybeans have been a good summer plot all summer - but have really become the "forage of choice" - the last couple weeks. I put my Trail Cam on a few stalks of corn overlooking a Bean Strip late yesterday afternoon. When, I checked it today - it had taken all the pictures, and recorded an additional 40 events - in 16 hours!

I haven't devoloped the film yet - but will tomorrow - Maybe I'll have one worth posting?

Anyhow - I though some of you might like to see how much the beans are being browsed. In the close ups - you can see the nipped off stalks. In fact - in the back ends of the field - its just nipped of stalks (and pods - oddly enough) that are left.

I don't know how long they be on them - but its been an excellent summer plot - The deer have ate literally 1000s of pounds of high protein forage:

[StrmChzr]

i have two soybean fields on our farm this year: early beans and late beans

the early beans were planted 5/15 and are waist high and beginning to yellow

the late beans were planted 7/2 following winter wheat harvest. thanks to frequent july and aug. rain, beans are knee high.

both sat. and sun., i saw a lot of deer browsing our beans within a couple of hours of sunrise and sunset..... matter-of-fact, i only saw deer in beans fields this weekend -- no exceptions!

[RonM]

Deer love soybeans and corn,we see lots of deer damage in all our fields , the deer are in the corn too, you just cant see them, I have seen standers around the edge of corn fields when guys are picking corn and the deer get jumped by the combines. I have seen lots of big deer in cornfields. When a farmer jumps a deer he will blink the lights on the combine to signal the standers. At least I have heard that is the way it's done.....

[Dan O.]

Farm Hunter; I was just wondering what the corn heat units are for your location? I'm just comparing to my 2600 and 3300 at my 2 locations.

Dan O.

[farm hunter]

Dan -

I spent some time tonight trying to answer your question - and all I learned is "I don't know". It seems CHU is terminology used in Canada, especially Ontario, for corn/crop production - Though it does not seem to be well used here - at least not in New York State. Below is the map you probably use for CHU in Ontario:



In New York - there is alot more information for Corn in terms of GDD (Growing Degree Days). Here is a link:

http://www.entomology.cornell.edu/Ex...odys/nyGDD.gif

Maybe there is a correlation from CHU to GDD - I'm not sure - probably you know though.

We are between Utica and Syracuse - but a little higher elevation - I'd guess our GDD to be around 1800 units this year. It would seem that we are 100-200 units behind our 5 year average - as is all of the Northeast.

I checked the corn this past weekend - and some is just now starting to dent - but most is still late dough stage. We came real close to our 1st frost last night (36degrees) - We could get one any time now and we'd be OK on our corn drying properly - but I see a lot of farmers corn - that would be a total loss for grain - if we had a hard frost now.

We used 85 day RR corn, and it seemed to be just about right - though it took longer to get there this year. For us, less days is almost always better as we usually have our first frost by 9/20 and we are lucky to get it planted by June 1. We've had 105 day corn freeze out before denting in the past - and what a bummer that is.

How did your corn/crops fare this year??

-Sean