Farming Video | Soybean Branching, Fruiting Sites & Late-Season Nutrition Tips

15 Jul 255m 33s

Layne Miles walks fields in Southeast Arkansas alongside the Concept AgriTek team and Jacob Appleberry of Live Oak Agronomy to break down an unusual year in soybeans. The beans aren’t as tall as usual, but they’re packed with lateral branching and high fruiting site counts—often 25+ per plant. Despite shorter stature and fewer main stem nodes, they’re hoping to match or exceed typical yields thanks to strategic early planting, solid stand counts, and effective potassium nutrition. The group dives into fertility practices including fall litter, foliar K, and dry KCL, stressing how potassium and calcium are key late-season tools for filling pods. With night temps rising, stress mitigation and nutrient timing are top of mind as they look to squeeze out every last bushel.

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00:00:00 What's up guys? Uh, lane miles here. We're down in southeast Arkansas with my buddies here from concept ag 00:00:07 and Jacob, apple berry with live oak agronomy. Um, so today we, you know, we're coming out looking at beans, 00:00:13 just kind of seeing what we got. Notice that, uh, that we, we got some beans that look a little bit different than normal. 00:00:20 Um, we're used to having these beans that are, that are, you know, 18 nose tall, 00:00:25 but they're, you know, they're, you know, chest eye. Right. Uh, we don't really have that this year. Not just here, but in several different places. 00:00:33 But we noticed that we've also got beans that actual fruiting sites we're looking at, at well over 25 fruiting sites. 00:00:40 Yep. Uh, Garrett, you know, you're supposedly me and me and Reed, the dumb farmer and the dumb sales man. You, we do, we make all the deals 00:00:48 so y'all can come over here and, you know, make all the stuff we decide happen, make it work. 00:00:53 Kind of tell us what, tell us what you're seeing. You know, we we're seeing, we got more fruit in sight. Tell us what you're seeing and why we may have that. Yes. We 00:01:01 Don't know. Yeah. Yeah. So, like me and Jake were talking about earlier, we, when looking at these soybean plants, we're only putting 00:01:09 maybe 16 nodes onto the main stem, but I mean, he, he's got one right here. You can see it. We've got like three 00:01:16 to four lateral branches coming off of that main, uh, the main stem that has fruiting sites on it as well, man. Sometimes as many as the main stem does. 00:01:25 And so we're hoping, you know, we don't know this, but we're hoping that in the end that equates to the same yield as you would have 00:01:31 or more if you've got, you know, 20, 22 nodes on the main stem like we're used to seeing. So Jacob, you know, we, you, 00:01:39 you've been looking at not just where we're standing, but you've been looking at, at our entire bean crop. Uh, some of the things you've seen, you know, kind 00:01:47 of, kind of give your insight on that. You know, we, we planted at what, 140,000? We feel like we got a, 00:01:53 a pretty good stand on on what we had. We ended up with around 120 ish. Mm-hmm. Up this Particular field. Yes. 00:02:00 Yeah. And really would like to see more than that. A hundred, 110. But tell us kind of, you know, with that higher population 00:02:08 that we're seeing, most people want that lower pop for, for fruiting sites and branching and shorter beans and all that, you know, whatnot, jazz and stuff. 00:02:16 Tell us why you think we're seeing what we're seeing here today. The thing I'm seeing much is anything, one, 00:02:22 whenever you're starting off with a variety, you planted, you planted something a little bit earlier 00:02:25 for this particular area and you plant it early, which is always a good thing. Um, so you kept your stature of your plant down, which, 00:02:34 like Gary was talking about earlier, we're not at that 17, 18, 19 notes. We're at that 1615, sometimes 14. 00:02:40 But we've got lateral branching to create 30 plus sites in certain areas. The other thing we're seeing is the beans are huge 00:02:49 and I, I attribute that to the population being right in there on time. So instead of being that half a bushel per thousand, 00:02:55 which a lot of people are looking at for their particular yield, you might be in that 6, 7, 8 tenths of a bushel per thousand, 00:03:00 which is obviously gonna equate to a triple digit opportunity. Another thing, you know, looking at these beans 00:03:05 that I think especially with looking at seed size is the right fertility at the right time. 00:03:10 Oh absolutely. Absolutely. I mean we, we loaded up in the fall after the crop last year with litter 00:03:15 to start getting the potassium numbers up. Then we put potassium out in our foyers and we also put potassium out as KCL dry to, to make sure 00:03:24 that our loads were there to support what we're pushing for in this particular field and in the surrounding fields. Yeah, and you're talking about potassium too. 00:03:31 Like we know just for a 70 bushel uh, soybean crop for example, between the stove and the seed, we're using like 130 plus pounds 00:03:39 of potassium. Yeah. So that's important. Exactly. And we're looking at way more than 70 bushels here. 00:03:44 So you're looking at, you know, a couple hundred pounds of potassium just being carried off and we know from mineral primary 00:03:49 and secondary nutrients in the soil that you're not gonna be able to make all of that available that you have that you've been putting out over time. 00:03:54 Yep. So you're gonna have to have your potassium levels and feed it throughout the season with either foliar or dry. In this particular case, we fed it with a lot of foliar, 00:04:01 so we have high availabilities throughout the plant's life to make sure that we're getting everything it needs 00:04:05 to make pods like that. Yep. You know, we're sitting there talking about all the potassium and we're looking at beans 00:04:11 that we're really trying to feel pods read as far as from Mr. Salesman who's gonna try to sell me at something at some 00:04:17 point in time, what's something we can do do to these beans? I know we're later in the season to try to fill pods 00:04:23 'cause that's been a big topic here lately. Yeah. So I would say for sure, like calcium in general is just a natural stress mitigator 00:04:29 and then your potassium's gonna synthesize your proteins later on in the season as well. 00:04:34 So I think just those two in general Yep. Are, are gonna be major players. When you got 85 degree night temperatures 00:04:40 and that plant's having trouble to respirate during the nighttime, I think those two would be great. So really trying to, trying to push calcium, push, 00:04:48 push the K and and, and make these beans feel like they at least feel good at night. Right, Absolutely. We're kind 00:04:54 of at the end of our, our, where we feel like we're really starting to push beans, we're trying to fill pods 00:04:59 and you know, really get all the bushels we can right here at the end. Um, you know, we, you've heard kind of where we are on, 00:05:05 on fruit and sites, what we can do to, to finish out these pods and hopefully we'll see 00:05:10 what happens here in the next month or so. And what did Burke guarantee, Uh, Burke said we were gonna grow somewhere 00:05:16 around 150 bushel. Y'all think we got it? Bur sold. Bur said that. Alright guys, well thank y'all for coming, Jacob. 149 00:05:25.775 --> 00:05:28.845