We used 85 pounds of seed per acre and wound up with plants that looked like bean stalks. This year, we planted 65 pounds of seed per acre on narrow rows. Despite the effect of the dry, hot weather on flowering, the average yield for Taggart's SRVP field was 45.2 bushels per acre. Like Christa Taggart, Jennifer James was more familiar with rice than soybeans. This is a rice community, and you know that rice is management intensive.
Soybeans just seem to fall by the wayside.
But to make a good soybean crop, you have to be out there in the field just as often. Having Klerk and Jackson County Extension agent Eric Grant in her 85-acre SRVP field each week helped James identify potential problems. They showed me that there were some out there. The weeds that did emerge were cosmetic. This program forces you to get out in the field, to becor more attuned to what's going on.