OCTOBER SOYBEAN NEWS LETTER
October 1, 2007
Prepared by John M. Woodruff
Crop Update: Most Georgia soybean fields are now one to three weeks away from
maturity. Farmers have been active spraying for foliage and pod feeding insects.
Soybean rust was identified in several areas and some foliar fungicides were applied.
Overall, this disease was not a major problem for the 2007 crop.
NASS says that Georgia farmers planted about 225,000 acres of soybeans and
will harvest about 205,000 acres. The state average yield is forecast at 28 bushels/A. If
achieved, this will be remarkable considering the extremes of drought and heat that
occurred during the growing season.
There are several noteworthy things about the 2007 Georgia soybean crop:
1) In spite of the hot, dry summer, general rains came at critical times (in early June
for helping get fair stands, in late July for getting needed canopy growth, and in
late August and September for getting pod fill).
2) About 75 percent of the 2007 soybean crop is “double cropped” behind small
grain.
3) About 99 percent of the state crop was planted to Round Up Ready varieties.
4) About 80 percent of the crop was planted to late maturing (MG VII & VIII)
varieties.
5) About 95 percent of the crop received damaging levels of foliage and pod feeding
insects (Soybean loopers were very destructive in Coastal Plain fields).
6) About 70 percent of the crop was strip and/or no-till cultured.
7) About 20 percent of the crop was irrigated one or more times
Soybean loopers were more destructive to soybeans than for any other year that I
can remember. Their growing populations in past years have often been checked by
fungus and virus diseases. That generally did not happen in 2007.
2008 Soybean Education Opportunities:
1) GA/FL Soybean/Small Grain Expo, Jan 29 (Details on program and location will be
provided soon).
2) A new publication “Double Cropping Soybeans in Georgia” is being prepared by
the UGA Soybean Extension Team and should be available by January.
3) County Soybean Meetings: The UGA Soybean Extension Team is preparing a 2008
Soybean Update power point presentation. The program is about one hour in length.
We will be glad to offer this instruction for county meetings. Please contact my
secretary, Sara Cates (229/386-3006) for scheduling a meeting. She will have the Team
calendar with available dates for participation.
4) A power point presentation “Ten Steps to High Soybean Yields and Profits” will be
posted on the UGA soybean website for county agent use. This presentation should be
available for down loading by Jan. 08.
2007 Georgia Soybean Production Efficiency Contest
Who does the best job growing soybeans? Most of you have growers with one or
more impressive soybean fields. Their efforts may be the best in the state or your
Extension district. Why don’t you find out by encouraging them to enter the 2007
Georgia Soybean Production Efficiency Contest? In addition to awards, the contest
provides growers a good way to learn how different crop inputs affect production
efficiency and ways to increase profits with future crops.
Forms for entering the 2007 Georgia Soybean Production Efficiency Contest can
be down loaded from the main page of this web site.
Calculating Soybean Production Efficiency
Soybean production efficiency is the cost incurred for growing each bushel of
soybeans. It is determined by dividing the total costs per acre by actual yield (bu/A).
Generally, soybean profit is closely associated with soybean production efficiency.
Studying soybean production efficiency can give insight to ways to improve
efficiency and also, to determine if soybeans can be grown profitably with given market
prices, yields and expected production costs.
A form for recording soybean inputs, operations, and efficiency is posted on this
web site.