Skip to main content

Crop Treatments

All Crop Treatments Content

A combine harvesting soybeans at dusk.

Field Studies: Blowing the Whistle on Marketing Claims

With technology surrounding today’s culture, data and marketing information has become a key part of life. The best way to determine if a product or practice is effective is to ask for the data and research backing a company’s claims. However, before a producer makes a decision, understanding the data and statistics is key.

A wet, unplanted field with water pooling and running off into a ditch.

Is Herbicide Carryover a Concern in Wet Weather?

Wet conditions have forced the need to change planting plans. In some cases, crops are planted in areas that were not planned for that crop this year. One factor in moving crops that cannot be overlooked is carryover. Does the ground to be planted have a carryover restriction for the desired crop to be planted?

an oat field with healthy, green oat plants growing throughout

Plant Growth Regulator Reduces Height, Lodging in Oats

With the goal of reducing lodging in oats, SDSU Extension and a research team initiated a multi-location trial in 2018 growing season to study the effects of plant growth regulator (PGR) on oat performance.

Two side-by-side field plots. The left field has corn planted, and the right has soybeans.

Field Studies: Replicated Comparisons vs. Side-by-Side Comparisons

How should a basic study be set up or laid out in the field? One very common approach is to divide a field in half and compare the halves or possibly compare two fields in close proximity and see which variety or practice yields highest. This approach can end with very misleading results because of the variability that exists across a field or fields due to many factors.

a bare, freshly tilled field awaiting planting.

Field Studies: What do You Mean 5 Bushels Per Acre is Not Significant?

Utilizing sound research results to help make decisions on the farm is a wise business practice. It can be confusing, however, when you see two numbers that are clearly not the same labeled as “not significantly different.”

two side-by-side fields. The left is labeled "a". It has uniform rows and soil. The right is labeled "b". It has ununiform rows and varying soil quality.

Field Studies: Setting up a Trial

Increasingly, farmers are generating on-farm research data that encompasses a wide-range of practical topics. However, setting up those experiments so that the data is statistically valid is not necessarily common knowledge.

United States Environmental Protection Agency logo.

Cancellation of Several Neonicotinoids

On May 20, 2019, the United States Environmental Protection Agency announced the cancellation of registrations for 12 products that contain neonicotinoid insecticides. The cancellation of the product registrations was voluntarily requested by the companies that had registered the products.

Yellow and green leaf of oats. Yellowing color is a symptom of Barley yellow dwarf virus.

Barley Yellow Dwarf Developing in Oats

A few oat fields that were recently scouted were found to have barley yellow dwarf virus infected plants. The infected plants were few and scattered throughout the oat fields.

Large mass of small green insects and plant debris present on green implement.

Watch for Pea Aphid Populations in Alfalfa

Recent reports have indicated that pea aphid populations are very large in some alfalfa fields and should continue to be monitored and possibly managed.

Two photos of alfalfa weevils during different lifecycle stages. The left is the larva stage and has a longate, green larvae that looks like a caterpillar with white stripe running down the body and brown h

It’s Time to Scout for Alfalfa Weevils

The 2018 and 2019 alfalfa weevil populations were relatively low, and as a result, we didn’t receive very many calls regarding this pest during those years. However, 2020 has been quite a bit different, and alfalfa weevil populations seem to be much higher.