At The Farm Gate
By Joanie Stiers
August 2010

Farmers, agronomists patrol for yield robbers

We spent much of the 30-mile road-trip to a family reunion analyzing crops through the windshield. Talk to any grain farmer, or their spouse, and they will usually tell you a farmer’s eye wanders field-ward during any drive through farm country. They return home to report their findings and make field-talk with anyone who will listen.

One could argue that grain farmers spend more time scouting field situations by windshield, foot, four-wheeler and equipment cab than any other activity on the farm. Scouting remains the basis for most of their crop production decisions, including when to plant and till, where to fertilize, tile and apply pesticides, and when to harvest. They compose mental and handwritten notes of their findings related to weeds, disease, soil conditions and productivity throughout the season, even from the combine at harvest.

A farmer once compared a cornfield to the balding crown of his head. It can look great from the front, but could look less desirable from a different angle. Thus, productivity and profit motivate farmers or their agronomists to walk miles through loose soil, clods, mud, humidity, pollen and dew-laden corn and soybean plants. The conditions of the plant can indicate enemy yield robbers that arrive in the forms of eggs, bugs, fungus, disease and weeds. Farmers and agronomists patrol fields like crop cops to find them as routinely as the weather allows.

Farmers and professionals spend the most uncomfortable summer scouting between above-your-head corn plants narrower than most hallways with leaves thick like a jungle in between. Hot and buggy conditions greet them, and corn leaves attempt to cut hands and faces like the edge of paper. The job intimidates the claustrophobic or anyone with a poor sense of direction. Each cornfield is a non-commercialized maze with no helpful signs or small prizes for encouragement.

Yet the grand prize becomes information worth the discomfort to obtain. If a field problem reaches an economic threshold, a farmer likely will react with treatment that pays off at harvest. And as harvest nears, farmers will walk into fields to yield check, or examine corn ears and bean pods to predict yields with formulas and calculations.

Meanwhile, passing motorists could assume that Illinois’ major crops of corn and soybeans just grow easily and largely unattended until harvest. Yet, if they find a pickup truck parked at a field edge, likely a farmer or agronomist chose to monitor its progress beyond the windshield.