0:05
Wonderful.

0:05
Thank you, Melissa.

0:06
Thank you for joining the program today.

0:09
I’m taking a little bit time out of your valuable schedule to be with us today.

0:14
So to end the program, I’d like to talk about some considerations for making that seed selection for 2026, maybe some things that you know, you think about during the process, but let’s try to get some of those out there.

0:26
Now often times some of those early rebates, you know, for making that seed selection are are coming earlier and earlier.

0:34
We probably need to be thinking about that a little bit when we’re, you know, in the combine and harvesting the 2025 crop actually.

0:41
All right.

0:42
So a few things that I would like to discuss.

0:44
Talk a little bit about the hybrid and variety selection and what we’re going to discuss there is some of the tools that are available through the Badger Crop Network.

0:54
I believe we’ve talked about this throughout the year.

0:57
This is a newer place where for information is available between our agronomy specialist at UW Madison and our crop protection specialist.

1:09
So kind of a one stop shop, pretty easy to navigate.

1:13
So I just put the one link on there, badgercropnetwork.com.

1:17
Once you get in there, you know you’ll be able to navigate around if you’re looking for information on corn or soybean variety trial results, weed management trials and results or else any of the work that Damon Smith does on the disease management side.

1:35
So making that selection, you know, for which hybrid or which variety is going to be, you know, that baseline decision making point for our farm, the genetic variability, the genetic potential of that of that specific seed is really what we’re trying to, you know, give you recommendations for based off of the varieties and hybrids that are entered into the state trials each year.

2:00
Then next we’ll discuss some results.

2:03
I guess I’ll kind of share with some of the results of the 2025 pest management trials are it’s a place where we can go and look for some information on, you know, which herbicides were effective on certain weed populations.

2:18
And then think about, you know, what are some of those main risks in our fields for the upcoming year when we are doing that harvest this fall?

2:26
You know, what are some of the weed escapes that we still see out there in the field that we maybe need to, you know, put a little bit more emphasis on for next year when it comes to, you know, selecting A herbicide, selecting a herbicide program that could help, you know, mitigate some of that seed for production for those specific weed plants.

2:46
And then, you know, thinking about anticipating the 2026 pest pressure really is, you know, almost impossible to completely anticipate that.

2:56
But there are some tools that we have.

2:58
There’s some things we can be thinking about now.

3:00
There’s a few pests that will kind of show their hand, you know, the year ahead of time.

3:06
So we’ll talk about that just a little bit hopefully to help with your selection for seed for next year.

3:15
So to begin with, we’ll quickly go through the three different, the main variety and hybrid trials that are available through UW Madison.

3:24
The first one being the small grains variety performance trial.

3:28
So I just took a snapshot of these are current 2025 information here that is available on the Badger Crop Network right right here today.

3:40
But the snapshot that I took kind of gives that overall look at the four main research sites of the small grain trials, those being Arlington, Fond du Lac, Random Lake and Waterloo.

3:53
So you can see those across the top of that graph.

3:56
And then on the far left hand side is the four test averages.

4:00
So meaning that the same variety, the same small grain variety, wheat variety was entered in all four of those locations.

4:09
That yield was then averaged and made available, you know, on that four sites average for us to take a look at.

4:18
One, one thing to also take away from this is we might see some different values from different yield potentials for some of the hybrids or some of the varieties in this setting.

4:29
But any variety that has a star next to it, meaning that that’s yielding that there is not a significant difference between that and the highest yielding variety in the in the trial.

4:43
OK, so you’re using, using this tool and there’s a long, a long list of, of varieties that are in here.

4:51
Again, I just took a quick snapshot as an example today of you know what is out there for us to look at if we still are making some of those selections for winter wheat for this year.

5:04
And then on the bottom of this of this slide is some information on the quality of the grain, different years, Shawn will work with Damon’s lab and they’ll, you know, look at different diseases in the field.

5:18
This year.

5:19
They looked at the cephalosphorium stripe and gave a rating there.

5:24
It seemed to be a little bit more prevalent this year.

5:28
So all the varieties were rated for that disease, but there’s some quality information there, test weight information.

5:35
And then if these same varieties were in the 2024 trial, that information is there as well on the right hand side of that, of that graph and the same thing up above on the yield side.

5:49
So a, a good, a good tool for us to go to, you know, we maybe have some on farm experience or, you know, maybe our neighbor grew a certain wheat variety that did really, really well this year.

5:59
This is a chance to go and look and see, OK is, was that variety entered in the state trial?

6:05
If it was, you know, how did that compete and how did that perform at these four different sites?

6:13
OK, so a little bit on soybeans.

6:15
This is the 2024 snapshot of that of that performance trial.

6:21
This is set up a little bit different, a few more locations than they’re, they’re grouped by the zone within the state.

6:29
So what I what I’m sharing here in this graph is the Arlington and Platteville sites.

6:34
So down in the South southern part of the state, you have that two site average on the far left hand side to kind of, you know, broaden out, you know, how does this how does this variety, you know, perform across a little larger area?

6:49
And then as you go across to the right hand side of this chart, you can see some of the quality information for those different soybean varieties.

6:57
And again, you know, use that, use that star to help identify, you know, we see a couple that are 79 bushels, a couple that are 82, one that’s 80.

7:09
We can consider that those are all, you know, performing within the best variety in the trial.

7:16
And again, once you look at this information, you’ll see it’s available for the different zones throughout the state.

7:22
It’ll also be available for glyphosate tolerant versus conventional varieties.

7:29
So depending on you know what market you’re trying to grow for, it’ll be this trials are based based on that and the weed management was such, you know, you can compare that back for your own, for your own farm.

7:43
And finally, the corn variety trial, this one is I would say most similar to the soybean trial.

7:50
It has those zones again throughout the state.

7:55
This one, you can see it, it’s from Arlington and Janesville are the two sites.

7:59
They’re abbreviated across the top for 2024 or 2023.

8:04
There was a site in Montford as well.

8:07
So we’ll see in 2025.

8:09
You know which sites Harkirat has when she has that report out for us.

8:15
A little bit different though in that there’s a performance index that’s been used in this trial for years and that index is on the left hand side of the slide.

8:26
So it takes into account 50% is yield, 35% is moisture and then 15% is standability.

8:35
OK, So you not only do you have the yield, you know, with an asterisk to say yes, that performed within the highest hybrid in the trial, but you also have a performance index to get an idea on, you know, how is that crop going to dry down?

8:51
What’s the stand ability?

8:52
What’s the stock quality of that of that crop in general terms, right.

8:57
To just add a little bit more to the value of, you know, picking a hybrid out of the state trial and expecting that to perform well on your on your farm.

9:09
OK, So also on the Badger Crop Network, I took a snapshot here of the 2024 weed control trial.

9:18
So this is a place to go through and look for, you know, different herbicide activities, the the efficacy of those trials, how those work to different sites across the state.

9:30
So expect this to be updated, you know, for the 2025 information when that when that comes.

9:39
And then also the same thing on the crop diseases and management for Damon Smith’s lab.

9:44
This is on the Badger Crop Network as well.

9:47
You just got to pick that red box here that says latest fungicide test summary.

9:52
That will also be the 2024 data at this point, but the new data will be will be coming soon.

9:59
So why do I, you know, talk about that and share some of that information again, that that baseline decision that we all are making at this time is what is that genetic potential of the seed that we’re going to select.

10:16
So whether it’s that corn, hybrid, wheat or soybean variety, but then also we’re also selecting the different traits that come along with that.

10:24
So having an understanding of what the weed management stresses are in our own fields, what the insect stresses might be, what are some of the disease pressures that we’ve had or that we might have.

10:36
Oftentimes when we’re selecting that seed, we’re selecting how we’re going to manage that from a pest management standpoint as as well, and I think that’s a piece that I’d like to build out here for the rest of our time together.

10:51
To begin with that though, it really comes down to having that foundational crop scouting knowledge.

10:58
There’s a group of educators that put together a series that I would recommend you go and take a look, look, look at.

11:04
There’s six different videos that were recorded last year that can really help brush up some of our skills when it comes to crop scouting.

11:13
You know, some of the things that we saw this year, some of the things that we might see next year.

11:18
You know, understanding what the risk of pest pressure is in our fields, the fields that we’re consulting for, is really the baseline when it comes to making those decisions on what types of traits, what types of herbicide tolerances that we want to have when we’re making that seed selection.

11:38
So insect pressure, I like to think about, you know, what’s the crop rotation on that field.

11:44
We can often times alleviate a lot of risk, you know, for insect pressure next year by rotating to a different crop.

11:52
You know, is there an established population, are we in a corn on corn setting where we have corn rootworm established population in that field that we need to think about how we’re going to manage that, you know, either through a trait when we’re selecting our hybrid or using another type of management practice or is there a migrating population?

12:14
And we’ll see a slide here coming up where Emily Bick’s lab is doing some work on doing some insect pest alert techs that are are helping us with the the moths that are flying into the state each year.

12:26
And what is the risk for that year’s crop?

12:29
Weed pressure, crop rotation is a big piece there.

12:33
Again, are we growing similar crops that have similar growing seasons, similar opportunities for weeds to emerge and grow and produce seeds for the next year’s crop?

12:43
Or are we able to mix that up, you know, put in a crop that we harvest some forage from, put in a crop like a small grain that has an earlier establishment in the spring and often times competes with a lot of the more traditionally troublesome weeds that we have on our corn and soybean crops?

13:00
What’s the field history, You know, taking that really good view over that field at harvest time?

13:05
Where are some of the pockets that we have, some escapes, You know, can we do some things with cleaning out the combine between fields, identifying those areas and trying to harvest those last?

13:17
Those are all things that can really help to reduce that weed pressure moving forward.

13:22
And then herbicide resistance is a piece to keep in mind.

13:26
You know, is that why we’re seeing a weed escape?

13:29
Do we think we have a development there?

13:31
If so, you know, reach out to one of your county educators across the state.

13:35
We can definitely work with the Werle Lab and get some seeds collected and help you identify, you know, is there a resistance issue in your field or you know, was there a performance issue with the herbicide or maybe what is what is actually going on?

13:51
And on the disease pressure side, you know, thinking about next year, again, crop rotation, that’s a little bit of a theme here, but anytime we can mix something up, mix the crops up that are grown in fields, we can then help break some of those disease and pest cycles.

14:09
What’s the weather outlook and what’s the hybrid susceptibility or the variety susceptibility?

14:19
OK, a little bit about the insect management side.

14:21
So the Bick lab has been working with DATCP, who does a really good job surveying pests around the state if you would like to participate in that.

14:31
There is an ongoing effort to get more individual green bucket traps out across the state.

14:37
We need to check those once per week.

14:40
Really helps to have more, more data points to help feedback into this system to help us know when to send that alert out.

14:48
So this alert is a way that you can sign up for a particular region in the state and when that past threshold has been met through the trapping work, you’ll be sent that alert.

14:59
It gives you a little bit more of an early warning to get out and do some scouting in your in your fields.

15:04
Ultimately, you know, finding the pests in your fields is really what’s going to dictate whether we have, you know, a treatment plan of sorts, like to spend a little bit extra time here on the seed traits.

15:19
So I alluded to this some, but understanding, you know what is in specifically corn a little bit on soybeans as well when it comes to herbicide tolerance traits.

15:32
But in corn specifically when it comes to insect traits or some of the herbicide tolerance traits, it really trying to dig through that label asking the seed, the seed for provider for that information.

15:47
This is a, it’s called the handy BT trait table.

15:51
And this is a way to once we know what that trait is, OK, so on the left hand side is more of that commercial name for that seed corn trait, then we can better understand what insects is that going to control.

16:06
You know, do I have those insects in my field?

16:09
Am, am I in a corn on corn setting where, you know, I think there is a pretty big risk of corn rootworm or am I, am I not?

16:18
You know, how important is it then to select a variety or a hybrid that has the, has that genetic trait that’s necessary, you know, to work in the field that we’re trying to place that at?

16:28
So this is a tool.

16:28
It’s updated once per year.

16:30
I just took a snapshot here.

16:32
The, the link at the top of the page, the link that’ll be shared in the chat can take you straight to the website.

16:38
Actually at Texas A&M is where that’s is where that’s stored at.

16:42
You can get you can go in there and search and learn a little bit more.

16:45
It builds things out a little bit farther.

16:48
This is a very condensed, you know, high information level table.

16:54
But we can we can kind of build it out and learn just a little bit more by going to that website.

17:01
Go a little bit quicker here.

17:02
I just, these are really eye-catching charts that I wanted to just get a get us reminded of when we are, you know, getting out in the fields and doing harvest this fall.

17:12
Thinking about, you know, what hybrid or what herbicide traits do I need to make sure I’m including when I’m making that seed selection next year.

17:21
Waterhemp is definitely an issue in the state.

17:25
So you know, what’s working in our area for the population that we have.

17:30
There’s some information here through the Whisk Weeds lab to learn a little more about that.

17:35
Palmer amaranth is present as well in different spots across the state.

17:40
And you’re really trying to be careful that we’re not harvesting that weed.

17:45
Spreading those seeds farther is really the key at this point.

17:49
We’re not finding real large pockets of it, but it’s here and we could expect that it might, you know, operate similar to water hemp at some at some point.

18:02
Again, with the herbicide resistance piece, a lot of Shawn’s work is partnered with Rodrigo’s work and thinking about, OK, we’re making that variety selection, but we’re also selecting, you know, a herbicide tolerance trait at the same time.

18:16
What can we expect from a yield, you know, potential with those different herbicide traits?

18:23
Just a chart that was in Shawn’s guide.

18:25
I think he keeps it updated for the upcoming years where it shows that you know, regardless of trait there is some high yielding soybean varieties that we can choose from.

18:36
A chart I like to I like to share too when we’re talking about herbicide resistance is just those weeds that have developed resistance and which weeds they’ve developed it towards.

18:48
All right.

18:48
So that’s on the on the right hand side that’s available, you know, if you want to go back and look at that at some point too, a little bit on the disease management side to finish up today, a couple of tools that are available.

19:03
I just went ahead and put in August 11th, excuse me, August 1st, 2025.

19:10
This is using the Wisconet service and I chose Tarspot and Corn.

19:16
This is like looking looking back and it shows that the different weather stations around the state, you know what is the risk there of Tarspot development.

19:26
So in early August we were kind of low in the southern part of the state, moderate towards the middle and kind of high towards the the more northern parts of the state.

19:38
So that is a tool that’s available, you know in season to help us think about managing that, managing some of that risk.

19:46
Another tool on the crop protection network I thought was kind of interesting how closely it paired to the tool through Wisco net.

19:54
You actually select your location in the state.

19:57
So I picked Janesville here at the Rock County farm.

20:01
I put in April 1st through today, so this entire season and then it showed that risk of tar spot development throughout the year and that early August time frame, you know, it showed the risk was very low on this on this graph.

20:19
And this risk.

20:20
Is kind of telling us this is that main period of time that we have the biggest risk of yield loss with the development of Tarspot a little bit more on to diseases to wrap up.

20:34
This is some older work that was done kind of when Tarspot came in initially.

20:39
And I like to I like to show this and, and help farmers and economists think about this, that the hybrid susceptibility is a big, is a big, big piece.

20:49
You know, we have fungicide tools available.

20:51
We have different weather forecasting tools available.

20:55
But understanding, you know, when we’re making that seed selection, what’s the susceptibility of a certain hybrid, you know, to a disease outbreak can, can, can be really valuable.

21:07
And these are all these dots are all different hybrids from the Montfort location 2018, both early maturity and later mature maturing hybrids.

21:21
No doubt there’s more information available now.

21:24
There’s probably information available within the, you know, the individual seed guides that say, you know, this particular hybrid has a better, you know, goal or can stay green longer, has a better disease tolerance for different crop diseases, one of those being tar spot don’t have much time left a little bit about seed treatments.

21:47
There’s a guide here.

21:49
Really, I hope what you took away from, from what I’ve shared so far today is there’s a lot of different resources available that really help us know what’s, what is the yield potential of our seed, what’s a genetic trait that’s in our seed?

22:04
And then finally, what is what is on our seed.

22:07
These are all things, you know, we want to be thinking about what’s the biggest pest pressure on our own field?

22:12
What is the, you know, the upcoming year, what might be the, the risk there?

22:17
And when we’re making that selection, you know, have those tools in our toolbox to help us if, if we’re in a setting where we don’t need it, you know, let’s, let’s go ahead and save that.

22:27
Let’s save that from a profitability standpoint.

22:30
Let’s save that from you’re not, not putting as much pesticide out into the landscape and a little bit less, you know, risk of resistance with that control measure as well.

22:45
Just a couple things to wrap up with.

22:47
We’ve had a lot of reports about Southern rust this year.

22:52
So there’s a picture on the left that was on Damon Smith’s website.

22:55
I wanted to include that.

22:57
I know there’s going to be some work, you know, going forward.

23:00
Are we able to, you know, is this disease able to overwinter in the state at this point?

23:06
You know, we have not found that it that it, that it, that it can, but it really has those larger raised rust spots is what is what this disease, you know, looks like compared to there’s some other, you know, rust type diseases that are similar, but this one has those really kind of raised bodies on the leaf.

23:26
And then a a weed plant that we’re starting to find a little more prevalent.

23:31
It’s it’s Johnsongrass.

23:33
It’s been identified, I guess I, I don’t have the question mark there for any of these pictures, but what you’ll see on this is if you dig a plant up, you’ll see that rhizome root.

23:44
And then if you’re looking at that seed, that’s going to look like a Christmas tree.

23:47
And there’s some characteristics of the individual seed as well.

23:51
What my ask is if you’re finding this in your fields or the fields that you’re kind of consulting, you know, could you reach out to your regional edge educator with, with extension?

24:03
We’re working on a process to collect some seed and do some screening on this.

24:08
And we’re finding it mostly on the end rows of fields, you know, here ahead of harvest.

24:13
It’s pretty obvious it’s sticking up above the corner soybean plants, you know, help us identify where those locations are.

24:22
It’s a little bit of a newer weed to Wisconsin.

24:26
We’re not, we’re not overly concerned, but we do want to kind of learn more about it, learn if there is any herbicide resistance that’s already in the populations that we find.

24:36
The question mark is if we have time for any questions afterwards are is there a pest you know that you would like us to do some more work on that you have questions about A few references and my last slide for questions.