Shaun Casteel

46 articles by this author

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Survey of August 2026: Making or Breaking Field Crops?

August 21, 2026 - From Issue:
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Survey link: https://purdue.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3Xid0TER5lkf4jk Survey QR Code: The 2026 growing season started and continues with intense rain events that dropped 3 to 6 inches in a single day, which was impressive in its own right. Unfortunately, these intense storms have continued all season long. Historic rains and floods settled across many counties of Indiana in the past few weeks with single events dumping 8 to 15 inches of rain. The effect on corn and soybeans at this point of the season is unchartered waters. Please take a few minutes to fill out the survey to provide insight to the impact to your fields/area and distribution of the extreme weather in August 2026. We welcome all responses from those who were fortunate to get timely rains to those affected by straight line winds to those in the epicenter of historic floods. We would like to partner with you to track crop response[Read More…]

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Timely Soybean Harvest to Save Bushels

September 13, 2024 - From Issue:
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Soybean development in 2024 has been about 10 days ahead the 5-year average from flowering to pod development to leaf drop (USDA-NASS, 2024). Fast stand establishment and high accumulation of heat units (GDDs) during May and June certainly set the pace. Now in many areas, harvest is fully in gear based on the combinations of early maturities, early plantings, and late season heat and dryness. Timely planting is foundational for maximizing soybean production. Growing up in the Midwest, the mindset was to plant corn first followed by soybean (as long as it was planted by Memorial Day you were “fine”). That sentiment has changed based agronomic research, Extension recommendations, and farmers’ experience. Indiana planting of soybean shifted dramatically in 2018 to within ~4 days of corn planting where it had averaged 14 days behind corn the previous ten years. In fact, Indiana farmers continue to place high priority on soybean[Read More…]

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Compact Soybean Plants and Reproductive Development

July 13, 2023 - From Issue:
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Indiana planting pace in 2023 was one of the fastest on record, which lined up with drought years as well as yield-breaking years. For most of our fields, soybean development in the month of June was summarized in one word – stagnant. Well, at least the aboveground growth seemed to stall out with the dry conditions. Fortunately, these soybeans were rooting down deep rather than expending energy into aboveground growth. If we have our choice of dry June or dry August, we will choose a dry June every time (assuming the roots have some access to moisture). The combination of timely planted soybean with good stand establishment and a dry June sets us up for a nice compact plant. We would rather have a compact plant that has good trifoliate node development and reproductive branches so the water use and photosynthetic efficiencies are optimized during pod development (July-August) and seed[Read More…]

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