As I drive around the region, I see more and more winter grains popping up! As we get further into the fall growing season, keep an eye on the weeds so you're prepared to manage them in spring.

Once again this year I have funding from the NY State Corn and Soybean Growers Association to provide free testing for soybean cyst nematode in soybean fields. If you're interested, please get in touch.

Lots of silage being harvested this week, but if your crops aren't quite there yet, next week should be the week. Other than some rain tomorrow, we should have phenomenal harvesting weather coming up. Happy harvesting, and stay safe-

Further into fall, we're expecting warmer weather than usual, thanks to El Niño. See our weather outlook from Jessica Spaccio (Climatologist, NRCC):

2. Growing Degree Days See: Climate Smart Farming Growing Degree Day Calculator. Check your location, planting date, and silking date. Silage corn
needs 750-800 GDD after silking to reach a whole plant DM of 32%. Under typical late season dry down conditions we can expect the crop to reach 35% DM
four to seven days later. For more details, see this article. No matter what the numbers say, check your crop!

Hybrid Relative Maturity (day length) | GDD from silking date to reach ~32% DM
101-110                                                800
96-100                                                  750
<96                                                       750 or slightly less

Highlighted in blue: Time to make plans (35% DM anywhere between 5 - 11 days from now, depending on maturity)
Highlighted in green: Gas up the harvester and the trucks (35% DM in 2 - 8 days, depending on maturity)
Highlighted in yellow: See you in the field (35% DM in less than a week):
Highlighted in red: It's either already in the bunk or it's going for high-moisture corn or it's going in the bin for grain (DM likely > 35-40%)