Hallelujah, it finally rained. We got a small shower early this morning (0.46 inches)
and it is cloudy and cool today. We certainly needed that rain and a break from the
heat. Our field doesn't look that bad, however, I looked at the field yesterday at noon
and the plants were showing signs of drought
stress. The plants from different rows
haven't "closed the middles" completely, but they are touching leaves. You'll
remember that was a concern we had earlier in the season.
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The plants in our row are almost as tall as the flags now. The plants have
just about stopped their upward growth, so they won't be getting any taller. We
really can't see individual plants now without pulling them apart. Notice that
some of the leaves have holes in them. It seems we have some insects chewing on
the leaves. Click here to see the insects that are on our soybeans right now.
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By placing the poster board behind our first plant you can see the
individual
plants. We don't have very many pods on this plant, only about 30 pods. The
heat and drought stress has taken its toll on the plants and the number of pods.
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Our second plant appears to have more leaves and possibly more pods. There could be some
more pods develop, but not very many more. How do I know that?
It's quite simple. There
aren't very many flowers blooming now. Pods develop from the flowers. Later, in the fall
when the leaves have dropped off the plants, we will be able to count the number of pods.
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This is the top of one of the plants. You'll notice there are not many pods up here
compared to the lower parts of our two plants. That's not unusual.
The distribution of pods
on the plants reminds me of the shape of a Christmas tree... A lot of pods at the base
and they taper off as you move up the plant.
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This is a pod at one of the four uppermost nodes. The seeds are about 3mm or 1/8 inch
wide. This plant is at the R5 stage of development. Things really happen at this stage,
but you'll have to wait until next time to hear about it all.
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