As
you can see, we had some rain over the weekend. The rain came hard
and fast, so we were fortunate that we planted no-till to reduce
erosion. Our field looks pretty good, but from this view I can’t
see if any soybean plants have emerged yet. There’s something
green growing out there. Let’s look to see what it is.
Yikes!
That’s crabgrass and we don’t want that growing in our field.
However, I’m not too worried because last Friday our farm crew
applied a herbicide to get rid of all the weeds that were already
growing. So, this crabgrass won’t be around much longer.
Twenty
years ago farmers would have said that this field looked
"trashy," but now most farmers would say this trash or
residue looks great! You can see the rows or strips of soil that
aren’t covered with as much residue–that’s where we need to
dig to see how our seeds are doing. Let’s dig some up.
You
can see our seeds have gotten bigger. Why? Well, to germinate the
seeds imbibe water, about 50 % of their weight in water to be more
precise. This causes the seeds to swell. The water activates the
enzymes in the seeds and the germination process begins. The
radical or seedling root breaks the seedcoat and starts to grow
downward. Let’s look at the next picture.
I
call this the crookneck stage. The white stem-like structure is
the hypocotyl and as it elongates, it pulls the seed or cotyledons
up to the surface. We’ll have to wait a couple days to see that
happen.
