Bollingberg Seeds

We started wheat seeding on April 2^nd. Spring was a bit cold and dry here. Because of the cold spring we were patient with seeding the corn, soybeans, and pintos. We froze hard late in May and many people re-seeded, 8 days later we were over 100 degrees, warm for early June. We try to strip till our fertilizer for corn and beans, because of the dry fall, winter, and spring we ended up seeding the corn between the strips. That’s a first! Corn seeding started April 29^th and we finished seeding beans on June 3^rd. Good Fall, weather wise. By the middle of August, we had 4.8 inches of rain for the year, by mid-November we were at over 16 inches. The fall rains have come very nice, a good start for next year. Wheat ended up at about 50 bushels, much better than I expected. Wheat harvest was dry and easy. We had Frohberg, Faller, WB 9490, and Murdock. The WB and Frohberg yielded the best and about the same. Frohberg had a bit more straw, Gage could combine faster in the WB. I think it was a bit dry for Faller, still a top “3-year average” at Carrington. Frohberg should stand a little better than Faller. Everything stood well this year. Frohberg has resistance to Bacterial Leaf Streak, we have had trouble with that in the past, and moderate resistance to rust. I think it will handle a dry year better than Faller.

     Faller-mostly what we raised again this year. It still stays at the top at Carrington research station yield trials.

 Beans were not so good this year, I think I said that last year too. Best field about 675/acre. We had some fields that greened up and looked like they had a chance, they are still green today. Looks like we will seed into them next spring. Soybeans were easy, 25 bushels per acre. Will be our poorest $/a crop. Corn ran 110 bushels, certainly better than expected, 20-24 moisture-also wetter than expected.

Pinto Seed Beans: We continue to like slow dark pintos. The fussy pinto eaters specify slow darks. We continue to pay a dollar more for slow darks. Dryland yield trials have been hard to come by the last few years around here-using irrigated NDSU data and Nebraska yield data to try to evaluate varieties.

Slow Darks

Vibrant: Becoming the old standby. Top yielder in the area

Radiant: One of the quickest beans; similar to Vibrant

Lumen. A little broader plant than Radiant. Should fill the rows quicker. 2-3 days longer than Radiant. Some say it handles sour ground a bit better.

Gleam- a slow dark variety that is a little longer than Vibrant. Seemed to do well at Carrington and Nebraska- good to try a few different varieties in the area.

Palomino. NSDU’s slow dark

Traditional

Torreon- A well liked good traditional bean for this area.

Falcon- NDSU’s latest release-good standing, long season, resistant to soybean cyst nematode.

LaPaz_a variety that should be planted by June 1, been around forever.

Black Seed: North Dakota Raised

Eclipse is an early maturing, high yielding black bean, been around a long time, industry standard.

      Twilight NDSU’s latest black variety and seems to have a slightly longer maturity than Eclipse. Maybe doesn’t stand as well as eclipse. Last 2 years we think there is a significant yield advantage to eclipse.

Markets: Once again, we are the bad producing area of the state. I hear the plants in the county are all about 25% of last year. The export market has been slow. Mexico is always a wild card-they had a good crop this year. Slow farmer selling and domestic demand has kept the market flat for the last month or so. New crop-starting to wonder if we know how to grow beans. I think we will lose some acres in the area to that and our clethodim weed resistance problems. High fertilizer costs will encourage crops such as beans to be planted, high alternative crop prices, peas, flax, sunflower, and garbs, will pull some acres away. It’s going to be interesting.

Stop by or call, Merry Christmas!