Combines soybean populationIJ

[K_stater]

I just finished rotary hoeing some beans to break the crust. It seems a matter of timing - too soon and they won't be up enough to thin, too late and you may thin more than you want (the hoe tooth is pretty good at getting under the hook of an emerging bean and breaking it, killing the plant). You may want to talk to a local agronomist; by the time the field is up you will have something less than 256,000 and it may be OK - beans seem to compensate well (less pods, more plants). I accidentally doubled my milo population on 1 row a couple years ago and couldn't tell the difference when cutting, despite a dry summer (the brush in the planter meter had slid up, letting seed fun into that unit too fast). Tiny heads but lots of them.

 

[dumbfarmer]

down here in south central ia in my area anyway, there are alot of bean fields that look like crap. i'd be real hesitant to thin them out.if you you still think you need to i would'nt use a rotary hoe i think that would just damage everything.maybe take some sweeps off a row cultivator and go cross rowsIJ i wish i had your problem i got a lot of borderline replant fields. we had too much hard cold rain too fast right after planting now no real rain for two weeks. its gettin hard as concrete.

 

[davy]

In this day of $30 seedbeans, you had better invest heavily in the stock of Monsanto. I have planted 30" rows at under 140,000 for a decade with my current population at 125,000. My neighbor has me beat with 115,000. Both of our yields are holding strong at 50-60 bu. Populations that thick grow weak plants with narrow stems and are less likely to resist drought, white mold, and other alements. A big farmer down the road a bit was a grower for Pioneer during the first year of commercial RR beans production. Seed was in short supply so the reps had him plant the seed at 75,000 population and the 500 acres averaged 45 bu.