Scouting your fields and correctly identifying your crop’s current growth stage are critically important for implementing all parts of your pulse and soybean management strategy.
It is of key importance to be able to accurately describe the critical development stages of your crops.
Identifying the type of leaf, how many of those types of leaves are on the plant, if blooming has begun, the pod length, if seeds have started to develop, and pod colour change are the visual signs that we concentrate on to match up our crop’s current characteristics to standardized growth staging guides for each crop.
Example:
Starting at emergence (when the plant breaks through the soil surface) and during the early stages of the plant’s life cycle, the growth stage descriptions start with the letter V.
V stands for vegetative.
As soon as we see the first flower bud on the plants, then our growth stage changes from starting with a V to starting with an R, and continues starting with an R all the way to full maturity.
R stands for reproductive.
A picture is worth a thousand words, and a crop staging guide with great pictures and descriptive explanations is one of the best tools to take with you to the field while crop scouting.
It isn’t always cut and dry, and it can be frustrating to definitively know the correct crop stage of every plant in the entire field, as fields are rarely completely uniform and often have several different stages of plants.
That’s why we look at several areas of the field, determine the crop stage of several individual plants, and deduce the best field average we can. It is important to note the range of crop stages present to help with spray timing decisions.
Be sure to ask your friendly production agronomists for your free, durable and laminated copy of each crop’s MPSG Growth Staging Guide. Comprised of great photos and descriptions, you can take these guides with you to the field and increase your confidence in identifying each stage of your crop’s progress throughout the entire growing season.
Download Now: Your digital copies for soybeans, field peas, dry beans, and faba beans and always have them with you!
Pulse and Soybean Growth Staging Guides – Manitoba Pulse & Soybean Growers