As part of the original project, last season (2023) we estimated the attainable yield and the role of soil fertility and disease management in yield determination for a range of representative environments across the state (nine fields) under a robust experimental set up. Notably, our findings indicated that crop yield at the field level (farmer management) was not constrained by nutrient deficiencies. These results underscore the effectiveness of current farmer nutrition management practices. Results also suggest that fungicide application did not result in discernible increases in crop yield.
However, it is essential to contextualize these outcomes within the framework of the prevailing environmental conditions, when interpreting the data. The assessed season (2023) was notably dry, attainable yields were relatively low, averaging close to 40 bushels per acre across the assessed fields. Considering these scenarios, we are seeking to replicate our project in 2024. The primary objective of this reqest is: firstly, to expand the number of observations, enrich the dataset for more robust conclusions, hopefully explore conditions more conducive to high yields.
Original Project:
This proposal leverages a large NCSRP project to establish a multi-site experiment that will assess attainable yield, attainable water productivity and also would identify failures in nutrient and disease management for different representative localized environments across Minnesota. This information is not available and will provide further insight on location-specific management across soybean cropland of the state. The questions we are trying to answer are: What is our attainable yield? Is there a yield gap that could be filled by soybean management? If so, can we identify some causes?
Quantifying crop production capacity with available resources on every acre of current farmland is needed to guide on-ground actions by local producers to increase crop yield. The differences between soybean attainable yields and actual producers’ yields define the yield gaps. Closing the yield gaps via crop management practices provides an opportunity to increase soybean production for MN cropping systems.
Recently an analysis for soybean yield gap was conducted for the North-Central USA region including MN (Rattalino Edreira et al., 2017). This NCSRP project has provided volumes of valuable information for soybean producers and is now a showpiece for the NCSRP. This pioneering study generated very useful information for the whole of the Corn Belt. Nevertheless, a more precise spatial understanding of attainable yield and yield gaps is essential to guide crop intensification at a farm level that accounts for the great variability in climate-soil zones within MN cropping systems. The next step should be to determine the attainable yield for more localized environments (climate-soil zones). This benchmark will contribute to determine the scope for intensification for every current acre of farmland across the state.
As we determine the yield gaps, we need to identify and adjust the most relevant management practices to intensify soybean production for each localized environment and provide concrete tools for soybean growers. Nutrient deficiencies frequently explain a considerable proportion of soybean yield gap across the North-Central USA region. Disease management can also determine a substantial portion of the yield gap. The contributions of these factors to yield gaps across the different localized environments across MN remains unclear.
The goal of the project is to benchmark attainable yield, to identify key management practices explaining the gap between producers’ actual yield and attainable yield as determined by climate, soil, and genetics across different environments of Minnesota. A complete fertilizer treatment that ensures no nutrient limitation will be compared against the producer’s baseline fertility program. In addition, a second treatment will incorporate foliar fungicide during reproductive phases on top of the full fertilization treatment. This information will help producers to identify the factors that are preventing them from fully realizing the potential of their soybean fields and fine-tune their current management to increase yield and profit. We propose to leverage resources supplied by a new NCSRP project “Using data-driven knowledge for profitable soybean management systems” to allow us to extend the value of each on-farm research site by adding farmer and researcher implemented treatments and additional sampling and scouting at each site.
The proposed experimental approach will also contribute to the development of crop simulation tools useful to local environments. These tools can dynamically simulate yield and other crop variables for different specific regions, for various management practices and for current and future weather predictions. Nevertheless, to be useful, simulation models must read the variation in crop growing conditions across different environments. This proposal will validate and re-calibrate a soybean crop simulation model for the different local production environments of Minnesota. Locally calibrated and validated crop simulation models will constitute a powerful tool to assess and adequate crop management practices.