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Eastern Shore of MD | We did a population study on the farm this year with the help of a couple of local universities and had some interesting results.
Soybeans were planted on 06/30 after wheat. Field is center pivot irrigated. Trial was replicated 4 times and was planted with our JD 1790 planter in 15" rows with row cleaners into straw that was not baled. Each rep was about 1.25 acres in size.
175K planting pop 144K harvest pop avg of 4 reps 66.23
135K planting pop 114K harvest pop avg of 4 reps 66.08
40K difference in seed rate would equal about $14/acre assuming $50/unit seed cost.
We were surprised you could plant that late and still obtain good yields with apparently no penalty. In our early full season beans we are obtaining good yields with pops of 120-140K but I would have thought for 6/30 planting one would need to be planting close to our planned pop of 175K or yields would suffer, looks like we were wrong on that and maybe even a little lower pop is possible..... As a side note, neither population stood up and both had to be cut one direction. The lodging was caused by high winds and a 4" rain or two; you could not see any standability differences in the 2 pops.
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Double Crop Soybean pop study - how low can we go?
