Cooler, drier conditions mean more caution after planting

May 18, 2023

With planting season moving at a rapid pace, sprayers will likely be out in full force toward the end of May and early June. The early planting has put some seeds in the ground in cooler conditions, which could pose an early disease threat.

Cooler soils often lead to root rot problems, said Daren Mueller, plant pathologist with Iowa State University Extension. The early planting may result in a slower start for the seed which can lead to gaps between rows along with uneven stands and growth.

“Those are quick signs you might be seeing a problem,” Mueller said. “Anything that looks unusual is worth looking at and paying extra attention too.”

If conditions turn wetter, the threat of disease will increase exponentially, said Tyler Steinkamp, crop protection product manager with WinField United. For those with early soybeans, the biggest issues cold soil temperatures can bring are Pythium and sudden death syndrome.

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Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.