Planting corn into sod, 2011

Chad Lee and Jim Herbek, University of Kentucky
email: Chad Lee or Jim Herbek

Planting corn into sod comes with some general opportunities and challenges. Corn could generate a gross return of $500 to $700 per acre, or more, depending on yield and marketing. That is a large enough opportunity to consider taking old pasture or hay fields and converting them to corn for 2011.

While some producers have plenty of experience with corn, others are more experienced with tobacco, hay or pastures. The general comments below are targeted to both types of producers.

Glyphosate and Potential Interactions with Diseases or Manganese

Chad Lee, University of Kentucky
Email: Chad Lee


There have been some news articles about interactions between glyphosate and manganese (Mn). Other articles discuss possible links between glyphosate and plant diseases.

Bob Hartzler at Iowa State does an excellent job of summarizing the current scientific research on the subject. His summary can be found at: http://www.weeds.iastate.edu/mgmt/2010/glyMndisease.pdf

As Dr. Hartzler states that the proposed manganese deficiency from glyphosate applications does not appear to hurt yields, and nor does a subsequent foliar Mn increase yields. On the disease issue, some interactions have been documented in the greenhouse, but nothing consistent has been reported in the field. In some cases, such as Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS), soybean variety appears to be much more important than whether or not glyphosate was applied.