Doyle is a senior staff agronomist at FBN. He graduated from Kearney State College with bachelor's degree in biology and chemistry in 1972. After working as a research technician for the University of Nebraska for three years, Doyle started his career as an independent consulting agronomist in 1978. He was the owner/operator of Midwest Crop Consulting, Inc., of Holdrege, Nebraska, for 37 years, giving unbiased agronomic field scouting and agronomic advice on all aspects of farming. In the fall of 2015, he became senior account manager and in-house agronomist for Midwest Agronomy, LLC, a chemical sales company in Lincoln, Nebraska. Doyle is eager to use his hands-on experience to answer questions and resolve problems that arise on today's farms.
We hear a lot of questions about applying herbicides during warm weather. Crops are currently battling with summer annuals like waterhemp, which emerge, grow and thrive in hot conditions and are naturally drought tolerant. The optimum temperature for photosynthesis in waterhemp ranges from 68 -104°F
We all know that weeds during the growing season can have a negative impact on crop yields. It is important to remember, though, that winter annuals—such as marestail, henbit, downy brome, field pennycress, annual ryegrass and shepherd’s purse—can also be detrimental to your operation. Winter weeds
Keeping control of mid-season insect pests in your corn crop is vital to protecting yield potential. We’ve discussed how corn rootworm , European corn borer and western bean cutworm can inflict harm to your crop, so you’ll want to stay on top of pressure with good scouting and timely applications wh
Once your crop is in the ground, there are still many critical decisions to be made that can help you protect the yield potential you planted at the beginning of the season. One of the primary decisions you face is which post-emergence herbicide(s) to use on your crops. Hopefully, you were able to s
A deluge this past weekend dumped 4 or more inches of rainfall on parts of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin. The map below illustrates just how wet the weekend was for the Upper Midwest: One need only look as far as news coverage of dam breaks in Central Michigan to know th
Another week of spring planting is in the books, and it appears that not even a polar vortex can slow the overall planting progress farmers are making. Temperatures this past weekend plummeted into the 20s across much of the Midwest, setting record daily lows in hundreds of counties. And yet USDA’s
Mother's Day weekend in the U.S. is shaping up to be historically cold for parts of the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Ohio Valley, with freeze warnings in effect from Minneapolis all the way to Nashville. A quick look at the 5-day forecast shows that farmers in the Upper Midwest and Northeast may experi
What a difference a year can make! Corn planting thus far in 2020 has progressed more than two times faster than 2019 according to USDA’s planting progress figures released on Monday, May 4. FBN ’s own planting progress poll shows members are making quick work of corn acres across core portions of t
With milder-than-normal temperatures throughout the Corn Belt last fall and this winter, you may be wondering if you'll face increased insect pressure during the 2020 growing season. The answer is... maybe . Each insect has its own unique method to aid winter survival, so let’s take a closer look at
Growing a successful, healthy crop takes good planning, whether you’ve decided to plant conventional crops (those without genetically modified traits) or seed that does have GM traits. And part of that plan should include scouting and a good chem plan in order to manage pests and weeds, and reach to