Crop Talk by IAS – 04/21/26

Crop Talk by IAS – Field Scouting Update | Week of April 21

The window is opening—and decisions made now will shape the entire season.

In this week’s Crop Talk Field Scouting Update, our IAS agronomy team shares what they’re seeing as planters begin to roll and field conditions continue to shift across the region. From emerging weed pressure to soil moisture concerns, timing is everything right now.

Plus, special guest Sam Farrington, IAS Precision Ag Manager, joins the conversation to break down how variable rate planting, nitrogen strategies, and soil sampling can help you fine-tune your operation and maximize return on every acre.

You’ll hear updates from across Iowa, along with practical insights to help you balance opportunity with risk as planting begins.

This week’s highlights:
• Planters starting to roll across multiple regions as conditions improve
• Increasing weed pressure—especially in headlands and early fields
• Soil moisture still present below the surface—watch for compaction risks
• Importance of pre-emerge timing and proper field conditions
• Cover crop termination considerations and adjusting chemistry rates
• Precision ag insights: variable rate planting using yield data and field zones
• Nitrogen strategies aligned with seeding rates and yield potential
• Grid sampling basics: where to start and how to build a plan
• Sampling timing considerations—spring vs. fall vs. post-plant

As always, these are local, boots-on-the-ground insights you can use right away—because the best decisions start before the planter hits full stride.

Featured this week:
Nicholas Giesseman (Host)
Nick Thompson
Owen Heetland
Melissa Schumann
Adrianna Herlache
Sam Farrington (Precision Ag Manager)

🎧 Listen now
Have a question for the team? Send it to CropTalk@InnovativeAg.com

To learn more about Innovative Ag Services and our agronomy services, visit InnovativeAg.com/Agronomy.

Produced by IAS Communications in partnership with My Four Creative.

Transcript

Nicholas Giessman 0:00

Welcome to Crop Talk, brought to you by Innovative Ed Services, and this is our Field Scouting Special. Each week from March through October, our agronomy team shares timely, boots-on-the-ground updates from across the IAS geography. So you can make confident decisions as the seasons change. Today you'll hear a quick regional update from our IAS agronomist, including what we're seeing in the fields right now, what to keep an eye on next, and a few practical scouting reminders you can put to work this week. I'm going to start it off by kicking it to Nick in Ellsworth for a regional update from him.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Thanks, Nicholas. Planters are out here running in Ellsworth. With the rain for the past couple of weeks, our farmers have really been chopping at the bit to get out there, and now it's time. As I'm walking these fields, I'm beginning to see more and more weed pressure pop up, specifically in the headrows. Nothing has been too big or out of control, but the weeds are definitely present, and it's time for you to be thinking about your pre-herbicide path. Environmental things that we should be looking at would be the field conditions. While the tops of a lot of these fields are dry, once you get below the ground, a lot of moisture is still lurking there. And going out too early could cause you some sidewall compaction and mohawk roots as the season goes on. Next, I'll kick it over to Owen for our northwest region.

Owen Heetland 1:33

Thanks, Nick. This is Zow and Heatland in the Cleves office covering Hardin, Grundy, Franklin, and Butler counties. Similar to what Nick said, we are warming up, drying out. Could see planters rolling later today and tomorrow with some rain in the forecast for later this week. I would say that the rain does not bother me as it is going to be warm when we receive the rain and warm afterwards. So, you know, we've given the go-ahead to see planters move forward. I think a lot of guys will get started here in the next day or two and make sure everything works and then kind of see what the weather happens over the weekend. We are also still running ammonia and dry fertilizer and spraying. The other things that we're seeing out in the field are weeds, dry, burn down, you know, just making sure that nightly temp is over 50 degrees when we get started spraying, so we get good activity on the weeds. Other than that, it's it's full go. So with that, I will kick it over east to Melissa.

SPEAKER_04 2:31

Thank you, Owen. Um, Melissa Schumann in Northeast Iowa, specifically Clayton County. Still, we've got cool soil temperatures. So if we are choosing to plant here, I would suggest we select hybrids with that high emergence and seed leak vigor scores to make sure we get the best possible start to our field. There's a lot of consideration on cover crop termination. Last week we saw a lot of rapid growth with the rain, but we did see freezing temperatures for three nights in a row here in Northeast Iowa. So check the forecast before we are considering that termination spray pass on those cover crops and check to see how much growth we have in the field to see if we need to adjust those chemistry rates to make sure we have proper termination. The other watch out I've had is to be field aware. Although many of our fields here are looking that they are dry from the surface, any of your perennial wet spots are showing up. And so be prevalent prior to taking out heavy equipment to your field. Make sure you check them with a side-by-side or a truck to ensure that you aren't taking a wasted trip up because we go neighboring fields, we are finding those wet spots, and it can lead to a longer-term problem, especially with more rain in the forecast. So that is what Northeast Iowa is looking like. I'm gonna pass it down to Nicholas in our eastern region.

Nicholas Giessman 3:51

Thank you very much, Melissa. This is Nicholas Giesman covering Dubuque and Jackson counties down here in eastern Iowa. As you've heard already, we were wet, kind of drying out. Guys are getting out there, we're doing some dry fertilizer, ammonia's kicking back up. A few guys are getting eager whether they're gonna start today or tomorrow. Get out there, try some acres planting, just to make sure everything kind of works and then kind of see what the weather does through the weekend, end of the week with some chances of rain. We are getting some hay spraying done, killing off some broadleaves in there, going into some pre-spraying and some burn down and cover crops. As you know, the weather warms up, we're looking at some really good overnight temperatures. We're getting a good activity and good kill, like Owen mentioned. So as things keep kicking off, I think we're gonna get really ramped up and really kick off the planning season here in this week or next going into the spring. Now, I mentioned earlier, you know, we're gonna have a special guest, Sam Farrington on. I'm gonna kick it to her and Owen Heatland. They're gonna give a really good discussion on precision egg, variable rate planning, and some other topics that are really prevalent to our industry and stuff that's gonna help you have more success on your farm. Sam and Owen, take it over.

Owen Heetland 4:52

Thanks, Nicholas. You've all met me before. I'm Owen Heatland. I'll let Sam introduce herself and tell us a little bit about herself, and then we can dive in with some questions.

SPEAKER_03 5:01

Thanks, Owen. I'm Sam Farrington and I'm the Precision Ag Manager. So I get around all the locations pretty frequently. I've been here just coming up on my 10-year anniversary.

Owen Heetland 5:11

Thanks, Sam. Why don't you tell us a little bit about what are planting recks and then uh maybe tell us a little bit how you come up with those planting recks?

SPEAKER_03 5:20

Yeah, so I'll kind of start with how we come up with them. So if I'm going out to a grower who's got a little interest in maybe starting some variable rate planting, first thing we talk about is what they have for pass yield data. I like to use anywhere from three to five years of past yield, and we kind of layer that on top of each other to see what areas in the field yield about average, higher than average, lower than average, and then adjust our seeding rates from there. We definitely have plenty of people that may have picked up a new new ground, don't have that yield data, you know, oh, when we've used that on your own farm, we can use yield potential, soil types. There's plenty of options. So typically what that looks like for me, I run those yield normalization maps, which is those several years stacked on each other. And then I'll have that conversation with either the grower or the salesperson. Does this look right to them? You know, this is just telling me from what the computer spits out. Obviously, as a farmer, you guys know your fields best. So we do a lot of hand adjustments on those. You know, maybe it's something that's been traditionally wet in the past. We've added tile, things like that. That's pretty easy to adjust and kind of maneuver from there. So sometimes we get it right on the first zone. Sometimes it takes a couple edits. And then we've got some growers that will do variable rate nitrogen along with that. I've had people do it with anhydrous, UAN, kind of whatever fits in their operation. And typically I go two rates on that variable rate nitrogen. We've done three before, but on corn, if it's a three-rate seeding zone, we'll do the lower two rates of nitrogen on those lower two seeding zones. We'll put the higher rate on that higher population. So that's kind of the meat and potatoes of the planting and nitrogen rate creation looks like.

Owen Heetland 6:55

I would add in that while we work with Sam, it's a joint task. So Sam builds those maps, and then any of us agronomists would take those maps and then look at what hybrids we were going to put on that field. And, you know, some hybrids, the high end may be 34,000, some hybrids, the high end may be 42,000. So it's a kind of a combined effort between the both of us to figure out, you know, what the zones should look like from the yield from her standpoint, and what the hybrid is capable and and should do from our standpoint. And then, of course, we bring the farmer in to get their opinion and see if maybe this zone doesn't look right or needs to be changed, etc. So then Sam, after guy is planted and uh he's coming into fall and gonna harvest, how does he look to see if those wrecks did what they're supposed to? And in that silver program, what else is included? What comes with those planting racks on the backside?

SPEAKER_03 7:49

So obviously we collect your as planted data, whether that's through a cloud base or we we come out to your field and pull it off of your monitor, bring it into our system, and then after you're done harvesting, collect that harvest data. And then we run pretty extensive reporting that we can do yield by hybrids, yield by seeding rates. We've got some that do learning blocks on there. So let's say, for instance, we want to run bean population trials. We can have populations of 120, 140, and 160,000. And then I can drop in two-acre blocks, one acre blocks with different populations. So then on the backside, we can run those reports to see how did these yield? How did it yield from hybrid to hybrid, from seeding rate to seeding rate, and then kind of adjust from there, even if a hybrid is likes a little bit higher of a population, or maybe not so much. We can back off the seed on that if you're gonna plant that on another field next year. There's yield by soil test results. So that can kind of bleed into what we're gonna talk about next on grid sampling. You read all the data from windfield or wherever that tells you, you know, where your optimum soil test results are, but it's it's different when you're looking at your own data. It's your own field. These are what my soil tests are, and I see that this is where my high-yielding areas are, or vice versa. If you're maybe have lower phosphorus or potassium levels and you've got lower yield, it's just kind of a neat way that you can cross-reference all the different inputs that you're putting in and seeing what's working, what's not, and then we adjust that next year. And it's an ever-changing decision-making process. I've got customers that I've worked with since I started here 10 years ago, and I've got some new customers, and we're always trying to find what the next thing we can change or throw a learning block in and adjust from there.

Owen Heetland 9:20

That's perfect, Sam. That leads us right into what I wanted to talk about next. Say there's a brand new customer that doesn't have any soil samples, what would your suggestion be, or how would you start that process? What size samples do we offer? And when is a different sampling time?

SPEAKER_03 9:36

So I always go into those conversations. I know this can be overwhelming, right? There's a lot of different options. There's a lot of different technology that just seems a little intimidating if you're not doing anything. So if it's a customer that has no soil sampling, no precision, nothing, I say start off with a two and a half acre grid that gives you a better view of all across your field and just go with the basics. You know, that's gonna test for us on our basic package is your P, your K, your pH, and your organic matter. That's gonna give you a really good starting point on what your soil nutrient and your soil health looks like. We do offer two and a half acre grids, 3.3, 4.4. And then we also have a manure management plan that we're not making any recommendations off of that. So if you're looking to get into a little more precision, that's probably not the one that I would recommend. But for a brand new starter, I would just start with that two and a half grid, start little, and start on your just basic and try to get your macros where they need to be and maybe start with some variable rate fertilizer and go from there before jumping bull feeding in with planting racks and you're looking at your micronutrients and all of that. We start small. If you if you're curious about your micronutrients, I always suggest maybe talk to your agronomist about pulling some tissue sampling and some tissue samples in season, kind of give you a feel for what's actually happening in your plant. And then if you want to adjust your soil sampling, maybe at your next sample time, that'd be something to consider.

Owen Heetland 10:50

You can add lots of stuff to that test. And like Sam said, it's good to have a conversation between her and and any one of your agronomists of what's your most limiting factor and what are you after. The other thing that I would say is after being here long enough and seeing a lot of 4.4 acre grids slowly move to a 2.5, you don't really think that there's a difference, but I can assure you I can show you lots of examples where a guy's been spreading at 4.4, we go to 2.5, and there's differences in between the grid where maybe there were spots that needed fertilizer that weren't, or vice versa. Maybe there were spots that were getting fertilizer and in between it was high. So we changed those areas and and fixed a problem we didn't even know we had. So I think lastly, Sam, let's talk a little bit about sample timing because you know you can go spring, fall, summer. What are the reasons to do any of them and why do you like one better than the other?

SPEAKER_03 11:47

Spring versus fall has kind of been a hot topic in the last, I mean, honestly, eight years. We talk about it with our soil sampling company. I talk about it with other co-ops. So I guess just some things to think about that I'm seeing more and more people move to afterplant sampling. I think just to preface this, that the most important thing is to choose your timing and just stay consistent with it. You'll see a little bit of a change, but nothing massive or notable that's gonna change like your fertilizer input process. So for me, I prefer to see the afterplant sampling just for the sake that temperatures are more stable in the spring. You know, wet spring soil is gonna dry a lot faster than wet fall soil. You know, if you're fertilizing in the fall, spring sampling might be something for you to consider. You're gonna cut your wait time way down just for the fact of your agronomist is gonna have plenty of time to review what your soil tests look like, come up with a plan. You as a grower can review those, approve those, adjust them to maybe what your budget looks like versus in the fall, everybody's kind of in a hurry to beat that first frost or beat the weather there. So you're not in so much of a hurry, you have some time to consider what your inputs are gonna look like. However, if you're fertilizing in the spring, spring sampling is probably not the route that I would recommend. So I guess just things to consider is when do you plan that you're gonna apply that fertilizer and how time-sensitive is that to you in the fall? If you start to after plant sampling, just stay consistent with that from year to year and you're gonna see the best results to make that plan. Another thing that I want to add was that if you're due to sample and then it's a very dry year, your tests are gonna indicate that you've got more stored nutrients in that soil than's true. So just keep that in mind when you're making fertilizer decisions, that you're not shorting yourself in those three years to come. You know, you don't want to sample in four years and find out you've been mining it because your skewed results a little bit in that very dry soil kind of led you down the wrong path.

Owen Heetland 13:30

Well, that's a very good point, Sam. I think the last question for me was a little bit loaded because everybody knows that I like after plant sampling for the reasons you said, like as agronomists go, you know, we can make recs earlier in the year and then you know, you know, what you need for fertilizer, what you're gonna do in the fall. If you need lime, you can look at the soil samples earlier, and it just seems like we get better temps and better soil moisture. But I know if you're from the east side of the state and you're working with agronomists like Melissa or Nick, you you may be spreading in the spring, and so that may be totally different. And so it's good to see all different sides of what you're doing before you're making those sample discussions. Is there uh anything new or on the horizon, Sam, that you think that customers need to know about as far as sampling or VRX or anything that we didn't talk about?

SPEAKER_03 14:20

I think just keeping in mind that obviously, you know, your yields are gonna continue to increase and obviously your fertilizer is gonna need to increase too. We all know that that's not the cheapest thing on earth. So just making sure that if you are considering sampling, you're putting the food where the where your plant needs it and you're not just blanketing it. I know that's not new, it's kind of the old tale of it, but it's really just kind of the foundation of your operation and just making sure that your soil health and nutrition is where it needs to be at. So you are putting your money where it actually is going to come back and benefit you.

Owen Heetland 14:50

Thanks, Sam. I'll just wrap up by saying we have lots of different options when it comes to sampling, making recs. We can do a lot of different things. And so if you're interested in any of those things at all, make sure to reach out to one of us and we'll see how we can help you. With that, I will kick it back over to Nicholas.

Nicholas Giessman 15:08

Thank you a lot, Sam and Owen, for that great discussion. That was a lot of information. So if you're a grower listening to that and you have more questions, please reach out to us, agronomist, or you can shoot us an email at croptalk at innovativeag.com. That's all for this week's Crop Talk by AS. Thanks for tuning in. Be sure to like, follow, and subscribe so you don't miss next week's update. And if you know a fellow grower who'd value a quick field snapshot, share this episode with him. For more agronomy resources and to connect with your local IAS team, visit Innovativeag.com and follow Innovative Ag Services on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn. We'll catch you next week on Crop Talk.