By Soybean Product Manager Rob Thomas
Remember when Milli Vanilli got caught lip-syncing in 1989 because their backing track malfunctioned and kept repeating? That’s how the rain was in July this year. It just kept repeating. In fact, Iowa saw the second wettest July in 153 years. We averaged 9.2 inches, which is an extra 5 inches of precipitation!
Let me ask you two questions:
- Do soybeans like “wet feet”?
- What are soybeans doing in July?
All about wet feet.
I’m sure you already have an answer to the first question. We’ve all heard the saying: Soybeans don’t like wet feet. And that’s true. They don’t. But do you know why? It’s because soybean roots need oxygen, and saturated soils deprive them of that. While soybeans can “hold their breath” for a couple days, if the suffocation continues the plant will go into survival mode.
My rain gauge here at our office in Central Iowa logged over 8 inches of rain from June 24 to July 28. And it didn’t all come in one or two shots. Instead, we saw 2.4 inches over four days. Then an inch a week later. And then an inch over three days the next week, and so on. The soil didn’t dry out long enough for soybean roots to take some good deep breaths during that period.
Soybean growth in July.
Now let’s address my second question. What are soybeans doing (or trying to do) in July? If you said, “They’re celebrating our great country’s birthday,” you’re right! But they’re also taking care of the business of flowering and developing pods. And it’s not all that easy for a soybean plant to make flowers and develop pods when it’s just fighting to survive. The proof came this fall.
As I was inspecting our production fields, I would randomly grab a plant, remove the pods and line them up by the number of beans per pod. In most cases, I found that there was an unusually high number of two-bean pods. Oftentimes there were more two-bean pods than three-bean pods. Also, most of the two-bean pods had a space for the third bean, but it was aborted by the plant. I blame this on the rain.
What does Milli Vanilli have to do with soybeans?
“Blame it on the Rain” was one of Milli Vanilli’s number one songs on the Hot 100 Billboard Charts, in case you didn’t know. And, just as the group’s repetitive backing track ruined their careers, continuously saturated soils in July ruined your top-end yield.
What can you learn from Milli Vanilli’s failure?
When soybean roots are deprived of oxygen for extended periods it reduces the nodulation that fixes nitrogen for the plant. It’s ability to properly use nutrients is compromised. To make matters worse, saturated soils allow fungal pathogens to travel around and infect the plants. What can you do about it? Plan for it. Improving soil structure and ensuring you have reliable drainage is your best defense against extended periods of rain.
Just think. If Milli Vanilli had a plan for a more reliable backing track maybe their success would have continued, and they would have tortured us with even more musical hooks that would remain lodged in our brains for eternity.
