The top photo was taken by Don Weaver.The bottom photo is compliments of Pat Intern Blair Freeman.Both shots show P0125HR showing off its colours.It gives every indication that its for real.Its certainly going to be an interesting fall to weigh it.

To optimize yield performance we still need to be emphasizing to growers the importance of keeping weeds removed from the corn crop during the Critcal 3-8 true leaf corn stage.This shot taken near Bothwell June 6 was a real eye opener.Though you might consider it extreme it is no problem to find weedy corn fields from Essex to Niagara that are well beyond the Crtical 3 true leaf stage.

Though this shot taken the second week of June this year near Burgessville is relatively extreme in demonstrating soil slitting and sidewall compaction it definitely shows what can happen to a grower under the pressure of a spring that is tough to manage.There are lots of fields out there that have less severity of slitting and sidewall compaction than this photo but they do have some degree of it.My concern for you as a Pioneer rep is that without conducting some field visits to bring this issue to light with certain key growers you may find yourself walking a line of defence this fall with less than happy growers experiencing disappointing yields. Remember when it gets to November its a long way back to remember what happened in May and June.

Every year somewhere in Southern Ontario someone experiences frost injury.Though small corn like that shown here on June 5th can withstand a significant frost and regrow without much problem the same cannot be said of corn that reaches the 6-7 true leaf stage. When a hard frost penetrates the whorl on larger 6-7 true leaf corn the dead decaying plant tissue of the whorl behaves as a rotting bottlekneck to the growing point trying to push out new living plant tissue.Just pray that you never have to diagnose frozen corn around the 15th of June.Its one of the hardest calls you'll ever have to make.

Though some areas could have used a good shower to get beans laying in dry dirt started there were other areas like these shots taken near Mount Brydges where the flood gates opened in the second week of June.

The heavy plant residue remaining from last years bumper yielding corn crop coupled with hard to penetrate soils poised havoc for many a producer this spring to drill their soybeans into moisture.There were instances where even 1100 lbs of down pressure with new a new John Deere drill was still insufficient to make a good plant stand.Older drills with worn disc openers caused many a producer to have to reseed a portion of their acres. The moral of the story is that when drilling beans you can't be careful enough in monitoring your seeding depth and when you run into the adverse planting conditions of heavy residue you may need to keep your seed drop on the higher seed.

Many growers today are not realizing the full yield potential of the Pioneer hybrids they are planting.Every Pioneer hybrid is evaluated in research for its performance up to 40,000 final plant population per acre.The optimum plant population per acre does vary by hybrid and yield environment but many will produce their optimum economic return at 34,000 plus final plant population.Studies on plant stand loss show that you can generally expect to lose 7% of your seed drop.That means that if you are dropping 36,000 seeds per acre your final plant stands will generally run in the 33-34,000 per acre range.Todays hybrids have the bred in stress tolerance to perform better at these populations due to their improved drought tolerance,silking strength and leaf disease resistance.