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| In Iowa, we figure the bean ground needs to be 60 F, 4 degrees warmer than for corn. You can go with colder ground if the seed is coated with a fungicide like cruiser-max. I think you need at least strips bared some time before planting. I plant about an inch to 1..5" deep. Some years its not critical (rain right after planting) some years its critical to get down to moisture.
The traditional Iowa planting rate is about 165,000 per acre, but research indicates the best yields (with good germination seed) is planting more like 125,000 hoping for 90,000 stand. I suspect a bushier variety does best at the low planting rate. I planted a lot thicker this year because I was a month late due to cold wet ground and I wanted to make them grow taller. Short season varieties (I planted some 0.9s in July which did produce beans, though I planted them thicker than Kip does.)
I discussed planting into mud with an air fertilizer spreader, and splitting was a concern, especially this year when the seeds were so tender they would have split getting the cruiser maxx coating so the seed company wouldn't supply them coated. But that should depend on the quality of the seed. They weren't good in 2008. I have planted with a cyclo 400 a few times. The last time one row plugged for no good reason (6 row). I think I had decent growth, though my yields were never as great as a couple times when I've planted with my JD 7000 and Kinze bean meters. The long pipes on the cyclo planters tend to bunch the seed even though the drum counts the seed evenly.
They should grow fine in stubble, just you will probably run stubble through the combine in the fall and that may help push short bean stalks through. Unless the canola stubble holds some particular virus or fungus that finds beans especially tasty.
Different varieties have different sensitivities to fungi and other pests. I don't know what your chosen bean will withstand and reject.
Yes day length is what triggers various stages of growth and maturity. I'm not sure heat units don't have some effect too. I think that heat units are most important when drying down after the leaves are off and the plant has gone mostly dormant. Or without some heat, day length isn't going to have any effect.
Check with university and university extension in the northern US states and Canada about growing beans that far north. They may have tried it and reported on it.
Its hard to check for micronutrients without beans to have done the extraction. But micronutrients are quite important as are P and K and inoculation to get good N providing nodules. All the known laboratory techniques for extracting micronutrients are many times more effective than plants so soil tests are just plain useless. Most states except for Iowa call for adding a bit of molybdenum with beans, something like a 1/4 to 1/2 ounce per acre if applied to the seed. Molybdenum is not a registered fertilizer in Iowa. My last tissue tests found my ground was way short on molybdenum.
Don't put more into this experiment than you can afford to loose. I suspect bean growth that far north will depend on a bean variety that takes advantage of the long summer days but the crop will depend on the individual season. A long cool summer might not produce much growth.
Gerald J. | |
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Soybeans in Western Canada
