View From the Cab

DECATUR, Ill. (DTN) -- The crop keeps cooking along at Henderson Farms near Madison, Alabama. Like much of the country, the word "hot" seeped into nearly every conversation and chore this week.

At least Stuart Sanderson isn't sweating what steamy temperatures might mean to the corn pollination. Dryland corn fields in northern Alabama are fully dented and have reached black layer.

"Irrigated corn is right on its heels. Combines could be opening fields as early as mid-August," said Sanderson.

By contrast, Nebraska farmer Ethan Zoerb has some corn just beginning to tassel and soybeans have been slow to close the row. "We've got a lot of time left to hold our breath with regard to wind and hail damage, too," he said. "So far, I feel fortunate to have just had a little green snap in a few fields."

Zoerb and Sanderson are participating in DTN's 2025 View From the Cab series. The feature follows the volunteers throughout the growing season, covering crop conditions and other rural issues in a diary-like form.

This week, the farmers give a crop update and discuss views on EPA's proposed new label for dicamba use in genetically altered soybeans and cotton. Sanderson and his farm team are pulling combines into the shop for a preharvest look and building more on-farm storage for liquid nitrogen. Zoerb's new spray drone is going to take its inaugural flight in a fight against Western bean cutworm.

ETHAN ZOERB: LITCHFIELD, NEBRASKA

Ethan Zoerb winced when he read his father, Dale's, recent social media post about the wondrous smell associated with corn pollination. The younger Zoerb hesitates to tell others he's allergic to corn, because it happens to be his favorite crop. But when corn starts pollinating, his sinuses go into overdrive and allergy meds can barely keep up.

Pollination and, specifically lack of it due to tassels that have been slow to unfurl or remained wrapped in leaf tissue, has been the topic of the week. Dubbed "tassel wrap" among farmers, universities and media, the news there might be trouble sent Zoerb to the field looking.

"We're watching it because we did plant some acreage to the hybrids I've heard being discussed. So far, I've found a few captured tassels, but I'm hoping it grows out of it," he said.

"I've seen limited amounts of it in previous years, but there's usually enough pollen to compensate from neighboring plants," Zoerb said. "Maybe the good news is people are actually heading to their fields to look more?"

Tassel architecture does differ between hybrids, he acknowledged. "We grow a white corn hybrid with what I would call a 'sweet corn' tassel. It's big and floppy and drops an insane amount of pollen. Scouting those fields this time of year really sets off my allergies," he said.

Around an inch of hard rain fell at the main farm this week. Zoerb said so far, it appears fields escaped hail. However, he's had two separate incidents of green snap.

"I'd estimate the worst field at 5% to 10% breakage. There's nothing to be done about it. At this point you play the hand you've got and hope you don't get any more," he said.

Wild weather comes with living on the High Plains. DTN Ag Meteorologist John Baranick said the variable temperatures central Nebraska has been experiencing are expected to extend through this week, as well.

"It got hot last week, but a front moved through late week with some milder temperatures. The heat picks right back up over the weekend back into the mid-90s," Baranick said.

"At least the ups and downs have come with some rain as fronts have come through. They've been scattered in the area, but they are helping to manage some of the heat stress," he added. Baranick said another front is expect early next week that should bring chances of rain and a nice break in the heat.

This week, Zoerb has Western bean cutworm in his crosshairs. Sticky traps were loaded with moth captures this past week. He counted as many as 800 moths on three traps in the same day. "Ordinarily, it might be good counting practice for my kids, but we'd be out there all day with those counts," he said.

The cutworm situation also had Zoerb hustling to put the finishing touches on a spray drone trailer. The trailer includes a docking station for chemical refills, and he plans to swap to a fresh battery with each refill. The DGI Agras T50 drone will need to be refilled about every 5 acres when putting out insecticide for Western bean cutworm, he figured.

Zoerb had been watching for EPA to hand down a proposed registration decision for three over-the-top (OTT) dicamba products for broadleaf weed control in dicamba-tolerant soybean. What he wasn't prepared to see, though, was no cutoff dates as part of the proposed label.

Instead of application restrictions based on the calendar or crop growth stage, EPA is instead proposing to require the use of a pH buffering volatility reducing agent (VRA) for applications of OTT dicamba products with VRA rates based on the air temperature at application. A 40% reduction in treated area would be required at 85 degrees Fahrenheit or higher; applications would be prohibited when temperatures exceed 95 F. EPA has also proposed to maintain the same limited drift buffers that were used in previous registrations and added mitigation point requirements for endangered species.

"As a grower, I don't want to lose any tool. As soon as they start taking one away, it feels as though others can fall.

"And, I'm not against dicamba use," Zoerb said. "I'm against the irresponsible use of dicamba. We've experienced dicamba injury on this farm in the past. I'm very concerned that the proposed restrictions will just send us back to the Wild West scenario we saw when the trait was first introduced," Zoerb said.

For 2025, the use of dicamba in tolerant crops was restricted to preemergence use only.

Zoerb Farms mostly plants Enlist soybeans, which are sensitive to dicamba. A trait stack that includes both 2,4-D and dicamba tolerances might seem a logical answer to resolve the issue, but it wouldn't address the scenario of dicamba movement to other sensitive plants, he observed.

Temperature restrictions don't necessarily pay attention to calendar dates, he noted. It can sometimes be as hot in May as it is in July.

"What the calendar date cutoff does is draws a line. It alerts other farmers they should not be making post applications in those later parts of the season. That's important because those late sprays are when my sensitive soybeans are in the reproductive stage and can be damaged most," he said.

"We have already had some discussions about whether we grow soybeans next year on this farm if these proposals become the label," Zoerb added. "I also don't like the strain this situation puts on neighborly relations. It's worse than a bad fence and hungry cows."

EPA will take comments from farmers and others about the proposal until Aug. 22, 2025. See more at https://www.dtnpf.com/….

STUART SANDERSON: MADISON, ALABAMA

With the harvest looming, Sanderson seized the opportunity to get away to the beach for a few days. There's nothing like it, he said, to cool down the heat of summer and get the mind in gear for harvest.

Rains last weekend also provided welcome relief for the Henderson Farms crops. "Our soil moisture is still in good shape. We're running all the pivots in anticipation of next week being extremely hot or hotter than this past week," he said.

Just the thought of the northern Alabama heat makes DTN's Baranick sweat.

"It usually is consistently hot there this time of year," he observed. "But consistent highs in the mid-90s and overnight lows in the mid-70s, with dew points right there in the 70s as well, are pretty brutal when it lasts for this long," Baranick said. "That will be the case for much of this week, as well. A front will try to get down there late this week, but it may or may not make it.

"Still, temperatures should come down a few degrees as it approaches with cloud cover and thunderstorms becoming more likely. They'll be possible the rest of the week, but they're the pop-up type that those in the Southeast are very familiar with during the summer. They usually end up missing, but if they hit, they can put down some heavy rain in a hurry," he added.

Most of the farm's corn is fully made, Sanderson estimated. "The rain that came in this past weekend was good to help finish it out and add some dry matter," he said.

The farm pulls yield samples to help with storage and marketing decisions. However, Sanderson sees those yield estimating formulas as far from perfect and uses them only for guidance.

"I think we've got some 250-to-260 (bushel per acre/bpa) dryland corn and irrigated could go over 300 (bpa). It looks good, but the combine is the finish line and tells us the real story," he said.

Soybean yield potential is always a tougher read and rain delays threw the planting window wide open this year, resulting in growth stages that are wide ranging. Sanderson has a few early soybeans planted on higher ground that are entering late reproductive stages. On the other end of the growth chart, there are double-crop soybeans that have just begun to flower.

"Some of our dryland soybeans and late-planted double-crop beans really need rain to endure the hot we're going to see in the coming week," he said. "Again, we've got ground moisture right now, but when you start talking about several days of 100-degree weather, it can bake them pretty quick.

"We're grateful to have some irrigation and that our pivots have been running good and strong," he added.

This week the farm was moving corn and wheat out of bins. Emptied bins were being cleaned and readied for the new crop. Combines and headers got a checkup prior to wheat harvest, but in the next few weeks they will be scrutinized again.

"We pull them in one at a time and to check chains, sprockets, chopper blades and belts," he said. "We usually make sure we have belts in inventory that we know tend to wear during corn harvest."

The big news last week was the return of a high-clearance sprayer that has been out of service for several months after it was struck by lightning. The jolt fried the electronics in the machine, which fortunately was not occupied at the time. The farm is also in the process of building additional storage for another 100,000 gallons of liquid nitrogen to take advantage of tanker-load discounts.

He's more positive about EPA's proposal on dicamba. While Sanderson said they have had good luck using Liberty (glufosinate) this year, he worries about an overreliance on that product and lack of herbicide options in the pipeline in general.

"Dicamba is a good product for cleaning up the crop and addressing some of our weed resistance issues. I want every tool we can have at our disposal and in general, I am not in favor of anything that restricts how we operate.

"However, there's timing and management considerations for using dicamba that the industry needs to do a better job of observing," he said.

Henderson Farms does a lot of on-farm testing. Lately they've been focusing on understanding how water quality influences performance of herbicides. Improving the efficacy of existing products through better application methods is one more way to retain their viability and be more sustainable long-term, he said.

"Sure, I'd love to see new chemistry. But I'm not counting on that. Let's do a better job of being smart about how we use the tools we have," Sanderson said.

Pamela Smith can be reached at pamela.smith@dtn.com

Follow her on social platform X @PamSmithDTN

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