Quebec Plot Day

The had a more relaxed start but was still early. No alarming wake up call either. I prepared almost the exact same breakfast today. Can you spot the difference?

We made our way over to our research farm and I went out to the field to find one customer who had asked to come early. They had a lot of ground to cover and needed an early start. He was almost done when I found him. I had stopped to take my own notes on some 85 day material before going on the hunt. We had a great conversation. When I emerged I found my colleague there. We haven’t been in person since March 2020 despite talking every two three days normally. We had a good chat as well until some more customers arrived. I conducted my event and visited with a number of customers. When the bulk of them had finished and moved on I dove into the corn to take my own notes. It’s nice to follow the customers through because they L’ every already opened an ear for the ones I want to see. The Western Corn Rootworm beetles also like it. I think there was one or two on every exposed ear. The pressure in this geography is astounding.

Around one I ventured to the shed for lunch. My colleague had treated everyone with some St Hubert’s chicken. I stood to eat mine and that was a mistake. The national functional leader and local lead of my old team were also visiting the research farm at the time and we sat with them and had some discussion. There was chirping back and forth but we also had some good discussion. Their team is looking at how to do things differently going forward. Soon that job won’t look anything like the one I left a couple years ago. After lunch I got back after it.

That was around the time that I came across what I’ve long considered my ideal corn phenotype. The corn is drying down, loose husks that have popped open at this point. The top of the plant is healthy and green. That means that it is still able to photosynthesize into the fall and keeping pumping starch into the kernels. It also shows me that the plant isn’t about to cannabalize the stalks to fill the ear and it should stand strong longer. The open husk will aid in drydown and allow air movement to the kernels that will reduce opportunity for disease development. That hybrid had reached black layer (barely) which is crazy to me. Lots of ideal characteristics in this plot. Maybe just a touch extra husk for my perfect look. When I finished corn I switched over to look at the early bean trials. I checked the forecast and decided I’d better go walk the corn at the next site while the skies were behaving. I can use an umbrella to walk soybean trials. The site was forty five minutes away and I hustled over and finished up as the sun started to set. It was a long ride back to meet Brack for dinner. I was greeted by this warning on my door. That is a bit of downer for a guy who was beyond parched by the time I arrived. Luckily they were giving out some bottles of water.

We went back to Le Cage for dinner and both got a Buffalo Chicken poutine. It was a heavy load. We both had a couple local beers along with our hefty meals. That was about it, we went to the hotel and powered down after a really long day.