S4E25: Statewide Crop Conditions and Cover Crops after Small Grains

Recorded: 7/1/2026

Join Penn State Extension Agronomy Educators for a timely and practical conversation on current crop conditions across Pennsylvania. In this episode, the team shares on-the-ground observations from fields spanning multiple regions. They highlight how recent weather patterns, soil moisture variability, and crop growth stages are shaping corn and forage performance.

The discussion includes a question about one of the most critical in-season decisions: cover crops following small grains. Educators will outline practical tools and approaches farmers can use right now.  

Hosts: Justin Brackenrich and Dwane Miller, Penn State Extension
Guests: Erin Cuprinka and Heidi Reed, Penn State Extension

Links:
A Cover Crop Selection Tool for Northeast US Farmers
Crop Protection Network
Agronomy Highlights S1E4: Tarspot in Corn
Agronomy Highlights S4E16: Double Crop Soybeans

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Transcript

Justin Brackenrich (00:18)
Welcome to another episode of the Agronomy Highlights podcast. I'm Justin Brackenrich and I'll be your host for today. And always I'm joined by my co host and colleague Dwane Miller. Dwane, how are you this morning?

Dwane Miller (00:29)
Justin, I'm a little toasty here in the eastern part of PA. I don't know about you, but it's it's a little warm, right?

Justin Brackenrich (00:36)
so we're recording this on seven one. I guess you can call this day two of a four day heat dome. we're looking at ninety-eights over the next couple of days. it's it's gonna bring some heat, huh?

Dwane Miller (00:48)
I'm wishing what's that term in winter polar vortex. Where's the polar vortex? That's right.

Justin Brackenrich (00:52)
We need to maybe they'll follow the heap though.

All right, so what we could do today, Dwane?

Dwane Miller (00:58)
All right, so this is our second go-around of our crop conditions around the state. So we're gonna talk to a few educators and just get a general gist of where crops are standing right now, what's happening around the state, and then we'll tackle one common question, timely information, right around the date here that we're recording.

Justin Brackenrich (01:16)
Yeah, it sounds like a good day. if you were with us last time for our first crop condition, you know we were joined. It was myself, it was Dwane, Doctor Heidi Reed and Erin Kuprinka. So let's go back to Heidi and Erin and let them do a quick introduction of themselves, remind us and tell us where they're located. So Heidi, let's start with you.

Heidi Reed (01:34)
Hello, my name is Heidi Reed. I'm the educator based in Lancaster County for the agronomy team. Good to be here.

Erin Kuprinka (01:41)
Hi everyone, I'm Erin Kuprinka. I'm based out of Mercer County and I represent the northwest portion of Pennsylvania. So I'm happy to be here as well.

Justin Brackenrich (01:49)
Awesome. Thank you for joining us again. let's just jump right into it. Dwane, I'm gonna start with you this morning. Why don't you give us the Schuylkill County, Carbon County cropping update?

Dwane Miller (01:59)
Okay. Well, this week the weather is favorable for doing a lot of stuff and it it has been relatively dry over the last couple weeks. So haymaking was really cranked in full gear. A lot of guys are finished up with first cutting grass hay. If they're not finished up, they are just about wrapping up now.

Second cutting alfalfa has started to come off. if you made that timely first cutting harvest, you're on a good schedule. That's that's happening as well. From the small grain side, I would say we are just about there for wheat harvest, likely happening or has happened. I have not seen a combine in my travels here in my two counties, but just to the south in Berks, combines are moving. Barley,

I'll let Heidi talk a little bit about barley. they're more advanced down there in in the Lancaster area than than we are. but wheat ready ready to come off or started to come off in in some areas. Corn has taken off in this heat. Boy, we we did receive some nice needed moisture over the weekend. And now with that heat, the corn has really taken off. I'd say we are somewhere around V six to V eight for an average.

Corn height. soybeans, they're a little bit of a different story. So almost everywhere I'm looking, we're seeing short beans. And it's carrying pretty much around the area. They have not started to flower yet. I would anticipate them to be

at R one very, very soon. beans across the board, whether you planted them pretty early, whether you planted them, mid May, they they they seem to be pretty short. And that's a little bit what's going around my area.

Justin Brackenrich (03:44)
Great. Thanks, Dwane. just as a is a side note, maybe could you explain a little bit of what like V one or V six or V two means? Maybe just could you condense that to thirty seconds?

Dwane Miller (03:55)
Sure. when we're staging corn, for example, and I'll say V five, that is I can see five what they call visible collars on on that corn leaf. And you can count those by starting at that very, very bottom leaf. Sometimes that leaf later in the year dies off or senesses falls off somehow.

But you still kind of count that. There's one at the very base of the ground, so that's one. And then I usually alternate on that same side of the plant and go one, three, five.

As long as I can see that collar fully visible, I count that as well. So when we're talking soybeans, a V stage, V2, for example, would be two of the fully unfolded trifoliate leaves on that soybean plant. So as you go through the vegetative stages, you'll say, you know, V1, V two, V6, V7. And as soon as you start to see flowers, we shift from vegetative to reproductive, and that would kick you into an R1.

stage in the soybeans.

Justin Brackenrich (04:56)
Great, thank you. So well I'm sure we'll talk more about the Rs of this as we move through our crop condition scoring and and our our conversations in corn and beans. But thanks for giving us a little context. Let's jump to Heidi. He mentioned Heidi and Barley, so let's let's travel a little south now.

Heidi Reed (05:13)
Sure. So there's a lot that reflects a little farther north down here in the southeast, but some differences as well. So I can start with barley since you mentioned that. Yeah, barley harvest is wrapping up down here and double crop beans following barley or you know colloquially called barley beans are are in the ground or on their way to being planted. I have heard talk of some extremely good barley yields.

some farmers even saying their barley might outy their corn this year, just with the timing of of when the drought has come compared to rain. that is some good news, and and quality seems to be pretty good on the on the barley as well. wheat is I just just as of yesterday, so June 30th, just saw some wheat starting to be harvested around, and it looks like

people aren't going ha hog with that yet. They're kind of testing to see if the moisture is where it needs to be. So stay tuned for reports about wheat. I am expecting yields to be significantly lower than average. with our wheat tour, we we were estimating about 20% lower than average yield. So we'll see if that holds true at the scales.

Then we have depending on how guys are managing their alfalfa, they're they're between either second cutting or even third cutting. Right now, second cutting hay, there's a lot of hay that's been mowed and gonna be bailed up here in the next couple of days. Corn is at the point where I start ignoring the vegetative stage and just saying it's about shoulder high, right?

I'm not counting leaves all that much at this point, but one note that I do want to bring up for corn is that we have had our first confirmed tar spot case in eastern Pennsylvania, according to Paul Esker. So a crop scout reached out to him the fourth week of June, and that has been confirmed, and apparently that's

about two weeks earlier than it's ever been seen in Pennsylvania before. So just something for folks to keep in mind is to be out there and be scouting. our weather conditions aren't going to be super conducive to tar spot formation here. It likes cooler, humid temperatures and we have hot, hot, hot here with the the heat dome as he called it. So, thankfully we're not at pollination right now. and it it might that heat might help us out with

reducing tar spot. I haven't heard much else notable about the corn crop at this time besides yeah in terms of foliar disease we'll we'll be seeing gray leaf spot northern corn leaf blight pop up here any day too. soybeans I saw my first soybean flowers the beginning of this week. So you know we've passed the longest day of the year. That is going to trigger a flowering and you know folks here in North are

are gonna be following suit. I think that is all for me.

Justin Brackenrich (08:21)
so one one note I wanna add to that is if you're not familiar with Tarspot or if you'd like to kind of brush up on that a little, The crop protection network has some great resources. and shamelessly I'll tell you there is an agronomy highlights podcast, season one, episode four, with Dr. Paul Esker and Alyssa Collins kind of running through when to see it, what to do, how to scalp for it and

options that you may have. So thanks, Heidi. Erin, let's let's jump over to you and what's going on in the West.

Erin Kuprinka (08:50)
As far as the northwest, we're gonna step back a bit. as you know, that we're several weeks behind where Heidi just reported. and even in my counties from Lawrence, clear up to Erie, there's a big time gap there too, at least a couple of weeks. but overall the weather here has been decent. it's been warm, we've been getting them as much moisture as we need when we need it. The crops look decent. There are a couple of days where farmers

Pushed to get their crops in the fields where it wasn't really necessary. Obviously, they didn't know that at that time. But looking back, they probably should have taken a day or two and gone fishing during those couple of days and then gone back to planting crops. But you can definitely tell those areas that the crops were pushed in a bit more.

I also reported on another report, I feel as if this area, there's significantly more oats planted than there were before. A lot of the soybean ground has gone to oats. In terms of soybeans, right now we are V1 through V3 for the most part. and corn is anywhere you know from emergence to V3. It's kind of all over the board

First cut has been pretty well wrapped up. There are a few stragglers out there. The quality that's left in the field is not necessarily ideal at this point. So, but I do think that a lot of first cut hay, even though some of the yields have been down because of the frost, a lot of the first cut hay looks decent for this area. second cut, there is some concern the forage isn't quite as

robust there as it should be, but overall, we're doing pretty well. We're doing pretty decent. Now Mercer County, as opposed as compared to other counties in my area, Mercer County does have, good soils in Lawrence County, it's very good soils and they, can handle the fluctuations in the weather a little bit better than some of my other counties.

That's it for me right now.

Justin Brackenrich (10:38)
Right, thanks. So I'll wrap up. it it's kind of interesting doing these I think Heidi mentioned this of of how far apart we all are and how different things can be, but how similar stuff is also at the same time, right? so small grains, we're very close to wheat, very close to triticale Harvest. Our oats are starting to turn. So, you know, over the next month we're gonna be very busy getting that stuff done. we have a a huge range in beans, right? I think we're V one to R one.

You know, and and I think part of that is a function of replants. I think part of that's a function of the weather and deer damage. but I think Dwane had mentioned that there's there's kind of a lot of shorter beans and we're we're seeing that. our corn looks pretty good considering our weather report, right? So I I'd gone on farm logs or bushels, that's what we use kind of here to track our fields and look at weather. And I reported this last time in Fayette County.

We're up to five hundred and sixty four growing degree days. And in Washington County, we're at nine hundred and fifty seven. I did the math here. Forty one percent warmer thirty-five miles away, right? And and so we're seeing and so if we do that for moisture, Fayette County is twenty three point six percent drier than usual, while Washington's eight point four. So a sixty one percent difference in moisture.

35 miles away. And so is if you kind of travel around over here and look at stuff, you're gonna see corn in varying different heights and I would say different degrees of maturity just because of our heat units and our moisture that we've had. Now now looking forward, we mentioned some nineties, some eighties. the next few days it's very low chance of rain. So we might start to see that curling happening. but later in the week and into next week, again, this is this is early July.

we start to get those sixty, eighty percent chance of thunderstorms. And so then it becomes the haves and have nots, right? Who got the thunderstorm this day and who didn't. So you know it's gonna rain somewhere, you just hope it's at your place. like they mentioned Alfalfa if probably very close to starting second cutting if we haven't and hey, I would guess we're probably, you know, seven to fourteen days away. I mean I think we had a pretty good window in early June. Because volumes down, I think people are going to try and kick that down the road maybe

longer than that thirty days they might usually wait. so we may hit that forty or forty five day mark. But but I'm guessing anytime over the next couple of weeks we'll get started.

Dwane Miller (12:59)
one thing I forgot to mention is our second cutting grass crop is really short in our in our neck of the woods. even if you put fertility to it, it it is it's just kinda it was sitting there waiting for some moisture. So I agree with you, Justin. I think folks are gonna try to hold off as long as they can. the good thing right now with second cutting grass is we are not seeing disease development, you know.

hot temperatures, and relatively little moisture. We're not seeing that disease come into the orchard grass like it can. So fingers crossed that we get some moisture and a little bit more growth there as well.

Justin Brackenrich (13:33)
And if you're one of those folks that's feeling like your second cutting was down, right, if our first cutting was lower and our second cutting is lower, we really have to start thinking about fall and wintertime, right? And how we kind of make up some of these differences. I was encourage you, again, just shamelessly, season four, episode twenty-one. We have a podcast episode on fertilizing after first cutting. but I think a lot of that would translate to fertilizing after second cutting if you're in a position where you need some extra forage.

Dwane Miller (14:00)
Your memory bank just guys, this is amazing. I'm listening to Justin just rattle off all these seasons and episodes. You you have these all filtered in the back of your filing cabinet in your head or what?

Justin Brackenrich (14:11)
I wish I could take cr no, I have two screens.

My screen is over here and I just have this Rolodex and while you guys talk I just jot down notes really quickly so that I can come back and But I appreciate you thinking I can handle all that.

Dwane Miller (14:25)
d I could I if I could only be like you one day, Justin.

Justin Brackenrich (14:28)
well fingers crossed you might grow up and be like me one day yet. any other crop reporting information? I know sometimes when I hear other people talk it jogs my memory for something I forgot.

Heidi Reed (14:38)
the only thing I would bring up that I, failed to convey is that yeah, you mentioned we're gonna see drought stress with with the heat and no rain. even earlier this week was already seeing on on thinner soils some some curling of the leaves. So praying for for rain Sunday, I guess.

Justin Brackenrich (14:58)
late June, I was in State College and I was thinking, yeah, we've had a lot of moisture here because as I drove out through those areas, I was seeing some curled corn and stuff. Now, looking at our weather report, I guess it's because we're cooler. even though we're drier, we're still cooler. And I guess that's keeping us a little safer over here in the west and while we're not seeing that so far, but it'll probably be a much different tale by the end of this week or moving into next.

Erin Kuprinka (15:23)
Yes, I second that, Justin. I was in the fields yesterday and today and the top of the soil is starting to crack in some areas. So I mean it's it's coming if we don't get a little bit of moisture. Also, just to point out, you said that we're so different and sometimes the same too. And in terms of wheat, I never mentioned wheat, but our wheat is scheduled a lot of it to come off next week if it hasn't. So that's pretty much the same as everybody reported here.

Dwane Miller (15:45)
Something I just looked up. Well, yeah, I try to pick up something that Justin does here. As we're talking, I thought about hey, what what's this, you know, of the evapotranspiration rate of corn at V6. So at V6, corn is respiring and and using a a tenth to fifteen hundredths hot weather. If it's windy, we could be up to two tenths of an inch per day. So

I think about it like, all right, man, we just got we got almost half an inch on Saturday. Well, guess what? That hot hot weather two days That's two days and we're done, you know. And and to Heidi's point, my travels out to state college too from through Berks County. Some of those thinner soils you saw some lawns browning and and over the ridges, boy, that corn was starting to curl already. So just a another thing to think about.

Justin Brackenrich (16:20)
Yeah.

Dwane Miller (16:39)
as we get this corn crop going and these crops are just trying to soak up everything they can, they they do require you know, a significant amount of water.

Justin Brackenrich (18:00)
Okay. All right. Thanks everyone. That was great. So let's move to our question portion. So the question we're going to talk about today, it might be one of those really big loaded questions of it depends answers, right? And and I'm sure we're not going to satisfy every situation, but I think we're gonna satisfy a couple answers. And I think we're gonna give you something to think about as you start to move into to answering this question. So our question is: I'm taking off wheat. We could call it small grains, it could be oats, barley, wheat.

I'm taking these crops off. should I spray after that to control weeds and what cover crops should I plant? You know, this is this is a huge question, lots of real estate. I'm looking to see who wants to unmute first and jump in here, and I'm not seeing any takers.

Dwane Miller (18:47)
I'll go first and and admittedly cover cropping is not my area of expertise and thank goodness I think we have somebody in this group that that has a real good rap on cover crops.

Justin Brackenrich (18:58)
We

pick these questions for a reason, right? This isn't about

Dwane Miller (19:01)
Absolutely,

absolutely. So my brain immediately is going to forage because I all right, we we talked already about hay first cutting may have been below average, second cutting looks like it's below average. We went into winter maybe feeding more hay than we did last year. So stocks may have hay stock may have been l lower and prices higher. So my my thoughts immediately going to what if I've got animals to feed.

what what am i gonna put in the ground that might get me some some forage so something that i would think about would be sorghum sudan grass pretty quick establishment if we can get it in get it get that small grain crop off quickly and and get that done we could get some significant tonnage out of something like that something else that we might be able to use

might be a a an oats crop, grazing oats or something like that, or an annual ryegrass. so from a forage standpoint, maybe those are the ones that I would throw out as options. first part of the question, right?

Justin Brackenrich (20:12)
that's okay. Yeah, I was gonna lead you back there. All right.

Dwane Miller (20:15)
Should we spray? Well, what's the extension answer? It depends, right? Right. I guess it would depend to me. I I'm looking at it like, all right, if I have something like a sorghum sudan, some very competitive, pretty heavy seeded rate, and and we come off with a pretty clean field of small grains. No, I wouldn't look to be be spraying that. Now, if we've got a pretty good mess on our hands in the in the small grain field and maybe we didn't

pay attention to something some kind of weed control going going into our small grains, then maybe we need to put a a shot of glyphosate on there, wait three days, something like that, and come in, come in and

Justin Brackenrich (20:53)
Great. Thanks, Dwane. Hadi, you ready?

Heidi Reed (20:56)
Well, yeah, I mean, Duane kind of took the words out of my mouth in terms of the thinking about weed control. Like when we have so many growing degree days accumulated each day and so much sunlight this time of year, those summer suited species are just gonna explode so quickly and provide excellent weed suppression. So to be honest, maybe a hot take, it's a good spot to

pull back on some inputs before a cover crop. You know, if you don't need to spray, don't s don't spray in this situation. Now it's a different story if you're planning to do double crop soybeans, to harvest for grain when you would like to baby them a little bit more. I agree about the summer forage grasses, Sudan grass, sorghum sudan, the millets are all

suitable, based, of course, manage according to your needs for the type of livestock you're trying to feed and your ability to to harvest and store, right? but I also when I'm thinking about cover crops you know beyond forages that you don't have animals to feed, you don't have anyone to sell it to

What are your goals with the cover crop? Are you trying to just get weed suppression? are you trying to build up nitrogen fertility in the soil for your next crop, for example? are you trying to pull up phosphorus from deeper in the soil? So there's there's options based on what you're after. this is a great time of year to put in some diversity.

that you usually can't get if you're planting after a corn or soybean crop. So a mix of, you know, one of those funny mixes that's that's got sunflowers and annual ryegrass and some some buckwheat and some sorghum sudan grass, you know, something with some diversity would be really great if you have the ability at this point in the rotation.

Erin Kuprinka (23:04)
Yeah, I think both of those great points. And I was going to mention what Duane mentioned first. But anyhow, just to c just to finish up on that a little bit, one thing that when you're doing cover crops, if you're going to use them for forage or just for cover, one thing to consider is the timeliness. Just make sure that you're absolutely ready when the crop comes off to get the cover crop in. I think the longer that we leave that weight, the more problems that we're going to have there.

and and back to Heidi, what she was saying about different mixtures for what you're concerned with, you know, nitrogen fixation, soil aggregation, nutrient uptake, and you know, what you're concerned with there. a tool that I always find fun to play around with is the Northeast Cover Crop Council species selector tool. You can play around with that and gain some good information about what you want to plant in in terms of your soil type and everything. So that works really well for that.

Justin Brackenrich (23:53)
Yeah. I don't think you guys left me much to add, right? I can throw a couple it depends in here. but one of the things I I think and maybe I'm going in a different direction, but one of my biggest hang ups and one of the concerns I have most is when we leave things fallow after small grains, right?

We we don't necessarily think about all the time of of, well, I just I got other stuff going on. I'm not gonna do anything with it. That's where I really think that spraying or that cover crop or something is really important because like they mentioned, any of these weeds that are underneath there, if we release that and we let them go, I mean, this is a huge thing for mare's tail or palmer or water hemp or any of those things that may be underneath there. And so that's my biggest caution to folks is we have to scout that field to figure out what makes sense, right? And if we're gonna try to go into

beans or something next year after this, I think that gives us maybe that opportunity for like a grass crop so that we can control some of these broadleaves in the fall or whatever we may need to, right? If we're in a pretty good situation that we're managing our weeds, now we look at the species and the diversity. But I think I guess my big takeaway would be know what you're doing in 2027, right? I know that's hard to say, but today, July one, July four

what's that gonna be in April of twenty twenty seven and then track it back a little bit of what we should accomplish between now and then?

Dwane Miller (25:11)
One thing w you know, we did talk about double crop beans a little bit there. as far as my geography, I am just about at the northern fringe of where double crop beans are tried. And I say tried. a lot of folks have tried maybe, and and not with a lot of success. We just tend to be a little bit late getting our small grain, especially the wheat off.

to be able to get double crop beans and and I'm assuming Erin, you're you're probably off that's off the target for you in your geography, correct?

Erin Kuprinka (25:47)
Absolutely, no double crop beans in the northwest.

Dwane Miller (25:50)
Justin, how about down down in your neck of the woods? Anybody trying that down there?

Justin Brackenrich (25:55)
Yeah, so we we do. I'll be kind of honest. The problem that we have with double crop beans is the yield is so low, right? seed costs are high, the yield is so low. If we're looking at a full season bean of a yield of maybe forty five to fifty, by the time we give up that that early season and we get into this hotter, drier time of year, you know, that the deer start cruising and it's kind of hard to pencil some of that stuff out unless you just have extra seed or you're doing something

you know, with a roundup ready one or something like that. I mean, maybe those folks do. and I've seen some people do forage beans, right? I mean that that's an option that you can put in after this and and you know you're you're looking to chop them and use them for livestock or something. but but I would say it's pretty uncommon that that I'm not seeing a lot of double crop beans.

Yeah, and and I think so high you touched on that. Would you wanna, you know, tell us a little bit more about what standard practices are for that, if if someone would like to look into it briefly.

Heidi Reed (26:51)
Yeah, sure. so for double crop soybeans, right? if you have the ability to move to narrower rows, to facilitate canopy closure quicker since we have a shorter growing season. That's always recommended as a best practice. So switch to to drilling the beans if you can. it's recommended to increase your seeding rate up to 180,000 to 200,000.

seeds dropped compared to like one thirty to one fifty for full season beans

just to compensate for the the shorter growing season that we have.

I believe you have a whole episode, Justin, just about double crop soybeans that maybe our listeners can go visit.

Justin Brackenrich (27:35)
Yeah, in my Rolodex, remember, in my mind, I keep these season four, episode sixteen. We have a full session on double cropping beans. It's going to talk about herbicides, it's gonna talk about fertility, it's gonna talk about species and planting and and varieties. So yeah, check that out if you're more interested. Thanks, Heidi So as we kind of move to a close here in our conditions and and question for the day or the week, anybody have any final thoughts or anything they'd like to share before we wrap up?

Dwane Miller (28:02)
I think, one of the biggest things we tried to drill home was if if you are thinking about doing anything after small grain harvest to get whether that's a double crop bean in, whether that's a cover crop of some kind, timing is everything, right? if you're looking for that forage, get it in as quickly as possible. If you're putting beans in, do it timely. So don't wait, have your ducks lined up.

and and get it done as quickly as you can.

Justin Brackenrich (28:31)
All right. As we close, I'm gonna I'm gonna say we also have the Penn State Extension wheat quality contest again this year. This would be its second year. And so if you you are harvesting wheat and you do have an interest in that, I'd I would contact your local extension office or agronomist and ask them how you can get involved. And this goes through Daniela Carrigio's lab and our grain folks and what they're gonna do is they're gonna test your grain, give you quality.

enter it in the contest at Ag Progress Day so people can see it. So if that's something you're you're curious about, reach out to Extension. We'd be happy to connect. Otherwise we hope to see you soon on the next episode of the Agronomy Highlights podcast. Thanks everybody.