Filed under: Farm, frost, harvest, Minnesota, Soybeans, weather | Tags: early freeze, farm, frost, frost damage, Minnesota, Soybeans, weather
The frost of a week ago seems to have done more damage to the soybeans than I originally thought. If the plants were green the top leaves were killed. Any leaves left on the plants are showing some damage from the frost.
green soybeans after frost
The greenest soybeans took the hardest hit. It will be interesting to see how this impacts yield.
soybeans with some green leaves on them
If it had been a hard freeze you would smell the silage like odor from the stems being frozen and starting to rot, so I think the damage should have been only to the leaves. This means that the stem will still work to fill the pods.
Our driest beans still have some green in their pods, but few leaves.
Soybeans in the pods are not yet mature
When you pop open the pods you can see that the beans of even our most mature beans are a bit green. It will take some time yet before the fields are ready for harvest.
Looking across the fields you cans see areas of greener beans. The frost should hasten the drying of the whole field. It will still take some time before we can begin soybean harvest, but harvest has been hastened by the frost.
Michael
