2001 Soybean, Sorghum Grain and Silage, Grain Millet, and Summer Annual Forages Performance Tests

The Georgia Agricultural Experiment Station
College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
The University of Georgia

2001 Soybean, Sorghum Grain and Silage, Grain Millet, and Summer Annual Forages Performance Tests
Research Report Number 676
January 2002

The Season

Growing conditions improved during the 2001 crop season as a more normal rainfall pattern along with cooler temperatures occurred across most of the state. These favorable weather patterns were a much needed relief to Georgia farmers who battled extreme drought conditions the past three years. Although dry weather impeded planting in May, irrigation helped allow a relatively timely planting of the 2001 Georgia crops. As a result of the favorable weather, the status of crops was good to excellent throughout the growing season.

Rainfall at the six Georgia and one Florida test sites is listed below. Although the total seasonal rainfall amounts were below normal at four sites in Georgia, distribution of rainfall was good and soil moisture during the growing season was more normal than any year since 1997. Weather during the first two months of the year (data not shown) did not improve and a water shortage emergency was declared; therefore, some farmers participated in the program to take payment not to irrigate their crops during the 2001 crop year. Then most areas in the state received torrential rainfall during March and June.

2001 Rainfall¹
Month	Athens²	Calhoun³	Griffin	Midville	Plains	Tifton	Marianna, FL⁴
	--------------------------------------------------------- inches ---------------------------------------------------------
March	8.37	6.38	9.79	8.30	10.67	9.95	10.00
April	1.82	2.05	3.23	1.44	2.39	1.69	1.99
May	4.25	3.75	2.65	2.09	1.33	1.51	2.52
June	5.54	5.36	5.46	4.00	11.57	6.95	8.24
July	8.95	2.86	1.51	1.55	3.70	3.42	4.66
August	1.90	2.54	1.53	1.74	2.65	1.84	8.21
September	2.07	2.54	1.18	3.26	4.98	3.11	1.90
October	0.20	1.52	0.52	0.25	0.12	2.49	1.51
-
Total	33.10	27.00	25.87	22.63	37.41	30.96	39.03
-
Normal (8 mo)	32.26	37.14	35.88	34.70	34.71	35.28	-
-
1. Georgia data provided in part by Dr. G. Hoogenboom, Georgia Station, Griffin, GA.
2. Plant Sciences Farm.
3. Floyd County location.
4. University of Florida, North Florida Research & Education Center, Marianna, FL.

Georgia farmers continue to reduce planted acres of some row crops. Soybean acres continued a five-year decline, down 6 percent, and were the lowest acreage planted since 1963. Grain sorghum, hay and forage crops maintained the increase in acreage over two years ago as farmers search for drought tolerant crops.

The row crops in Georgia were much improved over the drought damaged crops of the past three years. Although there was some damage and increased incidence in disease brought in by the Tropical Storm Allison in June, the overall benefit from the torrential rainfall far outweighed any damaging effect. A dry September and extremely dry October helped the harvest season to begin early and to progress at a rapid rate. Soybean production increased 33 percent due to a 17 percent increase in average yield over 2000. The state average soybean yield this year was estimated at 28 bushels per acre, three bu/ac off the state record of 31 bu/ac in 1994. Forage production increased 38 percent over the 2000 crop year.

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