In the Pod: Soybean Updates

Bruce Sundeen: 00:00

You're listening to In the Pod, Soybean Updates, a weekly trek into the latest soybean information from NDSU Extension. This is the first episode of In the Pod, Soybean Updates, and our first guest is Miki Miheguli, director of agronomy and research with the North Dakota Soybean Council. Miki, tell us a bit about your background.

Miki Miheguli: 00:20

Sure. My name is Miki Miheguli. I'm the director of agronomy and research at North Dakota Soybean Council. My background is pretty much agronomy research and development. So I got my master's degree from University of Saskatchewan in soil science and then another master's degree from Xinjiang Agricultural University in plant science and my undergrad is also in agronomy. I worked as an agronomist in the industry previously as well. Worked in the world of canola before coming into this position. So agronomy, research and development, and program management is what I have been doing in in my career.

Bruce Sundeen: 01:02

As an agronomist, how would you characterize last year's soybean season?

Miki Miheguli: 01:07

We have very good open spring and serious, heating started and and then it get really wet. There is a lot of different seeding times happened. But overall, farmers are able to put the crop down. And we had a great season except for a little bit of dry here and there. Overall, we have good precipitation and yields are pretty good compared to previous years. Our average last year for soybean is 38 bushels per acre which is record high. Not as high compared to other states and some of the higher yielding soybean production areas in the US, but it's high in the average in North Dakota conditions. So we are pretty pleased with that higher yield here in North Dakota. Definitely, there is room for improvement. But overall, we had a pretty great season.

Bruce Sundeen: 02:06

Miki you're with the North Dakota Soybean Council. What exaclty does the Soybean Council do?

Miki Miheguli: 02:09

Soybean Council is a farmer led, farmer funded organization supported by soybean farmers of North Dakota. We are a checkoff organization. Farmers checkoff dollars support our activities. We direct those funds into research, market development, education and outreach. Trying to create value to farmers. Our mission is innovating to expand partnership, markets, and opportunities for the success of North Dakota Soybean Farmers. We have 12 board of directors or farmers coming from various production regions of North Dakota give us directions on where should organization go. But pretty much we invest farmers dollars trying to create value for for soybean farmers in the state.

Bruce Sundeen: 03:02

What are your thoughts on the upcoming growing season?

Miki Miheguli: 03:05

It's very, very important that farmers and agronomists plan ahead of the season. As an agronomist, we have a saying, a successful season already starts during harvest. I'm pretty sure a lot of farmers already have planned for a successful season during harvest already, but right now is a very good time to plan for another successful year. Planning starts from which variety to grow in each specific season, what kind of weed management strategies we need to follow? What kind of disease and insect management strategies we need to follow? And how are we going to scout those fields to stay on top of all the past problems? And what the season is gonna look like in terms of crop input supply. Are we going to have crop rotations figured out already? It's gonna change a little bit year to year. But a lot of farmers usually stick to their crop rotation. So that they have good crop, they have environments to produce successful crop a lot of years. So that's very important. What I will say to farmers and agronomists is try to think about worst case scenario and best case scenario. And think through a lot of things, a lot of factors that determine the successful crop production. So it's going to be a successful year, I hope.

Bruce Sundeen: 04:34

Miki, what's the best way to contact you?

Miki Miheguli: 04:37

If they wanna contact me, they can visit our website ndsoybean.org. We have a lot of information there.

Bruce Sundeen: 04:44

Thanks for joining us, Miki. Our guest has been Miki Miheguli, director of agronomy and research with the North Dakota Soybean Council. You're listening to In the Pod, Soybean Updates, a weekly trek into the latest soybean information from NDSU Extension.