Air April 5, 2000

Thank you Mark, and good morning everyone. It’s April and a lot of corn producers are getting itchy to get some corn in the ground. Well, we’re getting close. Just checking soil temperatures around the state we’re seeing daily ranges from upper 40’s to lower 50’s and the average of right around 50. 50 is my magic minimum that I want for corn planting. I like 55 better, but I won’t grumble about 50. With temperatures improving from that early week cool down, I’d say get planting as soon as it’s dry enough to roll.

Even though the County Public Works will now take household hazardous waste and ag chemical waste any work day, they are still having a special hazardous waste drop off day. Saturday, April 15th from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 310 East 8th (that’s the county public works shop area) you can drop off your household hazardous waste and ag chemicals. This includes old pesticides, paint, basically any fluids including antifreeze and oil. About the only thing that they will not take is tires. Leave your tires at home. This is a great opportunity to do some cleaning up around the home or farm. Do you still have that gallon jug of you’re not sure what? Bring it in. Do you have 5 gallons of used motor oil or antifreeze that you weren’t sure what to do with? Bring it in. We should not be dumping this stuff down a drain or on the soil. Bring that stuff in and get rid of it!

And real quickly on aphids and weevils this morning. I was quite surprised at the number of beneficial insects I was finding in wheat fields late last week. There were a lot of ladybugs and lacewings present - both of which will feed heavily on aphids of all kinds. This bodes well, for us anyway, for greenbug populations in wheat and pea aphids in alfalfa. With the number of predators out there I don’t think we’ll see much more problems with aphids this spring. Of course never assume anything. On the other hand, with the forecast we have for the rest of the week, the alfalfa weevils are getting ready to explode now. You should be making visits at least every other day into alfalfa fields. If you average one weevil larvae per stem, you’d better get ready to spray!

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2000.

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