Air March 28, 2001

Thank you Mark, and good morning everyone. I promise that spring is coming. I ran into it in central Oklahoma last week and it said it was heading north, but it would probably be a little bit late! I spent most of last week in southwest Texas - out in the mountains and Chihuahuan desert. I came back through the Texas panhandle and then from Elkhart Kansas up through Dodge City, Great Bend and then back to Junction City. The best wheat on the whole trip was in central Kansas and right around here. Amarillo has had 46 inches of snow this winter and double its normal precipiration since the first of the year. But the wheat that I saw in the panhandle looked pretty thin and bleak.

With April 1st right around the corner there are certainly a few corn farmers getting itchy to get something planted. We’re running into two problems this spring. Wet soils and cold soils. And cloudy days and any precipitation only makes it worse. While I would like to get minimum soil temperatures up to fifty degrees before I start planting, I will give a nod of approval at around 47 or 48 degrees IF it looks like sunshine and warmer weather are in store for the next few days. Well, as of yesterday morning, we weren’t there yet! I had 43 degrees yesterday for a soil temperature and around the state we are seeing the same thing. We’ve even lost ground from last week when sunshine and highs in the 60’s had things moving in the right direction. We need to worry less about the calendar and pay attention to the weather and soil. This continued colder than normal conditions also has impacts on the other popular spring activity, pasture burning. What’s our key indicator of when to burn pastures? That’s right, big bluestem and indiangrass showing ½ to ¾ inch of new growth. Unless we have a real rapid turnaround in the weather, we are going to be running a little later than normal this year. That April 20th date could be April 25th or later real easily. IF you want to maximize species diversity and insure lots of wild flowers and an increase in cool season grasses, then burn early. If you want to maximize the growth of the desirable warm season native perennials, you’ve got about a month to wait! Cattle producers, we have a new bulletin in the office called corn gluten feed. This is a good write up on a good grain byproduct. Pick up a copy of this bulletin today!

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2001.

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