Air September 5, 2001

Thank you Mark, and good morning everyone. Wow, a lot of things are happening right now and happening fast. On to those important items in a minute. Don’t forget that tomorrow is the K-State Agronomy Farm Fall Field Day in Manhattan. The Agronomy farm is located across the street north of the football stadium. Tours will run from 8:30 to 10:30 with lots of other displays and booths to visit in the meantime. Spend the morning, have a nice lunch and head home in the afternoon. Again, that’s tomorrow, Thursday, September 6th. And don’t forget that the big show, The Kansas State Fair starts Friday the 7th and runs through September 16th. I’ve seen some of the sneak previews and it looks like there’ll be lots more new displays and exhibits so take a day off and have fun.

We are getting reports of clover worms in soybeans now. This has come to be a typical late season pest. These light green caterpillars often feed on pods and can cause some damage. Current stage of development and price of soybeans puts our treatment threshold at about 15 larvae per foot of row. We’re a long ways from that in the fields that I’ve been in. As fast as the soybean crop is progressing right now, it’s doubtful that treatment will be needed in most fields. Newly seeded alfalfa is starting to emerge so we need to be watching this very closely for fall webworms. Night time trips in the country are showing a lot of little moths in the headlights. Many of these are probably webworm adults so the risk is still there. Monitor those new alfalfa fields DAILY! We are moving up rapidly on wheat planting time. Many of these stubble fields are getting really green with volunteer. One field that I was in had a lot of young volunteer wheat shoots coming up but there were still scattered volunteer plants from that rain back in early July. These scattered plants appeared to be serving as a good host for many insect and disease pests, so as those new plants come along, the infection source is right there. With the current hay and forage situation what it is, it may be tempting to let that volunteer go and graze it off, but you are asking for problems for yourself or your neighbors if you do. Destroy all volunteer wheat two weeks before planting. Save yourself, and your neighbors, a field of grief!

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

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