Air November 14, 2001

Thank you Mark, and good morning everyone. Just a last minute reminder of K-State Swine Day tomorrow at the Holidome in Manhattan. We are starting to get some weather that is a little more typical of the mid-November. It was good to see some real frost late last week, but then it warmed right back up to these ridiculous highs in the 60s. Part of the county got a nice little quarter to half inch shower on Monday. At least it helped settle the dust. Some of these wheat fields are getting awfully big. If it stays warm and dry, that’s going to be a problem because a lot of valuable moisture is getting used up. About all you can do is turn cattle out on it to reduce the size and thereby reduce water usage.

I don’t think we have yet to get enough cold weather to really shut the alfalfa down, so we can’t yet be treating for those winter annual weeds that are coming on strong. If you have not yet walked out into your alfalfa fields, you need to. New alfalfa seems to have gotten well established. We have several tools available to help deal with many of those weeds in alfalfa, both seedling alfalfa as well as established alfalfa. Probably two of the best products out there are Sencor and Pursuit. On established alfalfa, either one can be used in the dormant season, which we don’t have yet. Price is going to be with in a dollar an acre for the preferred rate. Both are going to have about the same activity unless you have a very specific weed problem. Okay, bottom line is that either one of these are going to cost you about 23 to 25 dollars/acre. That sounds like a lot, but come on, we’re talking about a quarter ton of alfalfa per acre. Or the difference in price of improving quality one grade. Believe me, the cost is worth it. If you are most concerned about winter annuals that are up and growing right now, then treat in December as soon as the alfalfa is dormant. If you are more concerned about grasses in the summer then a late winter application may be appropriate. Now, Pursuit also has the advantage that you can use it on seedling alfalfa that has at least 2 trifoliate leaves on it. You can also use Pursuit between cuttings. The message here is that you don’t have to tolerate weeds in alfalfa. Give me a call and we can work out a regimen that will take care of this problem for you!

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

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