Air July 10, 2002

Thank you Gary, and good morning everyone. Wet weather seems hesitant to show it’s face in our part of the state. Maybe we’ll see a better chance today or tomorrow. Or not. I know we’re sitting here dealing with a drought, but we need to also be thinking about wheat planting which is less than 3 months away now. While the wheat variety test results booklet isn’t published yet, I have received quite a bit of the preliminary data already. We all know that disease problems weren’t the prime concern this year, lack of moisture was. So it should be no surprise that varieties like Karl 92, Jagger and 2137 were still hanging in there. But we also know that the disease package on this good old varieties is starting to fall apart. Next time we do have a bad disease year, there will be more than just a few train wrecks out there. I don’t see any new public varieties to get excited about right now. But if you want to expand your variety list and add a new horse to the stable, I would try to round up some AgriPro Jagalene as soon as possible. In most locations across the state, Jagalene, I’ll let you figure out its parentage, was either at the top of the list or very close to the top, in fact at several locations it was head and shoulders above the second place variety. This one will be one to get your hands on.

Let’s shift back to the present and talk about drought stressed corn. A lot of it has hit the point of no return, or so close that if it didn’t rain last night or in the next day or two, you can pretty well close the book on many fields for grain production. However, that corn can still be a very valuable forage resource. Even though much of it will have no grain, it will still make very good silage. K-State studies have shown that even baren stalk corn silage will have feed values 70 to 85% as good as well eared corn silage. Granted, the yield on some of these fields may not be more than a few tons per acre, but the way the year is shaping up every single ton may be necessary. Other options for those fields are haying and grazing. Of course, we always have to be considering the possibility of nitrate problems. I did take samples from several fields and have sent those off to the lab for nitrate testing, but as of late yesterday afternoon, there were no results back yet! One good thing about corn, it is not a prussic acid accumulator so we don’t have to worry about that, and it is not as bad on the nitrates, normally, as the sorghums are. If you have questions about droughty corn utilization or ammoniating wheat straw, give me a call!

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2002.

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