Air October 23, 2002

Thank you Gary, and good morning everyone. It’s that time of year when we seem to end up with an assortment of jobs to do around the farm. Trying to finish up this, that or the other. So in keeping with that, I have a hodge podge of topics to cover this morning as well! Let’s start with wheat planting. If you are still planting wheat I’d start thinking about bumping up planting rates. By the first of next week, I’d be considering around 90 pounds per acre. The soil is cooling off fast and that will mean slower germination and plant establishment and that usually means slightly lower yields. We can compensate for that with higher planting rates.

If you have harvested fields that are not planted to wheat or pastures that have stands of field bindweed, now would be an excellent time to treat those. 2,4-D and Banvel can provide excellent control in the fall. Where appropriate, depending on what’s going to be planted next spring, Tordon can also be used. In the fall, bindweed is really pulling food down to the roots, so a fall herbicide application gets pulled right down there with the carbohydrates and can do maximum damage. You can treat in the fall up until we’ve started having temperatures down into the lower 20s on a regular basis. Bindweed lies low to the ground and is a pretty hardy plant so it doesn’t go dormant for quite a while. The important part of any perennial weed control is persistence. It takes several years in a row to control bindweed. With its massive and deep root system it had a real advantage this year and areas spread out a lot. If you think this problem is going to go away, forget it. Another weed that will be primarily in pastures and needs treatment right now is musk thistle. The wet weather has really brought on a lot of weed seedlins, including musk thistle. Again, we have a plant that is pretty cold tolerant so we still have lots of time to be treating this one. 2,4-D and Banvel are a great choice and adding a little Tordon will help control seedlings in the treatment area that emerge later this fall. At the same time we have a lot of folks concerned about all the "weeds" they are seeing in their pastures right now. Well, other than bindweed and musk thistle, there’s not much spraying you can do right now, and in many cases, the weeds that are being complained about are there because of overgrazing and drought. Spraying won’t fix this problem, only improved management. But that’s a topic for another day!

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

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