Air June 18, 2003

Thank you Gary, and good morning everyone. The wheat is moving fast now and how soon harvest gets going full bore all depends on the weather, as always. Keep a close watch on how different varieties performed for you - you're going to have a lot of important decisions in the near future. And mark down September 3rd on your calendar for a preplant wheat production school. We may set a lot of your wheat production notions on their ear. It's a ways off yet, but I don't want you to miss it.

Even though we've been in somewhat wetter times, grasshoppers are still all too abundant. I've seen them damaging sunflowers to the point of replant. They've been hitting brome hard and just about anything could be at risk. Right now they are still fairly small so they are going to be a lot easier to control. A couple more weeks of humidity and rain could take care of a lot of them, but we may not be able to wait that long! First place to look for the hoppers is going to be along grass waterways, ditches, just about anyplace that has large rank foliage. The young hoppers are going to congregate here and move out into young crops for feeding. Naturally, this helps in the control of the little rascals as you can concentrate spraying on border areas and field edges. If you have recently mowed the bromegrass or getting ready to put down some more alfalfa be on the lookout because you may start a mass movement out of these areas into other food and cover areas. There are many products available for treatment depending on crop and location. Sevin and lorsban have historically been commonly used controls. But many of the newer pyrethroid products including warrior and baythroid can give as or more effective control at lower costs. And many of the newer products work faster! One of the real tricks to grasshopper control is a lot of carrier. 20 gallons of water per acre is a minimum and 30 or 40 may be better. Even using a handgun to really soak down field edges is not out of the question. And then follow back up with lots of monitoring. Populations can move and explode overnight, so scouting at risk fields 2 to 3 times a week is not out of the question! And you need to stay on this because small grasshoppers are much easier to control than big grasshoppers!

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2003.

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