Air August 6, 2003

Thank you Gary, and good morning everyone. I'm going to start reminding you of our upcoming Wheat Preplant meeting on Wednesday, September 3rd. This is going to be 90 minutes of intense wheat management. The wheat genetics over the past 15 years have created the ability to produce 70, 80 and even 90 bushel wheat, or more. But if you are still managing and fertilizing the same way you were ten or fifteen years ago, you will be hard pressed to see these kinds of yields on a regular basis. We're going to be talking variety selection, disease resistance packages, weed control, seeding rates and fertility plans. We haven't had a wheat meeting in several years, and I think it's about time. Plan now to attend on September 3rd.

In case you needed to be reminded, January through July of 2003 was basically every bit as dry as the same period in 2002. Because of the timing of rainfall this year, crops have held on better than last year, so far, but if we don't get regular rains through August, the fall harvest is going to be very bleak. Which, or course, brings up a whole lot of questions. Let's start with weed and volunteer wheat control in stubble fields. The product of choice has usually been Roundup. Roundup, as many of you know well, does not work well on drought stressed plants, in fact no herbicide works well on drought stressed plants. And admittedly, roundup can even be a little weak on volunteer wheat. We can get just enough of a rain shower this time of year to get some volunteer sprouted and growing and then just that fast it can get stressed. We are still nearly 2 months away from wheat planting time so we have plenty of time to deal with weeds and volunteer wheat. There's no need to get panicky or in a hurry. If we get some good rains and the weeds perk up - be ready to till or spray them. Normally we'd be planting alfalfa the last half of August. You can try to get the seedbed worked up, but then you'll need to make the decision to hold off or plant and pray depending on the weather. The 30 and 90 forecasts aren't much help. They show climatological for temp and precip meaning there are equal changes of normal, above and below for both temperature and precipitation. I guess you go on faith, plant when you should and hope it rains when it should!

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

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