Air June 16, 2004

Thank you Mark, and good morning everyone.

As I was coming back from vacation on Monday I was wondering what to talk about this morning. I had been thinking about discussing prairie hay, but Tuesday's rainstorm changed my plans in a hurry!

I've already started receiving calls about how much damage and should I replant, etc., etc. To be right honest, it's a little early yet to get a good evaluation. I did look at some fields Tuesday afternoon that are going to need to be replanted. When 80% of the plants have over 50% of their roots exposed, then this indicates a serious problem. In milo or forage sorghum, you need to have that crown at least ½ inch under the soil surface so that it can adequately root from the crown. With the amount of soil that moved across many of the fields crowns and root systems are now well exposed and this is going to require a replant. Fortunately, we still have a little window left to get some replanting done. Soybeans are another story. They root and develop differently than corn or milo so that evaluation will require a little more time. Usually within 72 hours we should start to get an idea on how our stand is holding up where the water was moving. And for the corn, all we can do is ride it out and see what develops. If it looks too bad, there's always the hay or silage option. Standing water damage is another story. In a lot of cases, near the rivers and streams, the water came up and went back down fairly fast. But crops can't stand a lot of standing water for very long. Even just saturated soils with no standing surface water can cause serious problems. After 48 to 72 hours roots will start to die and the longer that the roots are deprived of oxygen, the more that will die. Unfortunately, until the soil dries down and oxygen moves back in, there isn't much that we can do but wait and see how bad the damage is. But by then it may be too late to replant. One other consideration is if the water covered plants and then went away quickly and things are looking okay, keep checking because plants that are covered by water evern for short periods of time are much more subject to certain unusualy diseases. Which, of course, we can't do anything about, other than to know why it happened! The good news is that a lot of stock ponds got filled, if they didn't get washed out!

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2004.

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