Air July 21, 2004

Thank you Gary, and good morning everyone.

The thermometer goes up for a few days and then it goes back down and then it goes back up - of course with County Fair this week, is it any wonder that it started back up on Monday?

This is county fair week. If you have lawn and garden questions it would be greatly appreciated if you could hold off until the first of next week to call me. For ag production questions, come on out to the fairgrounds. Don't try to call the fair office, it'll be to hard to track me down, just come on out and start asking for me. We still have two days left so come on out to the fairgrounds. Swine and sheep show is tonight and of course the project and livestock auction is tomorrow night. It may be a little warm, but it's always a fun time at the fair.

The soybeans are looking real good right now, but regular rains would certainly help them continue filling out. As you are out and about in those bean fields, and I hope you get out of the pickup and walk some of those fields because they are pretty impressive, be looking for colonies of small aphids, or leaves that are wet with honeydew, just like we have with greenbugs on milo, or another good thing to look for is lots of ants marching up soybean stalks. All of these are evidence of the most recent insect pest in Kansas, the soybean aphid. They were found in Kansas and Geary County two years ago and they have just sort of popped up here and there the past two years. Right now we are simply trying to monitor their arrival and presence and then note if any damage occurs. We really feel that they can not survive winters in Kansas and by the time they get here in the summer it'll be too late to do significant damage. But we won't know that for a couple of years likely, but we need to monitor this situation carefully. The other thing we need to be looking for in soybean fields are small to medium sized roughly circular areas that are stunted or dying from reasons other than standing water earlier this spring. We are eventually going to see soybean cyst nematode and this is how the symptoms first look. If you see anything like this, give me a call right away! Remember, come on out to the fair today or tomorrow!

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

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