Air July 28, 2004

Thank you Gary, and good morning everyone.

Just when thing were starting to get a little dry, along comes another couple inches of rain. Will this make the dryland crops? Well, most of the corn should now have all the moisture it needs. Soybeans and grain sorghum still need a couple more rains on through August, but boy we're in good shape for now!

Several of you have been asking about controlling volunteer wheat and cheat. The basic thread of these conversations is something the effect that with all this rain we should be getting a lot of the cheat seed germinated so we can control it now and get it out of the way. Unfortunately, this is not the case. All the annual bromes, in fact even a fair amount of the wheat seed that went through the combine, have built in dormancy. In other words most of the seed won't sprout immediately after ripening. Which is certainly a beneficial adaptation to keep it from sprouting too soon and run the risk of getting blasted by hot dry weather or attacked by insects. Even with adequate moisture and even with some of the incredibly cool evenings we've had, it still takes time for this dormancy to leave. In most years the cheat and other annual bromes won't start germinating until early to mid-September and a lot of it won't even germinate until on into October. Soooo, rotation is still the best way to deal with this problem. To be right honest, I rarely see any of the annual bromes in fields that are rotated annually. Switching to beans, corn or milo for a year or more will pretty well take care of a cheat problem in just a few years. Planting wheat in the same field for even two years in a row can crank up a problem not only with cheat but with take-all disease too. And if you really want to see take-all explode, plant wheat three consecutive years. Bottom line, there's nothing better than an annual rotation to minimize many weed, insect and disease problems. Now if you have a landlord who doesn't want to rotate, encourage them to visit with me about the advantages to crop rotations. Quickly on seed wheat for this fall. If you are keeping see back, make sure it has a minimum test weight of 58, 60 or above would be preferred. Have it cleaned to get a lot of those small kernels out and make sure that you have it treated with a fungicide.

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

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