Air February 16, 2005

Thank you Jerry, and good morning everyone. Another good rain last weekend and more chances for precipitation ahead - and I haven't heard anyone complain about it being too wet, yet.

Soybean producers, you are probably going to get sick and tired of hearing us talk about Asian Soybean rust before 2005 is done. BUT, a week from tonight, February 23rd, I will be presenting a producer informational meeting on soybean rust at the 4-H/Sr. Citizens Building at the Geary County fairgrounds starting at 7:30 p.m. Just show up and we'll talk about what we do and don't know. There'll be handouts with good pictures. There'll be discussion about the disease itself. There'll be discussion about soybean management in general and what impact your management may have on the risk of getting soybean rust or dealing with it if you do get it. I attended an update earlier this week and the good news is that we are pretty optimistic that in our part of Kansas we are looking at a moderate to low risk in general from soybean rust and likely a very low risk. As the one pathologist today put it, don't lose any sleep over soybean rust, but don't go into a coma either. With that said, I think it is very important that soybean producers become as knowledgable about this disease as possible, hence the meeting next Wednesday night. But what I want to focus on this morning is general soybean management. You are probably still locking in seed orders and still time to adjust those orders. We may want to look at planting our beans a little earlier. If you are planting a mid to late Group III bean or a very early group IV you probably don't need to change a thing in your plan. If you are planting late or planting a lot of double crop beans, we may need to talk because the risk of infection definitely goes up the further into the summer we get. We are probably planting more beans than we need to. If you are planting dryland beans in 30 inch rows, then we probably only need to be dropping 7 beans per foot or row or about 120,000 per acre. Drilled beans need to go in a little heavier, about 150,000 seeds per acre. That's 2 to 3 seeds per foot of row at 7.5 inch spacings or 4 to 5 in 15 inch rows. Basically, shoot for best management practices, don't short your yield potential for fear of the disease, and if it shows up, we'll spray and I Hope to see you next Wednesday night!

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2005.

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