Air April 13, 2005

Thank you Jerry, and good morning everyone. Rain showers continue to be a welcome thing, although at some point we'll need some drying weather to get some major field work done!

Speaking of the weather, soil temperatures really took a jump last week with the weekly average at the K-State agronomy farm in north Manhattan at 59 degrees. The range was 55 to 64 so those warm days last week really pushed that up. Given the forecast for this week, I don't anticipate nearly as much of an increase, but I don't think it'll cool off very much either. Which means that we can certainly be planting corn, where it's dry enough, and if you really wanted to push the window, soybean planting probably isn't too far away. We usually want minimum soil temps of 60, but if you're close and the forecast is calling for sunshine and temperatures in the upper 60s to 70s, you could always try to push the envelope just a little bit.

Let's switch gears to plant diseases - first soybean rust. There has been a lot of scouting being done this spring for soybean rust. The good news is that so far soybean rust has only been found in 2 counties in Florida growing on spring growth of kudzu. Extensive scouting throughout the region where it was found last year has failed to detect any soybean rust yet. This is good news, let's keep our fingers crossed! Wheat disease is another issue however. We saw a fair amount of various viral mosaics this spring, including soil borne, spindle streak and even some barley yellow dwarf. There's a limit to what we can do there. We are also picking up a LOT of powdery mildew and a little speckled leaf blotch and tan spot. Drier windy weather will take care of all of these, and if necessary we could spray, but with the price of wheat, it probably doesn't justify the expense. But of bigger concern is the rapid northerly spread of wheat leaf rust and stripe rust. I reported last month that spraying for wheat rust had started in Louisiana and Texas about 4 weeks ahead of schedule. Rust crossed the Red River into Oklahoma earlier this month and if you think about the weather the past ten days, we've had a lot of wind right out of the south, strong humidity laden wind just perfect for bringing rust spores to Kansas. We will be seeing it soon, and treatment may need to be seriously considered in some fields - stay tuned!

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

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