This is Ag Outlook 2005 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. With wheat harvest getting underway last week, it seems pretty obvious that we need to talk about harvest and post harvest issues this week. The wheat was certainly ready, in many fields, before the ground was. And as I travel around the region, I see a lot of tracks from combines, trucks and tractors and periodically a few spots in the fields that weren't harvested. To put it in very simple terms, these muddy tracks are big warning signals. Surprisingly, while you will get compaction from those tracks, it won't be as bad as the tracks you don't see. The worst compaction occurs in ground that is moderately moist and often seems to support equipment just fine. When it's really muddy, like those obvious tracks, the soil has more moisture, thereby being more fluid and moves around rather than compacting. Sure, you'll have some compaction, but a lot of the soil simply moves out of the way hence the tracks and why you get stuck. In a perfect soil you have 50% solids and 50% pore space. The pore space is what the air and water, in varying amounts, occupy. When you have moist soil that still supports equipment, the soil particles push together, eliminating the air and water spaces between the soil particles. But rather than slide past each other, as in the real muddy areas, the soil particles simply pack together and stay put. So the lack of tracks does not mean you didn't have compaction. Unfortunately, mother nature alone can't fix compaction damage. You have to wait until the soil gets really dry and then you have to rip it and fracture it so that it can regain the normal pore spaces that healthy soil should have. But until it dries out, there's not much you can do. Sure, you'll need to till out those muddy tracks sometime, but compaction correction will have to wait a few weeks. This has been Ag Outlook 2005 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

This is Ag Outlook 2005 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. We obviously have some pretty good soil moisture out in those wheat stubble fields so there is probably some interest in maybe trying some double crop beans or milo.... And given the less than stellar wheat crop I can understand why there might be some interest in getting a little more income out of those fields. No tilling beans into wheat stubble can work very well. There should be good soil moisture for the crop as long as there's enough surface moisture to get the crop germinated. Some people like to burn the stubble prior to planting and I can understand why but it's better for the soil and the crop in the long run if you don't! Be sure to pay close attention to the wheat herbicide you used. You may need to use an STS resistant soybean variety. In addition to the STS resistance, Roundup ready varieties can simplify weed control. This also allows you to plant as soon as possible and use one of the glyphosate products as a burndown after planting. Fertility is often overlooked when it comes to double crop soybeans. We might inoculate the beans, but that's about it. I feel that not applying a little starter fertilizer could be a mistake. We often see double crop beans in wheat stubble seem to be a little slow to establish and appear to be a little pale for the first few weeks. And we also know that if we burn the stubble first, this doesn't seem to happen, which is one of the reasons a preplant burn is so popular. But simply adding about 20 pounds of nitrogen and a little phosphorus as a starter fertilizer (less N if you are placing it in direct seed contact) can also help perk up the young plants and keep 'em growing until the nitrogen fixing bacteria get better established. Drilling tends to work a little better, plant to drop 3 to 4 seeds per foot of row with a drill and 7 to 8 seeds per foot of row with a planter. This has been Ag Outlook 2005 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

This is Ag Outlook 2005 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. If you haven't already seen it, there's a lot of green in those wheat stubble fields. The early June rains sprouted a lot of seeds. Some wheat fields had enough residual herbicide to suppress some of the broadleaf seedlings, but there's a lot of weeds coming on that are going need to be controlled if you want to help hold the moisture in that soil. Additionally, field bindweed is always doing well about this time of year and just coincidentally, this is a good time to get some control of field bindweed. If you have wheat stubble that is not going to double crop, then Tordon 22K is an excellent option and I would tank mix that with some 2,4-D. If you also have grassy weeds or volunteer wheat to control you can use roundup plus one of the dicamba products like clarity or Banvel. One word of warning, if you are using Tordon, 2,4-D or Banvel next to a soybean field. All of these, and even clarity to a lesser extent can produce vapors that will drift and really curl the leaves of yours or your neighbor's soybeans (or other broadleaf crops). Try to pick cool mornings with very light breezes moving away from sensitive crop fields when spraying these products. Just a reminder, these combinations should only be used to control bindweed and other annual weeds in stubble fields that are not going to be planted to double crop. Quickly while we are on the topic of spraying, a brief note on pasture spraying. It's probably getting a little too late to foliar treat brush and trees in pastures. Once we get into late June and July, the leaves have developed thick waxy cuticles and are slow to take up the herbicide. You can jack up the rates and knock the leaves off pretty effectively, but the amount of herbicide translocated to the roots is greatly diminished thus reducing control and efficacy. However, if you have some perennial weed problems in pastures, especially Ironweed, or western ragweed. This has been Ag Outlook 2005 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

This is Ag Outlook 2005 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. Some of you may think that a discussion of soil fertility is premature when wheat is still waiting to be harvested, but not really. I've seen an increasing number of fields showing up with soil tests indicating a need to apply some lime to increase soil pH. And you may be thinking that with wheat we just don't need to worry about that. And granted, when compared to alfalfa or soybeans, wheat isn't as sensitive, but when you get soil pH levels dropping below 5.7, which I've been seeing, then we need to consider applying some lime. But also consider how many of you will be planting soybeans into that wheat stubble next spring? If so, AND if the soil pH is below 6.0, you need to apply some lime, and this summer would be a great time to do that. If you need to build some phosphorus levels you can do that when you incorporate the lime. Which brings up a good point. Surface application of lime will be very ineffective in raising soil pH. You have to incorporate it. Which may raise a bit of an issue in these days of no till. Lime does not have to be plowed under. Often we can get good enough results with a field cultivator thereby leaving adequate residue on the soil surface. Of course, plowing or discing will work too, but I'd like to avoid that if at all possible. Back to why we should lime. Dropping soil pHs are a quiet and tricky little thief. You usually don't notice a huge change from one year to the next. But every tenth of a pH point drop below about 6.8 means a little more phosphorus is tied up and unavailable to the plant, and a little more aluminum becomes soluble in the soil which can start to burn the roots of sensitive plants like grain sorghum. And every point of pH drop also reduces the activity and effectiveness of nitrogen fixing bacteria. Slowly acidifying soils are a quiet threat that takes a few bushels away from you every year. Let's get it stopped! This has been Ag Outlook 2005 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

This is Ag Outlook 2005 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. We have the 4th of July holiday weekend ahead of us. I'll admit that I may not show it, but I'm a pretty darn patriotic person. Patriotism is one of those personal things, that for some of us is almost religious in it's intensity. I get choked up when I hear the national anthem and when I see active duty military, as well as veterans in parades. Too often, I feel that these special holidays become just a day off from work for many people and a chance to get together and party. We need to start spending a little bit of time thinking about why we are having those holidays and what they mean. I was talking to an agricultural professor from the Ukraine last week. Having just spent a few days in another former soviet state, she and I had a lot to talk about. We talked about the struggle for democracy that all of these former soviet states are facing. And we talked about how too many Americans take all of this for granted. Most of us have never lived in anything but a democracy. And so many of those struggling democracies are still trying to learn what it is to live in a democracy. We don't know anything else and they know everything but a democracy. As my Ukrainian friend put it, "Americans don't realize how special they have it - those people that started the revolution had the luxury of taking the best of the best from a couple millennia of human history to try to cobble together a whole new concept." And it worked! The one big problem we have today, is that we take our democracy for action. We become lackadaisical, we become apathetic and she was right, we take it for granted. It doesn't matter whether it's national pride against terrorism, or local events, we all need to be engaged in that wonderful thing called democracy. Take a few minutes in the days ahead to think about what a great country we live in. This has been Ag Outlook 2005 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

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