Airing September 19 - 23, 2005

Wheat Planting

This is Ag Outlook 2005 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. We're moving into those last ten days of September. And I'm sure that at least a few folks are getting itchy to get some wheat planted. Maybe you want some fall pasture for your cattle, or maybe you just think you need to get a jump on things. Before you start rolling with that drill too far ahead of the October 5th fly free date, consider just a few things. The earlier you plant, the bigger the wheat will get this fall. The more nutrients it'll use up, the more attractive it'll be to insect pests, like aphids that carry barley yellow dwarf. And earlier planted wheat normally breaks dormancy earlier which will put it more at risk for spring freeze damage.... You do remember spring freeze damage don't you? And I wish you could talk to some of the fellows down in Oklahoma who planted wheat last fall and then endured a long warm autumn only to have some of their wheat try to start heading out in November! Bottom line - you will have less problems if you don't plant until after October 5th. In addition to all the problems I just mentioned, let's not forget our old nemesis, Hessian Fly - a problem we've been ignoring, but has slowly been sneaking back in on us. If you just have to plant early, please use something like Gaucho or Cruiser seed treatment that will give some early season insect control. If you are planting early for grazing purposes check the label for waiting periods. I know Gaucho has a 45 day waiting period until grazing - I couldn't find anything on a quick scan of the Cruiser label, but read it closely just to make sure. Oh, you don't want to pay the extra dollars for one of these seed treatments? Then don't plant early! This has been Ag Outlook 2005 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

Soybean Insects

This is Ag Outlook 2005 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. I guess the late season soybean insect situation this year is the classic never ending story. But hopefully, for the last time this year, let's review what we've got, because there are some changes occurring. Here's a run down of what's happened and where we are. Bean leaf beetles - this pest is gone or mostly gone for this year. This was the first one that attacked the beans and ate holes in leaves and chewed on pods. Some spraying was done. Corn earworm - while this one can be a nasty one in we didn't have much problem with this one in beans but some problems in milo. It's pretty well gone now also. Green cloverworms continue to be a challenge and even late last week I was finding a surprising number of relatively small ones. This is the one that has just stripped the upper canopy in many fields and the one that's causing so many off color fields right now. It would be prudent to continue to monitor this pest IF you have the following conditions: double crop beans OR late planted beans and you still have a number of pods that are still increasing in size. If you are finding more than about ten green cloverworms per foot of row it will probably be worth your while to spray. BUT, if you have beans where all the pods are full sized and many are starting to turn color - just walk out of the field and don't look any further, it won't be worth spraying. And this is where most fields are by now. Oh, if you do have those double crop beans, be on the lookout for webworm also. These rascals have popped up in the past week - look for leaves being tied together with feeding damage - if you're finding a lot, call me! This has been Ag Outlook 2005 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

Alfalfa Insects

This is Ag Outlook 2005 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. I guess if I have to choose a title for the 2005 crop year, I'll call it the buggy year or at least the buggy late year. As if we didn't have enough problems with soybean insects, now we've got potential problems popping up in alfalfa. There was concern over green cloverworms moving out of beans into alfalfa. And while that is a potential problem, it's not one that we usually worry too much about. But what is happening is that we've got webworms cranking up. We saw a few webworms several years ago in early summer in soybeans. And sure enough, we've started seeing webworms this fall in many locations. Look for plants, and it can be almost any broadleaf plant, that has leaves sort of stitched together with webbing and then parts of the leaves eaten. If might be soybeans, or alfalfa or even pigweeds - the webworms don't really care. Then start looking for a green caterpillar with real obvious black dots down their sides. This is your webworm. If you've got webworms in established alfalfa with more than 30% of the stems infested, you'll probably want to spray. Granted you could harvest that alfalfa, but we're heading into that time frame when it is really tricky to get one more cutting without hurting ther stand. Proceed with caution or call me first. But if you've got a good looking stand of new alfalfa with more than 25% infestation, you probably want to get it sprayed pretty quick. Those new plants need to be busy storing up food and developing a good root system - they can't stand much defoliation. So get out there and walk those alfalfa fields to make sure you don't have any surprises on down the line. 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.

This has been Ag Outlook 2005 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

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