Air August 10 - 16, 2006
Planting Alfalfa
This is Ag Outlook 2006 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. Normally, if we are going to plant alfalfa, we do it in the latter half of August or very early September. The big dollar question this year, is do we want to risk it. Many producers have dusted in alfalfa seed and wound up with a great crop. But it takes a lot of faith and can you afford to take a chance with seed the price that it is. One thing to keep in mind is that we really need to soil test before we plant. Two critical factors for the success of an alfalfa planting is soil pH and phosphorus levels. If either one or both is too low, you are guaranteed a poor stand no matter how much rain we have. We've already talked about timeing - basically August 15 to September 15th and the earlier the better. Next is variety selection and planting rate. Don't just go buy some plain brown wrapper seed from somebody down the creek that harvested seed two years ago. Sure it's cheap, but it's more than likely a protected variety so it's illegal, and you no idea what you are getting. We have lots of great varieties available today including some roundup ready varieties. Sure they are expensive, but if you take the time to do it right and take care of that stand - it can be a 6 year or longer investment. Our recommended planting rate is 8 to 15 pounds in dryland fields. With the price of seed there will be a natural tendency to go on the light side, but I think you are far better off spending the money to plant 12 to 15 pounds of pure live seed per acre. Plant into a good seedbed, and in many cases notill drilling is the absolute best way to go. This has been Ag Outlook 2006 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.
Wheat Fertility planning
This is Ag Outlook 2006 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. Many wheat producers are in a real dilemma right now. We have seen in recent years what the genetics in these newer wheat varieties are capable of IF they have adequate moisture, fertilization and decent weather. The only one of those three that we can control is the fertilization unless we have irrigation available. The old days of 60 pounds of nitrogen and 30 pounds of phosphorus will no longer work, unless we want to be satisfied with 40 bushel wheat. We know that produce that 60, 70, 80 bushel wheat is going to take 100 to 150 pounds of nitrogen and 30 to 60 pounds of phosphorus. But fertilizer prices have ridden the tidal wave up right along with fuel prices. Unfortunately, rising fertilizer prices don't really reduce the ideal fertilization rate very much. So what we can do, is to make sure that we are getting accurate information on what we have available to the crop from the soil reserve. Not enough people soil test and not enough people soil test properly to really know how much profile nitrogen is available. We need to take profile samples, not necessarily down 24 inches, but certainly 18 inches. Now don't turn me off right now, but the general recommendation is to get 10 to 15 samples and subsoil samples per field. If you could get ten I think that'd be a great pleny and somewhere between 6 and 10 may be adequate IF you have good uniform soils. But we really need to be getting some good nitrate tests so that we can make use of existing nutrient levels out there. We may find that we have more nitrogen available than we realized and can even save a little bit of the old fertilizer bill! This has been Ag Outlook 2006 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.
This is Ag Outlook 2006 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. Forage is at a premium and supplies are getting tighter. As somebody said to me the other day - you don't see the long rows of round bales out in the fence rows any more. And recent trips around the county are showing prairie hay being baled in meadows that I know haven't been baled much recently. Forage is going to be at a premium and producers are looking to use, if you'll pardon the phrase, everything but the squeal. Which may mean putting up grain sorghum as a hay crop, or using drought stressed sorghums as hay or grazing and later on, probably grazing some corn and milo stalks after harvest. Whatever you are going to do, if those plans include any kind of sorghum or millet you probably want to be testing for nitrates and prussic acid in the sorghum if you are going to be grazing. Prussic acid can kill much quicker than nitrates, but it is also far more manageable in most years. Nitrates do not go away after harvest, like prussic acid does. The only way to reduce nitrates is to ensile the crop. But over time, cattle can also build up a tolerance to very high levels of nitrate, whereas prussic acid will always be toxic. As we move along into the month I will be getting a fresh supply of the chemical that we can use for the rapid nitrate test. It can't tell us exact levels, but we can know in a hurry if we have something that's real hot or real not. And the soils lab at K-State can test for nitrates in just a few days - we're getting quick turnaround right now, so if you have any questions, let's test before you feed - cattle are too high priced to start losing even one right now!
This has been Ag Outlook 2006 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.
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