Air October 5 - 19, 2006

Fall Safety

This is Ag Outlook 2006 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. Captain Safety has been keeping a low profile lately, so it's time for a message from him! Fall harvest, and wheat planting, and cattle working and moving all adds up to a busy time. Being busy makes us tired and a tired worker is a less safe worker. Know your limits and don't push yourself to hard. We're all a year older than we were last fall, and every year takes its toll on our abilities - whether we want to admit it or not! Take time every morning to do a check over of every piece of equipment. Don't put off daily maintenance on equipment. And don't put off routine maintenance of yourself. It's better to take a couple hours off to visit the doctor now, then to spend a couple of weeks, or more, in the hospital later. You aren't that much different than your crops - a little problem now is easier to take care of then once it gets out of hand weeks on down the road! It's also a cheaper fix the earlier you get on it! Now, right behind ear abuse, eye abuse is probably my next hottest topic. Too many of you are not wearing eye protection often enough. Protect eyes from dust and flying debris with goggles or safety glasses WITH side protection. Oh, I know they can be a nuisance, but having worn glasses for the last 40 years, trust me, you can get used to them. And again, they are far cheaper than the damage that can happen without them. And don't just protect your eyes, give them a break. If your eyes are getting strained, you know when it happens, give them a break. And if they are getting strained because you are squinting to see, go and visit the eye doctor! This has been Ag Outlook 2006 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

Seedling wheat problems

This is Ag Outlook 2006 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. A lot of wheat is getting planted right now and some is starting to come up. If you are still planting, there is no need to be in a hurry to increase seeding rates, yet. In general, I don't like to make that first increase until somewhere between October 20 and 25. At that time we probably need to be upping seeding rates to about 100 pounds per acre. And then, if we are still sneaking some in after about the 10^th of November - go ahead and bump it up to a full 2 bushels per acre. Later planted wheat will exhibit less tillering so we need more plants to increase the number of heads per acre. Now, for recently emerging wheat, we probably need to be thinking about early season problems in seedling wheat. Cooler weather is certainly a blessing as it helps keep the aphid problems minimized. BUT, watch out for warm ups on later in the month. A build up of aphids at that time would probably occur in the absence of predators and insecticide treatments may be required - we'll watch that on a day to day basis. Of bigger concern to me right now is army cutworms. They have been showing up and they can cause quite a bit of damage in the fall. Fall armyworms can look almost black to brown with faint striping. But what you want to look out for is the sign of early season infestation and that shows up as windowpane feeding, or the eating of the surface of the leaves by very small larvae. This damage can quickly give way to plant clipping. If you are seeing 25 to 30% of the plants with windowpane feeding, this should put you on high alert and daily monitoring of the field from then on. A quick treatment may be needed. Call me if you see this! This has been Ag Outlook 2006 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

Fall cowherd management

This is Ag Outlook 2006 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. Cattle are coming off pastures quickly now, calves are getting weaned and the next phase is getting started. Take those cows and sort them out by condition score. If you've got some that are over conditioned, maybe it's time to put them on a diet. Now's a great time to put them out on stalks and get some of that excess body condition off them - it'll save you money now and on down the line as well. If you have corn stubble, use that first - it's more fragile and breaks down quicker than sorghum stubble. If you are using sorghum stubble, make sure that you don't start getting new shoots after the cold weather that could be high in nitrates or prussic acid. You may just want to wait to use that sorghum stubble until we've really had a hard hard freeze. Now, if you've got a few cows that are skin and bones, or some of those heifers you're trying to get up to size, you need to sort those off and start getting some extra feed to them. You don't want to go too heavy on the grain - since they're going to be spending most of the winter on a roughage based diet, too much grain now will really confuse the old rumen and put you in worse shape. But something like wheat mids can really help, or a few pounds of grain, probably shouldn't exceed 6 pounds per day on the grain. However, before you just automatically do that, why not come into the office, get the bale probe and pull some samples so we can get your forages sampled so we know what we've got to work with. Then we can figure out some rations that'll meet your cows needs, minimize the impact on your pocketbook, and maximize profitability of the entire cow herd. This has been Ag Outlook 2006 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

Do Plant Evaluation while harvesting

This is Ag Outlook 2006 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. I know that the last thing you probably need while you are out there harvesting is trying to do one more thing from the seat of the combine, BUT, it would be in your own best interest to keep track of a few things. Keep a notebook in the combine and scribble an occasional note about notable sightings. Among these "notable sightings" would be - a lot of lodging. In corn, this could be corn borer or rootworm. In any crop it could be stalk rot, and then we'd need to determine which one. It could be hail damage or high populations. Lodging could be caused by varietal or hybrid differences. You probably know where those breaks are in the field but write them down anyway. See the reasons for lodging can be many and it really needs to be figured out why, so we can prevent it from happening in the future. If you have a yield monitor, you should be able to flag it and get a GPS fix, which would be great to come back to later. If not, try to write down approximate locations. If you want to get real serious about this, get a bunch of surveyors flags and a magic marker. If you see a spot, write a number on the flag, jump out and stick it in the ground and write a corresponding note in your notepad. Also take note of excessive broadleaf weed and grass problems. These are less common since the advent of Roundup ready crops, and more likely a problem in sorghum, but lets kee an eye on these and see if we can't pin down whey and where these things are happening. Once you get to the end of harvest, gather your notes up, come and see me and we'll start playing detective! This has been Ag Outlook 2006 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

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