Air March 28 - April 4, 2006

Wheat production update

This is Ag Outlook 2006 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. With moisture in the ground, warmer weather returning and wheat moving rapidly into full scale growth it is a sure sign that spring is here and spring planting can't be far behind. But we're still a few weeks off from that so let's focus on the wheat. First of all we have a brand new wheat rust bulletin available. This new bulletin was in the most recent issue of the Kansas Farmer and will be out in an upcoming, if not already, issue of High Plains Journal. This bulletin has lots of excellent color pictures in it that will really help you identify the many diseases that will probably be showing up in our wheat crop this year. If you want extra copies of that bulletin, we do have them at the extension office. Now, about those diseases. What I was looking at recently had quite a bit of speckled leaf blotch and tan spot. We would expect both of these on early spring new leaves, especially in no till or reduced till fields. These diseases were heavy last year and probably also survived on the fall growth on the wheat plants. We probably can't justify spraying for these, but let's keep looking for other problems as well. I saw several fields last week where there were plants that appeared to be having some leaf feeding from very small caterpillars. I suspect army cutworms, but given the cooler weather when I was out looking, I couldn't find any - they were probably hiding down deep trying to stay warm. When these first feed they eat the surface off of leaves and then later on they'll start eating entire leaves. Be on the lookout for fields that appear to be going backwards and if this does show up, give me a call so we can see if spraying is needed! This has been Ag Outlook 2006 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

Early Season Alfalfa outlook

This is Ag Outlook 2006 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent.

This has been Ag Outlook 2006 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

Pasture Burning

This is Ag Outlook 2006 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent.

This has been Ag Outlook 2006 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

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