Air May 17 - 23, 2006

Alfalfa Insects still a problem

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 first cutting alfalfa is going down right now and it actually looks like we might have some decent weather to put up first cutting without it getting rained on. If you are having troubles deciding whether to cut or not because half the field is starting to bloom and the other half is drought stunted and isn't blooming, don't wait, get it all swathed now. While the alfalfa weevil larva may have all finished feeding and done all the damage they are going to do, we can't assume that we are out of the woods yet. The adults will continue to hang around the alfalfa field as long as the weather stays nice. Nice weather means not too hot. So until it really gets up into the mid to upper 80s, those adults may be inclined to not head to the timber, but stay in the field and start chewing off the new growth that should be starting to come up now. Additonally, we have had a lot of aphids that have moved back in to fields a couple weeks after treatment for weevil and aphids. There is a very real possibility that they can move into the recently cut fields and also feed on the new shoots trying to get going. The bottom line here is that once you get that first cutting off the field, you should start to see new growth coming along in just a matter of days. If it isn't, something is wrong. The problem right now is that the something that's wrong could be soil moisture conditions. So if you don't see that 2nd cutting starting to green up, you need to get out and start digging around. If the problem is insects, you should be able to find them as well as the chewed off new shoots. If the problem is dry weather, there just won't be anything. And if you aren't sure, give me a call! This has been Ag Outlook 2006 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

Early season corn problems

This is Ag Outlook 2006 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. Before I get started on corn a quick note about grain sorghum. The EPA has just approved a section 18 Emergency Exemption for the use of the herbicide Lumax on grain sorghum. Keep in mind that if you plan to use this product on grain sorghum, you have to have a copy of the Section 18 label - the standard label that comes with the herbicide is not adequate! Now on to corn. I've been looking at some seedling corn recently that was looking pretty touch. Leaves were appearing dead out or at the very least eaten on. Quite often it was the second and third leaves that were showing this damage with newer leaves appearing unaffected. There were questions regarding frost damage. In all cases, frost was probably not the culprit. Potential frost damage would have probably occurred much earlier than when this damage occurred. When the brown leaves were placed under magnification, it became very apparent that something had eaten all the green off the leaves, but not consumer the entire leaf, so the only thing left was a thin brown membrane. Only two insects are probably going to cause this kind of damage: black cutworms and corn flea beetles. Young black cutworms will do window feeding very early on in their lives, when they are still too small to eat entire plants. But this is far too late in the season for black cutworms to be that small. Corn flea beetle adults will do this damage especially when there is cool growing conditions that slow corn growth when the leaf is at the 2 to 3 leaf stage. Bingo - that fit the situation exactly. What do you do? Nothing! The growing point is still below ground and warmer weather is speeding up growth - ignore it!

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

Bromegrass poor performance

This is Ag Outlook 2006 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. There's just no two ways around it - the bromegrass crop is going to pretty well be a bust this year, at least in the tonnage side of the equation. There's a couple of culprits that we can point to here. Dry conditions last fall didn't allow the fertilizer to get carried into the soil profile where the plant could use it. Additionally, because of those dry conditions, the plants couldn't even take up what nutrients there were in the soil for utilization. Then we had a warm dry January and February and a slightly wetter but still warm March and April. When the real heat hit in April, the plant was popping out stunted little leaves one right after another before the stems had a change to really elongate like normal. This is quite common under stress conditions - you get the same number of leaves, they simply are smaller and the internodal length, the length between each leaf is less. That's a fancy way of saying the grass is shorter and tonnage will be reduced. What can you do about it? Nothing really. You still need to swath just as the heads are coming out and beginning to bloom. Do not delay cutting until the plant is making seed hoping that you'll get more tonnage. You'll get a few more pounds per acre, but the quality is going to drop like a rock once it finishes flowering. We still need to cut it at 4 to 6 inches in height, do not scalp the ground trying to get as many pounds as possible. You need to leave a little cover there to give the plant some photosynthetic material to work with. You also want to leave a little shade on the ground to keep it cooler and to reduce the number of weeds that may try to come up later on. This has been Ag Outlook 2006 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

Return to Radio Home Page

Return to Ag Home Page