AIR FEBRUARY 10, 1999

Thank you Larry and good morning everyone. We’ve kind of been having that February thaw - I guess we can pretty well kiss the apricot crop good-bye for another year!!! On the plus side if you were thinking about planting oats you’ve had some good weather to get ready for that. Or, if you needed to pull some soil samples for testing it’s been a good chance to get that done, and judging by the number of sample going through our office a lot of you have been taking advantage of this opportunity. Don’t forget the Estate Planning workshop next Monday from 9:30 to 3:30 at the 4-H/Sr. Citizens Building. Call the office to register or if you have any questions at all about this upcoming program.

I am quite amused that the 1998 preliminary wheat production and yield reports, that are normally out by the middle of December, still haven’t shown up, BUT the report on what wheat varieties were planted this past fall has shown up on my desk..... go figure. The results really shouldn’t surprise anyone. Karl, Jagger and 2137 held the top three slots in most of the areas. Geary County is in the east central area, but neighbors with the central (Dickinson County), north central (Clay county) and northeast (Riley County) areas. In the east central area Karl (including both Karl and Karl 92) and 2137 were almost neck and neck with right at 26% of the acreage in each. Coming in a somewhat distant third was Jagger with 17% and then 2163 with 10%. That accounts for almost 80% of the acres. Coming in in 5th place at 6.9% was actually blends of two or more varieties. Other varieties with between 1 and 2% of the acres were AGSECO 7853, Agripro’s Tomahawk and Victory as well as Dominator. IN the three neighboring crop reporting districts 2137 was the top variety at anywhere from 23 to 38% of the acres. Jagger was 2nd in two of the districts and Karl was 2nd in the other. Obviously producers have some concern over Jagger’s winter hardiness in these four districts because in the southeast and south-central districts Jagger was the #1 variety with around 45% of the acres, essentially double the acres of the 2nd place variety. And you get out in the west and southwest you find varieties like Ike and TAM107 being much more dominant. Interesting reading and if you would like a copy you can give me a call and I’ll be happy to send it to you.

This is Chuck Otte, County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook ’99.

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