AIR September 29, 1999

Thank you Mark, and good morning everyone. Even though there’s crops waiting to be harvested, I haven’t heard anyone yet complaining about the rain that we received. It’s sure going to make a lot of folks getting ready to plant wheat feel a little more at ease. A quick announcement of a program that’s a ways off yet - Swine Industry Day will be Thursday November 18th in Manhattan. I’ll give you more details in early November.

Six months ago there probably weren’t very many farmers or ranchers who had heard of sericea lespedeza, let along given any thought about controlling it. But now, thanks to a change in the noxious weed law and a few newspaper stories and I’m seeing everything under the sun being brought into my office asking if it is sericea lespedeza. The concern is that as of July 1, 2000, sericea will be a noxious weed state wide. Do we have sericea lespedeza in Geary County? Yes. Do we have a lot of it? In a few locations. Fortunately, most of the sericea that I've seen has been in areas where it was planted, mainly on Corps of Engineers property. It is slowly spreading elsewhere, but we don’t have near the problem that the folks in southeast Kansas have. Over the next year I will be having some public meetings on Sericea. It can be controlled, but like all nasty perennial weeds, it will require a diligent effort over a five to eight year period. We see good control with products like Escort, Crossbow and Remedy, but timing becomes very very important. It responds very favorably to burning, and while having a high crude protein content, it is not highly palatable to cattle due to high tannin levels. Sheep, goats and deer do show pretty good utilization of it as a forage. Wildlife in general will be attracted to it for both shelter and feed. One of the problems with Sericea is it’s prolific seed production. Add to that the fact that only about 10 to 20% of the seed will germinate in a given year. It is very important to identify areas with sericea and then put control operations into effect to stop if from making seed. Then you spend the next 10 years dealing with seedlings from the hard dormant seed. I do have a new bulletin about the history and identification of Sericea. Control recommendations are outlined in the weed control bulletin and I will be happy to help you determine if you have any on your property.

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook '99

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