AIR November 17, 1999

Thank you Larry, and good morning everyone. No more comments about the weather records we’re setting, it’ll only depress all of us more. Let’s just say that if you think we running a little warmer than normal..... You’re right!

The warm weather and especially the lack of true seasonally cold weather for this time of year has created a couple of problems. First of all, in some of the wheat fields that have enough growth to actually look decent we are starting to find some aphids. I’ve been finding Oat-bird Cherry Aphids, a few English Grain Aphids and more disconcerting than anything is the finding of some greenbugs. The first two don’t really do that much feeding damage. They can, of course, carry the barley yellow dwarf virus and fall infections are always much more damaging than spring infections. We can expect to see a pretty good amount of Barley Yellow Dwarf now next spring. The greenbugs can also carry the barley yellow dwarf virus but they also cause some serious feeding damage to the wheat plants themselves. If you find dying leaves on plants and an overall off color look to parts of your wheat field, get down on your hands and knees and start looking. Okay, what do you do about it if you do have greenbugs and damage? To be right honest, I wouldn’t do a thing. We do not have good conditions right now for wheat growth and the value of that wheat is limited. IF you have a seed production field we may be able to justify one treatment. Threshholds for treatment with the kind of wheat we have right now is about 50 greenbugs per foot of row. Like I said for straight grain production, you can not justify the expense of spraying given the current prices and weather conditions.

For those of you grazing milo stalks, I hope you are out there looking at those fields. I’m not sure where the plants are finding the moisture, BUT some of them are putting up new shoots from the base of the plants. The problem is that these will be very attractive to cattle and run the risk of having high prussic acid and possibly even high nitrates. Get out there and start checking - if you have questions, call me!

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

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