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Extension Update by Gary Zoubek [August 9, 2012]

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Coming Events

August 17, 2012- Soybean Management Field Day – David City – 9:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.

August 20, 2012 – Extension Board Exec. Meeting, 8:00 p.m.

August 22, 2012 — UNL South Central Ag Lab Field Day near Clay Center, 8:30 a.m. – 2 p.m.

August 23, 2012 – York County Corn Grower Plot Tour, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. located west of your on Highway 34 – ¾ miles north of Hwy 34 and Road I intersection!

Fair Time!

Another York County Fair has come and gone!  I hope you had an opportunity to come out and enjoy the pork and Beef BBQ’s as well as the Sertoma/Naber Produce Sweet Corn feed!  Watch for results for results and check out their face book page at: http://www.facebook.com/YorkCountyFair#!/YorkCountyFair.  They have lots of pictures posted to the site!

I want to THANK the many, many, many volunteers that helped make it a success!  Grounds Crew, Volunteers, 4-H leaders, Fairboard Members, Sponsors, Press, and many others THANK YOU for all that you do, great job! Also, THANK YOU co-workers at the Extension Office for all the efforts you do to make the 2012 York County Fair a success!

I guess it’s now time to start planning for next year’s fair!  If you have ideas/suggestions, get them to the Fairboard or me and I’ll get them to the appropriate people!

Soybean Management Field Days Planned

I hope you’ll mark the dates of the upcoming Soybean Management Field Days on your calendar.  They are planned for August 14-17 with sessions planned for Lexington, O’Neill, Platte Center and David City.  Registration for each of the Field Day’s starts at 9:00 a.m. with four one hour programs from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.  Topics include:  Soybean Seed Treatments and Foliar Fungicides Growth Enhancement Interaction with Herbicides, Managing Land Leases and Soybean Marketing, Herbicide Carrier Rate Study and Quest for the Holly Grail in Soybean Production!

Check out the sessions by going to http://ardc.unl.edu/soydays.  The David City date and location is August 17th and it’s located from the Jct of 92 & Hwy 15, 1 mile east on 92 and ¾ mile north on county road.

York County Corn Grower Plot Tour

The York County Corn Growers Annual Plot tour will be held Thursday, August 23, 2012 from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.  This year’s cooperators are Ray and Ron Makovicka and the plot is located West of York on the Dwight Johnson farm!  The plot is located ¾ miles north of Hwy 34 on Road I!

Those attending will be able to check out the various corn varieties and visit with the seed company representatives.  Following the tour, we’ll have pork sandwich lunch with all the trimmings.  We’ll then have a report on 2012 practices, products used and irrigation update.

Also this we have several different types of irrigation equipment to monitor soil moisture and estimate crop ET located in the field and will get updates from representatives in attendance.

Systems we have in the field include:

  • Brad Rathje with AquaCheck USA has provided an AquaCheck soil moisture sensor system
  • Jeff Kugler from Servitech has provided the Profiler Watermark soil moisture sensor system
  • Ken Quandt from McCrometer has provided an EnviroPro soil moisture sensor system
  • Tanner Tool from AquaSpy has provided AquaSpy soil moisture sensor system

Several door prizes will also be given away!  So, mark August 23rd on your calendar and plan to bring a pickup or carload of people!

Drought Resources Webpage

With the drought and a shortage of forages, some producers may be considering using some of their drought damaged corn or soybeans for forage or for grazing.  If you are considering harvesting or grazing crops for forage, it is important to consider the herbicide restrictions applied to these fields. Check the labels of these herbicides to confirm that grazing restrictions or forage harvesting restrictions have been met before you turn livestock into the fields or cut the crop for hay or silage

With corn, most commonly used herbicides have a grazing restriction of 0-80 days after application. For soybeans use of herbicides is somewhat more restrictive. Many herbicides allow grazing or forage harvest after 30 days of application, but some herbicides do not allow for grazing or forage harvest. This information is available for quick reference in the UNL 2012 Guide for Weed Management on pages 168-171, but always read the herbicide label for detailed information about grazing and forage harvest restrictions. This link should also get you to this information, http://cropwatch.unl.edu/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=dfce2915-e258-4e56-a2a4-2f2c77d80194&groupId=1841&.pdf.

With the earlier harvest, some potential crops to consider for forages would be oats following irrigated seed corn if seeded by mid-August!  Bruce Anderson indicated that it would be a great option if you want to harvest it as hay this fall.  It should produce a couple ton or so, while another option would be to seed it to rye if you want to harvest it next spring.  Mixtures of oats and turnips could also be other options if you wanted to graze it!

Check out all the resources at http://droughtresources.unl.edu.  I know that Bruce is updating more information about forage options that will be posted at this website, so be sure to check it out!  Give me a call at 402-362-5508 or email me at gary.zoubek@unl.edu if you have questions that I can try and find answers to!

Cropping Update

We received a little moisture this past week, but not much!  It’s been another week of the same old same old!  Hot, dry weather with little rain!  So what stage of growth is your crop in?  If it’s beginning dent we’re estimating about 5” of water to maturity.  If it’s half milk line, it’s about 2.25” to maturity.  For soybean just beginning seed enlargement or R5, about 6.5” of water will be needed while at R6 or end of seed enlargement we will need 3.5” to maturity.  We’ve got more complete details about crop water needs in this week’s issue of CropWatch, just click on the scheduling the last irrigation of the season link.