Coming Events
- Oct. 2, 12:30 p.m., Beef Corn Stalk Grazing Webinar, http://beef.unl.edu/web/beef/cornstalkgrazingvalue
Nebraska Youth Beef Leadership Symposium
I’d like to encourage all high school age youth interested in beef production to consider attending the Nebraska Youth Beef Leadership Symposium! The theme is “Setting the Cornerposts for Tomorrow’s Beef Industry.”  The Dates are Nov. 2-3 for Freshman/Sophomores and Nov. 3-5 for Juniors/Seniors including the Power of Red Open House. This event will be held at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Animal Science Complex and is designed to introduce youth to career opportunities and current issues in the beef industry, as well as offer education and practice in the use of leadership skills.
For information as well as registration forms go to: http://animalscience.unl.edu/web/anisci/ANSCExtensionYouthProgramNYBLS
Six $500 scholarships to CASNR will be awarded to Juniors and Seniors attending. Give me a call if you’d like more information.
Cropping Update
I’ve been out and taken a couple irrigated yield checks and the yields were really good. As I’ve mentioned in the past we’ll have some of our best irrigated yields, while other may not be very good! We’ll see lots of variability this year especially in the rainfed fields. So much will depend upon planting date, tillage systems and variety.
I had an opportunity to go for an hour airplane ride the other day and we flew from East to West as well as North to South and observe many of our irrigated fields and center pivots.  You could sure see non irrigated wedges and some interesting patterns in some of the fields. Most years Morther Nature helps us out, but that has not been the case this year! I think all producers should have their fields flown at least once a year so really see what’s happening in their fields. It’s really important regularly check you systems for sprinklers not working properly or at all as well as the pressure along the entire length of the system. I could see some systems that had great patterns and some that were not so great and had serious problems! I’m sure some will show up as lower yields and interesting patterns on the yield monitor or maps!
Several Extension educators and specialists met this past week with some stakeholders to determine what educational efforts we should be planning for the next few months related to drought! We’re going to be working hard to get all our resources placed at one central site. That address is:
http://droughtresources.unl.edu. We will update it with the latest information for homeowners, crops producers as well as livestock producers.
This drought is not affecting everyone equally, if you have adequate irrigation water, you may be experiencing some great yields; while if all your crops are rainfed, you may be experiencing one of the worst years yield wise.  It’s really a mixed bag this year!
This point was brought out in the latest Cornhusker Economics article by Bruce Johnson “The Value of Irrigation in a Drought Regime: The Case of 2012â€. In the article, he constructed three different scenarios for an Eastern Nebraska irrigated corn farm. You can check out his article at:  http://cropwatch.unl.edu/. Just click on the appropriate link! In summary the article indicated that irrigation in Nebraska is paying a considerable premium in 2012, it’s safe to say that climate-related extremes from year to year are more likely to increase and not decrease in the years ahead and long-term sustainable management of Nebraska’s portion of the Ogallala Aquifer will become increasingly critical on a more weather-variable future!
That’s why we’ve been working with the NAWMN the past several years introducing producers to tools like ETgages and Watermark and other types of soil water sensors.
Finally, before closing today, many livestock producers are in need of forages especially in years like this! In the York area as a result of your irrigated production have lots of corn stover available that beef producers could sure utilize. Charles Wortmann, Terry Klopfenstein and Aaron Stalker prepared a CropWatch article this week addressing the effect of grazing stalks in No-till Fields. Studies were conducted 1993-1995 and 1996-2011. What they found was that grazing corn stalks is compatible with no-till management in eastern Nebraska and probably for irrigated fields throughout the state with no loss in average grain yields expected. Both corn and soybean yields were higher in fields grazed either in the spring or fall compared to fields that were not grazed. If you want more details, check out CropWatch.
So this might to a great year to take in some cattle, improve next year’s corn/soybean yields and help our beef producers needing forages! Want to learn more? Next Tuesday, October 2nd at 12:300 p.m. Aaron Berger, Extension Educator, Panhandle Research & Extension Center will conduct a webinar “Nebraska has approximately 10 million acres planted to corn annually. The cornstalks residue from these acres is a valuable feed resource for cattle producers.  UNL research has shown appropriate cornstalk grazing has no detrimental effects on subsequent crop yields.â€
You can view it live on your computer with adobe connect at: http://beef.unl.edu/web/beef/cornstalkgrazingvalue.
Lawn and Garden
Still not much rain, but we’ve had some cooler weather and maybe some chances of rain???  In Zac Reicher, Professor, Turfgrass Science, latest Turf iNfo update he indicated that we are still in the midst of drought and many questions are surfacing about turf care.
The number one question Is it dead or alive? The survival of turfgrass areas is difficult to predict because of many complicating factors, and our fear is that damage will be widespread. Regular soil moisture from irrigation/rainfall to bring turf out of dormancy is the most effective method to determine survival. Turf that is still somewhat green should fully green-up within 7-14 days of consistent soil moisture. For turf that has been dormant for months, grass that has not greened up within 10-14 days of consistent soil moisture likely will not recover.
Factors reducing survival chances:
- Traffic when dormant
- Increased length of time when dormant
- Low and/or infrequent mowing
- Excess fertilization this spring
- Feeding from white grubs, billbugs, or other insects
- Limited fertilization last fall
- Hot areas next to sidewalks, south exposures, etc.
- Excess thatch
- No/limited irrigation/precipitation to keep the crowns hydrated during the summer
- Tall fescue is likely more sensitive to damage from extended drought than Kentucky bluegrass
The number two question is should I seed or wait? He indicated that we are now essentially out of the optimum window for seeding and certainly will be after one waits 10-14 days following rainfall to judge the status of the turf. Seeding later than the optimum window can work, but increases the chances of winterkill depending on the growing conditions in the next six weeks.
Seed now if the risk can be justified and if not, wait to dormant seed which is usually highly effective http://turf.unl.edu/pdfctarticles/Octdormantseeding.pdf. Check out all of Zac’s latest update at: http://turf.unl.edu/.
