Coming Events
- June 10-11 Tractor Training, Polk Co. Fairgrounds, Osceola
Nebraska No-till Bus Tour Planned for June 24-27, 2013
For those growers interested in no-till, Paul Jasa and Scott Gonnerman have planned a No-till Bus Tour to the Dakotas in June. Registration is limited to the first 50 people, with preference given to Nebraskans as we near the deadline. No e-mail or phone registrations will be accepted, and sorry, no credit cards.
The bus will leave the Buffalo County Fairgrounds in Kearney promptly at 1:00 p.m. on Monday, June 24, and drive to Pierre, SD. Ray Ward of Ward Laboratories will give an optional tour of the lab on Monday morning, from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., for those who arrive in Kearney early. Lunch is on your own and the bus will be at the fairgrounds at noon for loading. Parking on the fairgrounds is available at no charge (west of the Exhibit Hall).
On Tuesday, June 25, the group will visit Dwayne Beck at the Dakota Lakes Research Farm near Pierre and Dan Forgey of Cronin Farms near Gettysburg, SD. Then we will drive on to Bismarck, ND, for the night. On Wednesday, June 26, we will visit Richter Farms, the Black Leg Ranch, the Seth Williams Farm, and the Menoken Farm, hosted by Jay Fuhrer and the Burleigh County Soil Conservation District. After staying a second night in Bismarck, we’ll return to Kearney on Thursday evening, June 27, visiting the Rick Bieber Farm near Trail City, SD, on the way back. This will be a nice tour of established no-till, diverse crop rotations, cover crops, and livestock grazing systems. Ray Ward, some seasoned no-tillers, and Paul Jasa will be on the bus to discuss whatever no-till topics come up, adding to the educational experience during the driving time.
For complete details and registration information go to CropWatch: http://cropwatch.unl.edu/web/cropwatch/archive?articleID=5173245.
Cropping Update
We’ve made a lot of progress planting last week and what a welcome rain. What a timely rain over the weekend. It should really help with the emergence of corn and soybeans in situations where there was a little crusting. Hopefully this will get most of the crop up and growing.
I’d like to thank Ray and Ron Makovicka for getting the York County Corn Grower Plot planted on the Dwight & Gwen Johnson farm. We were able to get it planted Friday, May 10. The plot includes 26 numbers from thirteen companies along with a tester. It should again be a great plot.
I’d also like to thank Jerry Stahr for getting the York County RoundUp Ready Soybean planted this past Friday, May 17. It’s planted just East of the UFC and includes 16 strips plus the testers. His field will also be one of the Soybean Management Field Day sites with the plot tour planned for the second week of August.
As I mentioned last week, I set out several ETgages and began reading them yesterday. On average they dropped 1.8†for the week. That change is what we refer to as the reference ET. From it we multiply by a crop coefficient based on the crop stage of growth! So, what does that indicate? When the crop is V16 or more, the coefficient would be 1.1, however, now with the crop very small the coefficient for V2 corn is .1. Corn at V16 would have used 2.16†for the week or .31â€/day, but because most of the crop in our area is V2 or less, it used .18†or .025â€/day. The same things would be true for soybeans also.
It’s kind of interesting to see how no two years are the same. Last year at this time the corn I was monitoring was at v5 and the soybeans were at V1.
I’ll plan to share my weekly readings in my column as well as on our NAWMN website. These reading along with your crops stage of growth can do a great job of estimating the weekly crop ET. I’ve used them for several years and feel that they’re very reliable. That website is: http://water.unl.edu/NAWMN. You can check it for the ET for fields nearby my ETgages or for the daily weather station ET estimates.
Once the fields dry some and the crops get a little bigger, it will be time to install Watermark Sensors. I know that we have several new cooperators this year. I along with staff at the NRD are here to help you have success with both ETgages as well as Watermark Sensors. The ETgage gives you a good idea as to how much your crop is using the while the Watermark Sensors give you an idea as to how much soil water you have left. No reason to start irrigating if you have adequate soil moisture and you for sure don’t want to end the season with a full profile.
Following last season’s long irrigation season, it’s really more important than ever to limit the amount of water applied so we can maintain our aquifer. A few years ago we made some videos on how to use ETgages, stage your crop as well as install Watermark Sensors. Those videos can be found at: http://water.unl.edu/web/cropswater/awmdnvideos.
Yard and Garden Update
Have you applied your crabgrass control products yet?  If not, Zac Reicher, Professor, Turfgrass Science, recommends that we get it done now. He indicated that the average soil temperatures jumped 13° F in the last week. Check out his complete story at: http://turf.unl.edu/pdfctarticles/May16_soilstemps.pdf.
It’s really important this time of year to mow your turf regularly and try and use the 1/3 rule where you remove no more than 1/3 of the growth any one mowing. It can be difficult with it growing rapidly, but if you maintain the turf taller it’s a little easier to do.
Check all the what to do when and how at: http://environment.unl.edu.
