Coming Events
- June 23, 2014 – York Extension Board Exec. Meeting, 8:00 p.m., York Extension Office
- June 26, 2014 – Weed Science Tour, 8:30 a.m., SCAL, Clay Center
Cropping Update
It’s been a long week for many producers, insurance agents, hail adjusters, and many others involved in agriculture. Just what we needed was some additional strong winds and hail in various parts of the state this past weekend and Monday morning as I prepared today’s column.
Many difficult decisions have been and/or are being made relative to replanting or not! Only time will tell what was or was not the best decisions we could make!
Check out our latest information at our CropWatch website: http://CropWatch.unl.edu. We have several timely articles posted. Some of the latest topics include:
- Diseases in Storm-Damage Corn
- One-Week Later: Observations of June 3 Hailed Corn
- Potential Nitrogen Loss in Wet Soils
- Market Journal: Post-Storm Crop Management and Marketing
- Few Good Forage Options Available for Replant after Storms
- Phone Scam Alert from FSA
On-Farm Research Opportunities
I know I’ve mentioned it several times, but if you are still making decisions as a results of the recent storms, think about conducting an on-farm research study to better evaluate your decisions.
Should I apply a fungicide or not? Because of all the rain, did I have nitrogen leaching and I need additional nitrogen? Should I change my herbicide program? These are just example questions that you might consider that can be answered for yourself this year if you conduct an on-farm research experiment! It’s really not difficult and does not take a lot of time or effort.
First start with your question and determine how many items you are comparing. The examples I shared above all compare a treatment to a check or nothing, so we would recommend using a paired comparison design. Every treatment in a paired comparison design needs to be able to harvest two strips from it.
If you are spray a product, a pass or round with the product (depending on sprayer size and section control) needs to be wide enough to ensure you can harvest two passes from the center of the treated area. Then you leave the same amount of untreated area and repeat 5-7 times so that you’ll then have 5-7 paired comparisons.
If you are replanting, you would replant a pass or round so that you can harvest two strips from each replant area and two strips from the area not replanted and repeat the process 5-7 times. We would like to see at least 5-6 replications for harvest comparisons and statistical analysis at the end of the year.
I’d be glad to assist you if you’re planning one of these studies. At the end of the season, we recommend taking harvest stand counts and stalk rot ratings prior to harvest and I’d be glad to assist with that. Email me at gary.zoubek@unl.edu or call me at 402-326-8185 if interested. I sure hope to hear from several of you!
Weed Science Field Day
Weeds continue to be one of the major problems in corn and soybean production. A Weed Management Field Day is planned for Friday, June 27, at the South Central Ag Lab (SCAL) near Clay Center. SCAL is 7.5 miles west of the intersection of Hwy 14 and Hwy 6 or 13 miles east of Hastings on Hwy 6.
The Weed Science Field Day will be from 8:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and will include two tours, each with six stops. Tour 1 from 9:00 a.m.-10:15 a.m. will showcase weed control projects in soybean:Â Comparison of Herbicide Programs for Weed Control in Soybean, Herbicide Program in Dicamba plus Glyphosate-Resistant Soybean, Weed Control in Isoxaflutole-Resistant Soybean (Balance GT), Trivence Applied Pre-emergence in Soybean, Control of Common Waterhemp with Soil Residual Herbicides Applied POST in Soybean, and Control of Glyphosate-Resistant Volunteer Corn in Liberty Link Soybean.
Tour 2 from 10:30 a.m.-Noon will be showcase weed control projects in corn:Â Weed Control in Popcorn with Herbicide Tank Mixtures, Control of Volunteer Glyphosate-Resistant Soybean in Corn, Comparison of Herbicide Programs for Weed Control in Corn, Evaluate Weed Control and Crop Response of Instigate, Anthem/ Anthem ATZ applied Pre-Plant, PRE or POST and in a Sequential Application in Corn, Efficacy of Acuron applied PRE for Weed control in Corn (herbicide with four active ingredients).
No charge to attend, but please do RSVP for meal and materials to Dr. Amit Jhala, UNL Extension Weed Scientist, amit.jhala@unl.edu or call 402-472-1534.
Additional details can be found at: http://york.unl.edu/crops-future. Click on the appropriate link! It should be a great program, I hope you can attend.
Two UNL Irrigation Apps Available
The way it’s been raining, not many of us are thinking about irrigation at this time, but I’m sure things will be changing in the near future. UNL has just released a two irrigation Apps IrrigatePump that can help evaluate your irrigation pumping plant efficiency and IrrigateCost that evaluates your irrigation costs. Each of the Apps cost $1.99.
IrrigatePump — can help you identify irrigation pumping plants that are under performing and need to be adjusted, repaired, or replaced with a better design. This app guides the user to input six numbers related to pumping lift, pressure at the discharge, acre-inches of water pumped, fuel price, and total fuel used. The app then calculates a pumping plant performance rating. It also provides an estimated cost to bring the pumping plant up to standard and the number of years necessary to pay back the investment at various interest rates.
This calculator compares the fuel used for your pumping plant with the Nebraska Pumping Plant Performance Criteria (NPC). It was developed by Tom Dorn, UNL Extension Educator Emeritus; Derrel Martin, UNL water and irrigation resources specialist, and William Kranz, extension irrigation specialist
It’s available at:
• In the Apple iTunes Store for iPhone and iPad at https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/irrigation-pumping-plant-efficiency/id834448125?mt=8
• In the Google App Store for Android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.movecreative.pumpingplant
IrrigateCost — models center pivot and gated pipe irrigation systems and the most commonly used energy sources. You input information such as acres irrigated, pumping lift, system PSI, pump and pivot life, and inches applied as well as related costs such as for the well and engine, labor, energy, district fees, and taxes. The app then calculates total irrigation cost as well as total ownership and total operating costs. It also breaks down costs by irrigation well, pump, gear head, pump base, diesel engine and tank and system and calculates per acre annual cost and per acre-inch annual cost.
Results for different energy sources are displayed on separate tabs, allowing you to make side-by-side comparisons between energy options. This app calculates ownership costs for each irrigation system component such as the well, pump, gear head, power unit, and the irrigation distribution system.
The app could be used to:
• Knowing what to charge for watering a portion of a neighbor’s field. This app can help you determine the ownership costs the neighbor should pay in addition to the operating costs for each acre-inch of water pumped.
• Estimating costs to pump an acre-inch of water to help you determine how many additional bushels of a crop are needed by applying one more inch of water at the end of the irrigation season.
This app was developed by Tom Dorn, UNL Extension Educator Emeritus and is available in the Apple iTunes Store for iPhone and iPad at:Â https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/agriculture-irrigation-costs/id700329336?mt=8
• In the Google App Store for Android at: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.movecreative.irrigatecost
You can learn more about these two apps at CropWatch: http://cropwatch.unl.edu/.
Yard & Garden
So, how’s your garden doing following the storm? In most cases, thing look much better a couple of weeks following the storms. It’s time to begin watching for cucumber beetles, squash bugs, and cabbage worms/butterflies. I’ve already seen the white cabbage butter flies and know that the squash bugs and cucumber beetle will be out soon.
With all the rains, it’s been tough following the 1/3 mowing rule. So, what’s the 1/3 rule? We typically recommend that you never remove more than 1/3 of the leaf surface any one mowing! So when the turf is rapidly growing, you need to mow more often. The higher you’re mowing height the less often you need to mow because you can remove more leaf surface with higher mowing heights.
It’s also important to keep your mower blade sharp so that you don’t have all those white edges on your mowed turf.
Finally, the ‘Set It and Forget It’ is the wrong way to use your home lawn irrigation system. Lawn irrigation systems are a great way to keep your lawn healthy during short and long term drought. However, too many in-ground irrigation systems are simply turned on during spring and forgotten until they are shut down in fall. I’ve seen some systems running during a heavy rainstorm or the following day.
The easiest way to save a significant amount of water is to simply turn the irrigation controller off. I have not used my lawn irrigation system yet! As our turf specialist indicated, YOU are the smartest irrigation control. Leave your control off until there are signs of water stress.
Our turf specialists just prepared a great Turf iNfo article on this topic. It’s available at: http://turf.unl.edu/.
