Coming Events
10/26/2014 – 5:00 p.m., 4-H Achievement Party, York County Fairgrounds, York
10/27/2014 – 8:30 p.m., Extension Board Meeting, Extension Office, York
Cropping Update
Producers have had another great week for harvest and it looks like this coming week should be another great one. Producers are continuing to make progress getting that crop harvested.
This past week I took plant stands and lodging scores on a couple of our On-Farm research plots which were harvested. With lower commodity price expect, it’s going to be more important than ever to evaluate each and every one of you production practice to see if they’re really paying off.
Harvest is a perfect time to be thinking of potential on-farm studies. I or several other Extension Educators would be glad to work with you and design potential studies. Precision ag tools can be a great help when conducting on-farm research. Field trials can be set up using prescription mapping software, minimizing the need for flagging treatments. Using yield monitors, yield data for individual field treatments can be quickly collected and evaluated.
Do you have a production practice or product that you’d like to evaluate? Some of our past participants have explored a number of topics, including:
• Does starter fertilizer increase my corn yields?
• Does increasing my planting population by 4,000 seeds/acre increase my profit?
• Do growth promoters increase soybean yields?
• Is variable rate nitrogen application more profitable than a single application rate?
• Do soybeans planted in April have higher yields than those planted in May?
Once you have determined your question, we’ll be glad to help design your study. Data collected from a well-designed experiment can be statistically analyzed and interpreted to determine whether real differences are present among treatments.
Laura Thompson, Cropping Systems and Extension Educator, located at the ARDC near Mead has prepared a great article that was published this week on CropWatch: http://cropwatch.unl.edu/. She also posted summaries of several dryland and irrigated corn planting population studies on our on-farm research website: http://cropwatch.unl.edu/farmresearch.
I would be glad to visit with you about becoming part of our on-farm research effort. Some of the best educational programs I’m involved with are when we’re sharing the results from our on-farm research studies.
4-H Achievement Party
I’d like to remind and encourage all area 4-H families to plan to attend Sunday October 26th 4-H Achievement Party planned for 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. on the fairgrounds here in York. It should be an an hour or more of fun, games, food including hot dogs and s’mores and, of course, picking up those 4-H Awards and county fair premium checks. Please call the Extension Office 402-362-5508 by 5:00 p.m. Friday October 24th with the number of people planning to attend so that we’ll have enough refreshments ordered.
National Food Entrepreneur Program Seminar
I mentioned it last week, but will repeat myself. The University of Nebraska Food Processing Center is offering a one-day seminar for all individuals interested in exploring the idea of starting a food manufacturing business. Please encourage interested individuals in your community to attend the “Recipe to Reality†seminar which will be offered on November 15, 2014. Pre-registration is required and space is limited. Registration deadline is November 1, 2014. Contact Jill Gifford at 402-472-2819 or jgifford1@unl.edu for an information packet.
Yard and Garden Update
This past week our Turf Specialists published a Turf iNfo article about “What’s the ideal fertilizer ratio for turfgrass?†Generally in our area, the most important nutrient is nitrogen. In many cases we have adequate phosphorus and potassium, so one could apply only nitrogen, but eventually those two nutrient would become deficient. An ideal fertilizer ratio would be to replace P and K and keep soil test levels static.
For cool-season turf on our native soils if you remove the clipping a ratio of 4-1-3 (N:P2O5:K2O) would be suggested and if you return the clipping the suggested ratio would be 8-1-4 (N:P2O5:K2O). Check out the complete article at: http://turf.unl.edu/.
We’ve only received .06†of precipitation the past couple of weeks and for the month of October, we’ve received .69â€. Turf is beginning to show some signs of water stress, so I ran my irrigation system this weekend.
Continue to mow your turf with a good sharp blade and observe the 1/3 rule. So, don’t remove more than 1/3 with of the leaf surface with anyone mowing. If you have broadleaf weeds, now would be a great time to control them.
