Coming Events
April 9, Beef Production Meeting, 12:00 noon, Hruska Library, David City
April 20, Extension Board Exec. Meeting, 8:30 p.m., York Extension Office
April 25, Spring Affair, 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m., Lancaster Event Center, Lincoln
Beef Production Meeting Planned
I just receive information about a Beef Meeting planned for this Thursday April 9th at noon at the Hruska Library in David City.
Topic include:
Beef Quality Assurance practice for Processing Spring Born Newborn Calves
Technology Tool Box – Sexed Semen and All Heifers
Implanting Suckling Calves Equals Easy Pounds and Easy Money
Body Condition Score, Weather and Nutrition
Words of Wisdon from the meeting sponsor – Valent USA
Increasing Grass Production with Biostimulants
No cost to attend, but please pre-register by noon Wednesday, April 8th to Butler Extension Office 402-367-7410 or butler-county@unl.edu.
Complete program at: http://york.unl.edu/crops-future. Click on the appropriate link.
Lawn and Garden Update
It was a nice rain we received last week! I had about .83†the first day and about .05†the second!  We were going to plant some potatoes on Good Friday, but the moisture prevented us. One thing for sure, you don’t want to get in the garden and plant or work the garden when it’s wet, you’ll live with it all season long!
Traditional garden folklore suggests Good Friday, the Friday before Easter Sunday, is the best time to plant potatoes because temperatures are generally still cool but soil is soft enough to cultivate. But, depending on weather conditions, Good Friday may or may not be the best planting time. Sometimes Good Friday may be too early or late, but this year it would have been about right if the soils would not have been wet? Soil temperatures at the 4†depth have averaged 48.4° F this past week compared to our long term average or 46.9° F.  It’s cloudy and drizzly as I prepare my column Monday morning with several chances of rain, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Kelly Keehan, Extension Educator just shared some tips on growing potatoes, so I thought I’d share a few of them.
While Irish potatoes prefer a cool spring, you don’t need to fret if you are not ready to plant, potatoes can be planted through April and even into May. She indicated that maximum tuber formation occurs at soil temperatures between 60 to 70 °F the tubers can fail to form when the soil temperature reaches 80 °F+.
Potatoes are frost tolerant and can stand a frost. It’s important to by good certified seed potatoes rather than those sold for cooking. When cutting your seed pieces, make them large (2†x 2â€) with good eyes so that they’ll have plenty of energy for sprouting. She suggested that there be least two to three good “eyes†in each seed piece and cut them two to three days before planting; then store cut pieces in a warm location to allow fresh cut surfaces to form a protective coating.
Plant your seed pieces two to three inches deep in rows or hills. As your potatoes grow, pull soil up around the base of plants. This is called hilling and it is done because potato tubers are produced above seed pieces, and hilling helps keep sunlight from hitting new potatoes causing them to turn green.
Potatoes do best in full sun with well-drained soil with a medium level of organic matter. Potatoes do best with uniform soil moisture levels especially while the tubers are developing. Potatoes are medium to heavy feeders requiring a sidedress of 5 tablespoons 33-0-0 per 10 feet of row about 6 weeks after planting. Time the fertilizer application to coincide with the beginning of tuber development. Delaying this application of fertilizer improves the tuber set and reduces excessive vine growth.
You can dig early or new potatoes when the tubers are large enough to eat, but harvest potatoes for storage two weeks after the vines die down or just after the first light frost nips the vines, but before a heavy freeze occurs. If the vines begin to die back before frost occurs, leave the tubers in the ground for 10-21 days following the death of the vines to promote skin set. Avoid skinning or damaging tubers when digging and avoid long exposure to light. After harvesting, brush off as much dirt as possible but do not wash the potatoes. Allow the tubers to cure for 2-3 weeks at 50-60°F then move them to a cool, 38-45°F, moist, 90% relative humidity, location for continued storage.
Once it dries out a little, several crops that can be planted now include cole crops like cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower; lettuce, onions, peas, radishes and spinach to name a few. Check out my planting guide at: http://york.unl.edu/water-environment then click on the appropriate link.
Cropping Update
It won’t be long and we’ll see lots of field work going on. Corn and soybean planting is right around the corner! If you are a crops producer, I hope you have our CropWatch website http://cropwatch.unl.edu book marked and your check it out on a regular basis. It’s our one stop shop for UNL cropping information. This week a couple of timely article address the use of soybean inoculation and corn seeding rates.
With today’s current economics, I know that many producers are scrutinizing inputs and really focusing on profit. Using products/inputs that might increase soybean yields 2 bushels per acre might have been profitable when soybeans were $14 per bushel, but becomes a stretch at the $9 per bushel.
Nathan Mueller has prepared a timely CropWatch article that addresses when we need soybean insulants and when they may not be needed. At this time of the year, we often think about planting date, seeding rate, and seed treatments, but do you think about inoculants? The risk vs. reward of inoculating soybeans has been discussed for decades. The risk is not lower yields, just whether the inoculant is going to return a profit, even though it is relatively cheap. Check out his update at http://cropwatch.unl.edu.
A couple more timely topics in this week’s CropWatch edition is a summary of our Nebraska On-Farm Research corn seeding populations and an article by Bob Wright regarding a Michigan State   publication that summarizes all commercially available Bt corn hybrids, the insects they control or suppress, refuge requirements for the midwestern U.S. and herbicide tolerance traits. I hope you’ll check these article out!
As you get ready for the upcoming planting season I hope you’ll consider conducting at least one On-Farm Research Study! It’s really easy to do and I’d be glad to assist you with designing the study! Our protocols are available at: http://cropwatch.unl.edu/farmresearch. If you’re comparing a single product or treatment all you need to do is plant two strips of the treatment and then two strips of the check and repeat this process 6-8 times. By doing that we’ll be able to get good statistically sound data. Email me at gary.zoubek@unl.edu or call me at 402-326-8185 and we can visit about a potential study!
Finally before I finish this week’s column I’d like to encourage area irrigators to consider investing in irrigation equipment like ETgages and Watermark Sensors. Check out the Upper Big Blue NRD’s cost share information at: http://www.upperbigblue.org/index.htm. Click on the forms link and then the irrigation scheduling order form.
Information about this equipment is available from our office or our water website. Let me know if I can be of help to you!
Heuermann Lecture
Tuesday April 21 at 3:30 p.m. at Nebraska Innovation Campus in Lincoln will be the final Heuermann Lecture for the season. Monsanto Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Robert Fraley will speak on “2050: Agriculture’s Role in Mitigating Global Challenges.”
As climate patterns, planting zones, plant diseases and pest pressures fluctuate and shift, further strains are put on natural resources including water and its availability. These issues could become the greatest challenges for food security in the history of agriculture.
The lecture will be streamed live at http://heuermannlectures.unl.edu and are archived at that site soon afterward. It will also be air on NET2 World at a later date.
It should be an interesting lecture that I hope you will consider viewing.
