May free farm finance & legal clinics
May 5th: Youth Virtual Field Tour: Biofuels featuring Flint Hills Resources, https://4h.unl.edu/virtual-field-trips
May 5: Streaming On-Farm Research Webinar: “Using Precision Ag Technologies to Implement Seeding Rate and Nitrogen Rate On-Farm Research Studies On-the-go”, 7p.m., https://cropwatch.unl.edu/streaming-farm-research
May 5: QPR Suicide Prevention Webinar, 12 p.m., https://www.extension.iastate.edu/humansciences/QPR
May 6: QPR Suicide Prevention Webinar, 10 a.m., https://www.extension.iastate.edu/humansciences/QPR
May 7: Farm & Ranch Mgmt Webinar: Strategies for Business Success, Noon (CST), go.unl.edu/manage2020
May 12th: Youth Virtual Field Tour: Water Erosion featuring Chuck Burr, https://4h.unl.edu/virtual-field-trips
May 13: Field Scout Training, via Zoom, https://extension.unl.edu/statewide/enre/crop/
June 24: Weed Management Field Day, SCAL near Clay Center
July 8: Palmer Amaranth Mgmt Field Day, near Carleton
Aug. 11: Soybean Management Field Days, Hildreth
Aug. 12: Soybean Management Field Days, Elgin
Aug. 13: Soybean Management Field Days, Shelby
Aug. 14: Soybean Management Field Days, Arlington
Aug. 20: Midwest Soil Health Clinic, ENREC
Aug. 25: SCAL Field Day, Clay Center
Aug. 26: Midwest Soybean Production Clinic, ENREC
Aug. 27: Midwest Corn Production Clinic, ENREC
Planting season has rolled on this year with large planting progress made in short time! I’m grateful for the general warming trend with no cold snaps unlike so many recent years. Like many of you, am also praying for rain. For pre- herbicides, it is important to have 0.5-0.75” of moisture within a week of applying them for activation. That was a topic of concern I was hearing from both growers and ag industry last week, thus why it was recommended that some start pivots. I’m starting to see grass and broadleaf weeds coming through on ground that didn’t receive moisture to get the herbicide activated. Corn and soybean are also emerging fairly quickly with these warmer temps. The latest in pheromone trapping cutworm counts across the State can be found at: https://go.unl.edu/jdd3.
Some have asked about interseeding covers into early vegetative corn or soybean. Perhaps the three biggest things we’ve learned are to make sure the seed is in the ground vs. broadcast, plan to seed between V2-V5, and think about your herbicide program before trying this. An easy to understand site for herbicide impacts to covers is at: http://interseedingcovers.com/herbicide-options/. That whole website holds good information. There’s an Upper Big Blue NRD soil health project with partners of The Nature Conservancy, NRCS, and Extension where we will have 6 on-farm research studies and several other demos of interseeding this year. Growers are looking at impacts of different mixes, corn populations, row direction, and number of rows interseeded (1 vs. 3) between the corn rows. Looking forward to these additional studies to add to the research base which we talked about in this CropWatch article last year: https://go.unl.edu/4nh7.
My prayers go out to livestock and poultry producers; I just can’t imagine. There are a number of resources at https://animalscience.unl.edu/swine for emergency depopulation of livestock facilities. Such a hard time all around in ag. Free farm finance and legal clinics for May can be found at: https://go.unl.edu/joos. Nebraska Farm Hotline/Rural Response Hotline: 800-464-0258.
Evergreen Tree Diseases: The wet springs the past several years have led to an increase of needle blights. Spring is the time to be spraying trees with preventive fungicides with timing depending on the disease. None of the options I list are exhaustive and not meant as endorsement. For windbreak situations of cedars and pines, some ag retailers have carried Tenn-Cop 5E or Camelot. For home-owner use for trees in landscapes, I will share what I’ve seen sold in our local stores. It’s important to read the product label to ensure it’s safe to use on the specific plant/tree you wish to treat as some copper products can harm plants. In Austrian and Ponderosa pines, tip blight (where tips die) and dothistroma needle blight (where needles turn brown and die) can be prevented with fungicide applications. Tip blight is best prevented in late April-early May with active ingredients of Propiconazole (found in Fertiloam liquid systemic fungicide), Copper Salts of Fatty & Rosin Acids (sometimes listed as copper soap such as Bonide liquid copper fungicide and other liquid copper formulations), or Bordeaux mixture. Dothistroma needle blight can be prevented in mid-May and a second application in mid-June with Copper salts of fatty and rosin acids and Bordeaux mixture. In spruces, needle cast can cause the yellow to reddish brown color of needles in the fall that remain that way in the spring. Fungicide should be applied when the new growth is half grown with a second application 3-4 weeks later. If your tree is severely infected, it may take applications like this for 2-3 years in a row. Chlorothalonil (found in Daconil and Fung-onil) is commonly recommended. Fungicides containing azoxystrobin, mancozeb, propiconazole, copper salts of fatty acids, and copper hydroxide are also effective at controlling this disease if the product is labeled for use on spruce. You can learn more about evergreen diseases, how to identify them, and more products for management at: https://go.unl.edu/rbcc.
It’s too early for bagworm control. I’ll share more on what to look for next week.
