Rainfall Benefits Area

After a good stretch of weather from May 17 until the 26 allowed a lot of planting progress to occur. I will be traveling through the west half of the county this afternoon to get a better idea of progress that has been made in this area which had been unable to make much progress as of the 19th.

Rainfall for the 27th and 28th seems to have varied a great deal across the area. Local reporting station saw the following amounts:

Wauseon 1.54 inches
Napoleon 1.00 inches
Montpilier 2.28 inches
Defiance (missing data)
OARDC NW Ag Research Station .55 inches
Toledo Airport 1.00 inches

Local reports have been in the 1 to 2.5 inch rangewhicxh included Pettisville and Delta in the 2 inch range. So the heavy showers were spotty.

The rainfall should help fields that were crusted over and improve emergence. The rains generally came measured out so that little standing water was seen.

Planting Progress Update

Yesterday afternoon I traveled the route I have been using to monitor crop progress the past 2 years that runs the width of the county using Road B and L. I have fields in every mile that I stop at to make observations. Yesterday I was primarily concerned with planting progress and emergence. The Table below shows observations from yesterday and also compares to the planted crop for 2008.

The area of the county west of 108 has areas with very little planting. Some tillage was happening yesterday but soils were still wet. Hopefully the next day or two will change that condition dramatically.

Corn progress has been made and based on yesterday I would suspect we are 55-65 % completed on corn planting. About 50% of corn has emerged with stands looking good. In a couple of area surface hardness maybe a problem with emergence of corn planted in the last week.

Soybeans are really just off to a good start are we are in the 10 -20% planted range. Emergence is just a couple percent but stands looked good here as well. There was a field with surface compaction that could be a problem with emergence.

Wheat is entering the Growth Stage 10 or the boot stage. The crop is "clean and green". I could really find no evidence of disease or insect in the crop.

Hopefully Mother Nature will spare us rain into late next week and we can get planting knocked out soon.

Did Freezing Temps Affect Wheat?

The cold temperatures on the morning of May 18 have a some questioning whether there will be any effect on the wheat crop. Based on reports from area weather station the lowest recorded temperature was 34 for Toledo, 35 for Wauseon, 36 at OARDC NW Ag Research Station and 37 for Napoleon,& Defiance. The coldest temps lasted for about 1 hour based on hour by hour data from OARDC NW Ag Research Station. The current CORN Newsletter address wheat development and cold temperatures. Based on this information it would seem we have little concern of injury in wheat from the cold temperatures Monday morning.

Air temperatures dropped to an average of about 35 degrees on at least two nights over the past week. Understandably, some wheat producers are concerned that these relatively low temperatures may have caused some damage to their crop. Thirty-five degrees is really not a problem, however, we do not know what temperatures the wheat head actually experienced. We will have to see what happens over the next few days. At our current growth stage, between Feekes 9 and 10, in northern counties and between heading and flowering in southern Ohio, the yield effect of frost can range from moderate to very severe if temperatures drop to 24 - 28 F for two or more hours. It all depends on the variety, the growth stage, how cold it was, and the length of time plants were exposed to the cold temperatures. The amount of damage is a function of both time of exposure and the temperature, but no one has any numbers that we know of. We just don't know. For example, 28 degrees for 30 minutes may be as bad as 31 degrees for a long period.

Freezing temperatures between boot and flowering may cause spikes to be trapped in boot, leaf discoloration, floret sterility, and damage to the lower stems. The damage tends to be most severe with the greatest yield impact between heading and flowering. The head has some protection from cold temperatures until it emerges, but is easily damaged after emergence. Sterility and stem damage may lead to yield loss, however, since it is highly unlikely that all the plants in a field were at the same growth stage and were equally exposed to temperatures below 30 F, the overall damage may be minimal and restricted to low areas of the field. At most there may be some leaf tip burn on more sensitive varieties. Wheat is a winter crop and can tolerate cold temperatures.

The visual symptoms of frost injury to the heads appear as bleached glumes (and can be confused with scab or take-all). Additionally, freeze damaged florets appeared to be lighter green in color than unaffected florets on the heads. Remember, you can not detect damaged fields from the roadway; you will need to walk the field and inspect individual heads to see if there is any damage.

Cereal Leaf Beetle

I have not had specific reports but cereal leaf beetle seems to be more prevalent the past few years and something you may not have seen. The following information appeared in the last issue of Crop Observation and Recommendation Network Newsletter.

Reports of the insect being more active than usual in lower central Michigan and other locations in northern Ohio. All of this suggests that wheat growers should begin scouting their fields for potential problems.

Of more importance is the cereal leaf beetle threshold. Ohio has historically used an average of 2 or more larvae per stem as the economic threshold, the time when an insecticide application should be considered. This has been in effect for the past 30-40 years, during which the cereal leaf beetle has not been a major concern. We have recently searched the literature on cereal leaf beetle thresholds on wheat from many wheat growing states, including some of our neighboring states. It became evident that our threshold is perhaps too high; most if not all the other states have a lower threshold of one larva per stem or flag leaf. Thus, we believe it appropriate to lower the threshold for cereal leaf beetle in Ohio to one larva per stem or flag leaf.

As mentioned last week, insecticides for control are available at http://entomology.osu.edu/ag/images/sgiclb.pdf . And for organic growers, remember that Entrust is a spinosad product that is permissible on organic crops, being that it is OMRI listed.

Planting Progress

Frequent rains have put spring planting behind. Ohio Agriculture Statistics reports spring planting of corn through May 10 was at 22% in 2009 compared to 47% in 2008 and soybeans were 13% and 19% respectively. Locally as of May 12, we have about 30 to 35% of the corn and maybe up to 10-15 % of the soybean crop in the ground. In 2008 we had a couple week period that allowed many folks to complete their corn planting in April.

We have missed some rains and with some well drained field, planters were working over the weekend. While a week ago we were behind some southern areas of Ohio we have caught up over the past week,” said Greg LaBarge, Extension Educator, Ohio State University Extension.

Soil temperature conditions have been cool but not necessarily more so than in 2008. At the Northwest Agriculture Research Station of OARDC 2 inch soil temperatures for the first 10 days of May were 57.5 degrees in 2009 and 57.9 degrees in 2008.

Wheat Scouting Report 5/8/09

Late last week I scouted wheat in the southeast portion of Fulton County. The wheat growth stage is near growth stage 9 in two fields and generally 8-9 would catch the majority of fields.

From an insect standpoint there were just a few aphids at 1 per foot of row would be the average on 2 of 5 fields.

Disease was not present. Powdery mildew was non existent and no signs of any other diseases as well.

Timely tips for late 2009 corn and soybean planting

There is nothing more important at this point in time than to focus on planting. The most recent Crop Observation and Recommendation Network (C.O.R.N.) Newsletter has articles on weed control and planting corn and soybeans that will be valuable in knowing what to focus on in late planting and maybe some steps to skip to increase your efficiency as the weather breaks. The highlights are:

Corn-

1. Skip P & K Starter on high soil testing soils above 40 ppm P or with conventional tillage between 20-40 ppm P.
   
2. If No-tilling then use starter when soil test are between 20-40 ppm.
3. Apply 30 pound N banded or broadcast in cool wet soils.
4. Minimize tillage passes.
5. Do not worry about hybrid changes until after May 20 planting long season hybrids first.
6. Seed rates that were higher for early planting can be reduced to normal to account for warmer soils.

Soybeans

1. Soybeans planted later in the season benefit more from narrow rows since vegetative growth will be limited.
2. Make sure seed placement is controlled. In other words keep travel speeds reasonable to assure good seed placement.

Weed Control

1. A later start means larger weeds that maybe beyond what tillage will get so use glyphosate prior to planting as a burndown. More detail can be found in this article from Mark Loux.
2. If you want to eliminate 2,4-D from the burndown for soybeans to meet label restrictions on planting then the most comprehensive burndown in soybeans is likely to occur with a mixture of glyphosate and a chlorimuron-containing product (Canopy, Valor XLT, Synchrony, Envive). Next best would be a mixture of glyphosate with a cloransulam-containing product (Firstrate, Sonic, Gangster, Authority First), which can be more effective on marestail and ragweeds than mixtures of chlorimuron and glyphosate, but may be less effective on most other no-till weeds. A full article can be found here.
   

ODA Approves Simplified Private Applicator Pesticide Recordkeeping Rules

The new ODA rules on private recordkeeping have been finalized and are posted on the Ohio Department of Agriculture's website at: http://www.agri.ohio.gov/apps/odaprs/pestfert-PRS-index.aspx

The new record changes are simplifications of the previous recordkeeping requirements and should make recordkeeping easier for growers. Previously, Ohio growers had to keep more items than federal law and many other states required. For private applicators, the items now required are the same as the federal recordkeeping requirements and will be consistent with many other state requirements. Growers using the old recordkeeping requirements, are NOT out of compliance--they will just be keeping more items than are now required. Below are the new requirements.

Private applicator restricted use records must be kept for three years and must include:

(a) The responsible private applicator's name and license number
(b) The brand or product name and EPA registration number of the restricted use pesticide applied
(c) The total amount of the restricted use pesticide applied
(d) Location and/or field number for area treated and total area or acreage treated
(e) Crop treated
(f) Month, day and year of application

Note: Under the new rules, if a grower applies either a general use or restricted use pesticide for a neighbor under the neighbor exemption (Revised Code 921.26 (D)) he/she must record this information for all applications.

However, we always recommend that growers keep records of all their pesticide applications whether required by law or not.