For this reason I would suggest (again unfortunately because of costs) that they be sprayed with a chemical such as Belt at a 2 ounce rate,

Producers should keep a watchful eye on the grain sorghum that is just emerging. So far so good on that size of plant........but if you see some missing or cut off plants you may have to apply an insecticide.

  Beet Army Worm larvae. They are presently smaller than this picture, but that black dot 1/4 of the way down the body can be seen with a magnifying lense in the field.

Canola:  Had reports from just west of here of cabbage aphids in the canola and I have found a few in our area. 1 field out of 10 so far.  They will congregate around the flowers and pods, (see pictures below).  They start off very “spotty” in the field and are most often prevalent, early, on the edge of the field facing the most prevalent wind (south), then spread through the field.

There is no need for panic on this one yet, just vigilance.  At some point I suspect most of the canola will need to be sprayed with an insecticide such as a pyrethroid to control theses aphids and/or the false chinch bug.

Fungicides: We are about to see and hear much ado about fungicides and the planes are going to be going like wasps. With the potential wheat crop we have at this moment protecting the crop with a fungicide makes a lot of sense. Kstate and Ostate both tend to agree that fungicides PROTECT our potential yield an average of around 10%. Fungicides do not gain yield, they protect our yield potential. Do the math! 10% of a 50 bushel yield is 5 bushel. At today’s cash price that protected yield makes you money even down to about a 25 bushel yield potential.

Fungicides come in two types, (Strobilurins and Triazoles) or a combination of the two. Sometimes they are discussed (not totally accurate) as preventive and curative. There is debate as to just which one you need, but a combo is probably your best and sometimes longest protection.

As of this evening, 3/27/12 from what I have seen in most of the wheat in our area, the flag leaf is about ¼ to 1/3 of the way out. It is wrapped tightly and sticking straight up. This is all changing rapidly. I tell this because ideally we would want the flag leaf ¾ to fully out and more horizontal so that we can hit it with the fungicide. However may fungicides are systemic and move the fungicide around in the plant so that this might not play as important role. With the wheat changing daily, often by the time you get your fungicide on it may be okay. It is complicated chemistry and timing. The bottom line is: Get it done.

I have observed in our area quite a bit of what is probably tan spot and septoria on the leaves as well as powdery mildew. Again on 3/27/12 I have not seen any rust……..BUT that can/will come suddenly and we are having prime rust weather.

Aphids and Fungicides: In most cases you can combine the two pesticides to control both with one pass. If going over acres for one or the other, I would suggest that they both be addressed.

It would be fun and rewarding to bring in this harvest at it’s yield potential. Let’s give it a try and see if the Good Lord is “willin”.

Producers should start considering taking their cattle off of wheat now if they havent already.

I found small Alfalfa Weevils in two different producers’ alfalfa fields today. This is very early for the weevils to get started, but there they were! The weevils were very small and mostly buried in the bud of the plant but you might want to be alert for this pest.

The last two years we have had a difficult time killing weevils. However, this year we have some moisture for the crop to work with and hay is worth more than ever. I would think we as producers would want to take care of the crop by killing these pests early.

Since the weevil are breaking early it is VERY probable we will have to spray the crop more than once to get to the first cutting. To that end one suggestion would be to use the relatively cheaper (approx. $10.00/Acre applied) chemistry now (pyrethroid with Lorsban spike) and the longer residual more expensive chemistry later as needed. I repeat it is very likely we will need two sprays with different modes of action and residual!

With the value of hay it is a very small price to pay.

I generally do not post anything on this blog unless something is happening in the agronomic world.  I can't imagine me telling you how I spent my day looking at the various crops and my inner thoughts on how I feel about it would interest you. Usually my post will be about agronomics and occasionally I get inspired to "cast philosophical" and write something, but  "Pioneer Woman" I am not.

I see my last post was approximately six weeks ago which addressed the winter crops (wheat, canola, alfalfa) and upon reviewing the post I don't think much has changed.  In general our wheat and canola crops look good, Clearfield wheat due to wet conditions will probably just get sprayed once, and a dormant season weed control treatment to alfalfa needs to be done quickly as the window is closing.

One interesting thing of note that many may have seen in the various fields would be the "purpling" leaves of the winter crops, specifically the wheat and canola. It is probably a simplification but we often call this "sugaring up" and is caused by the plant not translocating nutrients properly.  This can be caused by many factors not least among them is a lack of a nutrient and or weather.

In this years wheat and canola crops it probably is a nutrient deficiency caused by the weather.  We have had spring like temperatures while still having a cold soil temperature and dead of winter daylight hours.  The plant may be and probably is confused. I have recently seen and heard of some soil tests and tissue test taken at same time and the results showed adequate nutrient levels in soil but not in the plant......yet.  My feelings are once the plants get the cue from the daylight hours to kick in gear, they will grow out of some of this look we have been seeing.

If you have fallow acres waiting to go to summer crops now would be a good time to clean them up before those weeds kick it in gear.  Start clean. This will also help with resistant weed management. (see below)

I recently attended a crop consultants meeting in Denver along with about two hundred of my closest friends (smile). A large group of consultants came from Kansas, Colorado, S. Dakota, and Texas.  One of the speakers polled the audience asking how many KNOW they have glyphosate resistant Kochia.  2/3rds of the group held up their hand.  He then asked how many THINK they have Dicamba resistant Kochia. 2/3rds of the original 2/3rds again held up their hand.  That is a scary thought. Please be responsible with your spraying and management to slow this process down.

What not to do for your valentine!

Two years ago my wife hinted she wanted something bright and shiny that went from 0 to 200 in about 5 seconds......I got her a set of bathroom scales.

Last year we were going to watch a romantic movie at home together.  As I was flipping throught the channels she asked what was on the television and I said dust!

This year she told me she wanted to go to some place expensive.  Later on we will go to the gas station.

Wheat: I have not seen, nor heard to date, of any significant insect (aphid or worm) threat to our wheat crop. The recent rain has helped us all with this. I still find and get calls on yellowing wheat, and all, thus far, can be attributed to a lack of N at that moment. Nitrogen is very mobile in the soil solution and what came up this summer the recent rains may have moved the N down out of root zone for now. In some instances, if you were light on fall fertility more nitrogen just needs to be applied. There has not been a lot of grass herbicide applied to wheat this fall, and I am sure there is a lot of grass still out there. Grass herbicide is not as effective in the spring as it is when fall applied, but if you have a lot of bromes in your wheat it will almost always pay to spray it even in the early spring. You might check your fields.
If you have Clear Field wheat the window for beneficially spraying the herbicide Beyond twice on your field is rapidly closing. Due to the wet weather a lot of Nov. applications may not have gotten applied and depending on Jan. and Feb. weather (wet &/or cold) the double application may become a single. If that is the case I would recommend applying the maximum per acre rate. If the window of opportunity presents itself I would still go for the two applications, but if not go for the maximum one time rate.

Alfalfa: With the recent replenishment of ground moisture I feel better about an application of a dormancy alfalfa treatment. This treatment should be done in Jan. or early Feb. while alfalfa is dormant. The last two years Alfalfa Weevils have been very hard to kill and the plant itself did not help much probably due in large part to drought. So jump on the little buggers early and often. You can try cheap with a pyrethroid or pay a little more for what has had a little more efficacy the last two years. Either way one time sprays on alfalfa the last two years have seemed to be a thing of the past. There has seemed to be some success with a preventative type spray in the fall or late winter. Not a recommendation but I have seen some interesting examples of this type and as cheap as the pyrethroids are it might be worth a try. You wouldn’t have to save much hay to make it pay.

Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go.
Brooks Atkinson

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover
Mark Twain

What the New Year brings to you will depend a great deal on what you bring to the New Year.
Vern McLellan

I try never to wish my life away, but it is hard not to be glad 2011 is over. It was a challenging year for crops! We all have responded as best we can to those challenges and we survived. The Good Lord has blessed us with some moisture to start replenishing our soil moisture and we start the New Year with winter crops in good shape. Bring on 2012.

Happy New Year!

I have had a lot of calls and questions about “yellow” wheat and what might be the cause. In most instances it’s probable cause has been a nutrient deficiency at that particular time. Namely a nitrogen deficiency as seen by the “yellowing” and drying up of the outer most leaf, while the inner leaf or leaves remain green.
In some instances it may be a foliage disease as well, but thus far it has not been insects. The fact that the producer may have 100 lbs. of N out in his field does not mean that the wheat seedling or young plant can not be experiencing an N shortage at that moment. The roots may not have reached the N at this time.

As of this writing I have not seen enough of a build up of any threatening insect to the wheat in our area. Granted, I can not see every acre but I’ve seen a lot of them so far and no insects……yet. That could change any day. Keep watching.

The winter canola is a different story. If a canola field has not had it’s fall application of glyphosate yet then it probably should be applied soon and I would probably recommend applying an insecticide with the glyphosate. More canola fields than not seem infested with the Diamond Back Moth larva (eats holes in the leaves and can over winter in and harm or destroy the bud) and why waste the application trip over the field? Have also had some calls and seen some yellowing of the canola leaves. In most instances this seems to be a nutrient issue as well, but not as easily diagnosed as in wheat. Could be a sulfur or an N deficiency, as well as a pH problem.

With this last blessed rain our wheat and canola crops will head into the winter months in a much stronger position. Both are valuable crops and should be taken care of . Spray winter grasses and weeds out of the wheat, it’s worth it and will normally make money. Clean up your canola with the glyphosate application, fall and spring. One of the reasons you planted canola was to clean up some unwanted pests (rye, goat grass, cheat, etc.) so do not miss your chance, do it right.

Congratulations to everyone for surviving 2011:
The coldest Okla. Temperature low ever, the windiest sustained Okla. weather time period ever recorded, the hottest Okla. summer ever, the driest weather time period in Okla., the worst earthquake ever recorded, as well as flooding, and spring, summer and fall tornado outbreaks. Quakenados! All in about a 9 month time span.

And we are all out there still swinging, answering the bell, fighting the fight. Way to go.

This plant has been through the following:

Record heat and drought, cut off at the base, full rate of Ignite, two seperate applications of at least 1 pound active ingredient of glyphosate, 1.5 pints of Banvel/24D, 1/10th oz. of Ally.

This is why this plant should be addressed in the fall, winter, or early spring, BEFORE it bolts.

It is becoming a monster.

There are several insect pests out and about in the country that should be watched for.

In the soybeans these would include the Green Clover worm (foliage eater), the Cabbage Looper (foliage eater), the Stink Bug (pod damage), and the Corn Ear Worm aka Soybean Pod Worm (pod damage).

The beans can loose about 20-25% of their foliage at the stage most are in and still not have yield loss so unless there are high numbers of the foliage eaters, spraying might be avoided. The economic threshold for pod damage (the Stink Bug and the Corn Ear Worm) is lower and an insecticide application may be more imperative.

If the bean crop looks like it might have some yield potential and needs a shot of glyphosate to clean the field up, it might be prudent, as these insects in some locations seem to be building, to add insecticide to the mix. Kill them all and let God sort them out.

In the grain sorghum that still has some yield potential the pest to watch for would be Corn Ear Worm, aka the Sorghum Head Worm. This worm has already been in some of the sorghum wrapped in the whorl of the plant and eating the leaves. As the leaves come out of the whorl they exhibit a “shot hole” effect. This does not seem to affect yield and applying an insecticide while the worm is wrapped up has proven most times to be ineffective. As the head of the sorghum plant emerges so does the worm. The worm can do a lot of yield damage once it is on the head of the plant (1 worm can cause a 5% yield reduction) and is exposed so the insecticide application at this time has good efficacy.

The condition of this crop seems to be all over the board, from burnt up and gone, to there is still hope.  Most of the full season, early planted beans are toast.......but just as you make a generalization about them I have seen two quarters of full season beans that were trying to bloom at about 8 inches in height, catch a tiny little bit of moisture and experience a small growth spurt (enough to probably harvest without building new terraces) and set some pods.

The double crop beans that accidentally catch some of the spotty rains are trying to bloom and some (most?) have a chance at making enough gross/acre to be worth waiting out and/or putting a little more inputs into them.

On any of them an evaluation needs to be made on the standing beans BEFORE they dry up and defoliate as to whether they can be harvested for hay if not going for the grain harvest.  There is value in the crop even if not harvested for grain. Hay is golden.

Hard to call some of the beans yet and still a long way to go.  We have to set the pods, then fill the pods, but don't want to be too hasty with the termination of the crop. 

Well it is official now, it is the hottest, driest, and windiest time period on record for North Central Oklahoma! I would,     wave goodbye,        to it.

We are living history at the moment, just not the kind we would like.  Our Fathers, Grandfathers, or our Fathers' Grandfathers, have not lived through what we are living through at the moment, in our area at least. Kinda scary to be making history.

Time to drag out the cliches, which just happen to also be true.  "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger." "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade."  "It all averages out." Etc.,Etc..  And that is just what we all are going to do because: "Every day that goes by, is another day closer to when it will rain (and/or the heat will break)." 

It has also been too long since I last posted...........so here is an update................hot, dry, and windy.

For those of you who are not familiar with the field of dreams, it is a 10 acre intensive management wheat trial we are conducting set in the surrounding 120 acres of wheat in southern Grant County. This is the second year we have ran it, with the cooperating conventional till producer using his normal practices, then on top of that we increase the management on the ten acre plot.

The purpose of the trial has been to see whether with additional management and inputs in a non replicated, real life setting, will increase wheat yield significantly and if so will it pay to do so.

Last year (2010) we had a 10 bushel/acre yield increase over the balance of the field. This year (2011) we increased the yield by 21 bushels/acre.

The following is what was done and when, to the balance of the field as well as the additional inputs to the Field of Dreams.

The Balance of the Field                                                  Additional to the Field of Dreams
                                                                                   Soil sample taken 7/28/10 pH of 5.4 

                                                                                 Additional 2.4 ton lime applied 8/6/10           

75-80 lbs.Nitrogen applied by Anhydrous August                
Drilled Sept. 30th using Endurance seed                     Endurance  with Gaucho XT seed treatment

                                                                                   Grass and weed herbicide applied using Powerflex 12/1/10
                                                                                   Soil and tissue sample taken
                                                                                   80 lbs. nitrogen with 6 lbs of sulfur applied using Urea 

                                                                                   1 pt. Clorpirofos/acre applied for aphids 4/6/11
                                                                                   5 oz/acre Absolute fungicide applied 4/20/11
                                                                                                                                                                                 Yield: 37 bushel/acre                                                   Yield: 58 bushel/acre

The additional costs of inputs that were applied to the field of dreams came to $129.77/acre, which included the 2010’s crop year cost of lime/acre (prorating lime costs over a 5 year period).

At today’s cash price of $6.94/bushel with the yield increase of 21 bushel/acre the additional gross income produced by the Field of Dreams was $145.74/acre: Netting an additional $15.97 bushel/acre.

Had the wheat been sold at harvest or around $8.00/bushel the additional income produced would have been $38.23/acre. Interesting!

Acknowledgements and thanks to Farmers Grain Co., McCart Farms, Bayer Crop Science, Dow Chemical, Winfield Solutions and Metcalf Land and Lawn. Hopefully we can continue this into the future and see where it may lead.

“But a weed is simply a plant that wants to grow where people want something else. In blaming nature, people mistake the culprit. Weeds are people’s idea, not nature’s.” Author Unknown

“I always think of my sins when I weed. They grow apace in the same way and are harder still to get rid of.” Helena Rutherfurd Ely

It has a pretty flower, lush green foliage, is hardy, but it is on the noxious weed lists of at least 18 states. Field Bind Weed ( also known as Creeping Jenny, Small flowered Morning Glory, Barbine, Devil’s Gut, and that d***n weed.) is an introduced perennial plant from the Morning Glory family. It is a native of Europe and probably entered the U.S. accidentally. It was verified on the east coast by 1790, made it to California by 1870, and appeared in Kansas in 1877. When our good neighbors from the North shared it with Oklahoma is uncertain, but needless to say agricultural producers have been dealing with bindweed for a long, long time.

Some of the reasons Bindweed successfully grows in our area are as follows: It grows best in dry to moderately moist soil, survives long extended periods without water, comes from both the seed or root, and has a root system that can extend up to 10 feet into the ground. I have heard, and don’t find hard to believe but can not verify that a Bindweed seed can stay viable up to 20 years in the soil. Wow!

How do we control it? Culturally, mechanically, or chemically? ………………… Yes.

Culturally: You don’t see much bindweed in a grazed pasture, a mature alfalfa field, a multi-year soybean field, or even a mature grain sorghum patch. Cattle will eat bindweed, the multiple harvest in a summer of alfalfa tends to rob bindweed of its chance to produce chlorophyll to survive and Round Up Ready soybeans with multiple passes of glyphosate do much the same as the cutting in alfalfa. In addition alfalfa, soybeans, and grain sorghum all compete well with bindweed for light once they have any size to the plant reducing it’s ability to produce food for itself. So rotation helps in bindweed control.

Mechanically: Intensive tillage can kill young bindweed infestations but you have to till it about every 8 to 10 days. This tillage at such a pace keeps it from producing food to sustain itself, and you should clean your equipment off every time you go to a different field. I had an old timer (now deceased) tell me that if you would sweep plow bindweed when the moon was in the sign of the heart in August, you could kill bindweed permanently every time. Of course he also had me convinced during my formative years that the bottle in a paper bag that he sipped through the day was “heart medicine”.

Chemically: This is the option most producers choose. I think we have tried them all with moderate success, and the most costly is not necessarily the most effective. In a wheat field I would reduce it to three different options.

One would be using 24-d or of Dicamba (a phenoxy) or a combination of the two and simply burn the above ground portion of the bindweed back every time it showed its ugly head. This is very similar to the multiple tillage trips mechanical option in that it robs the bindweed of any sunlight through it’s growing season, basically starving it to death. You can also include glysophate in that tank mix and control grasses growing in that fallow acre. Bindweed is sensitive to phenoxies but not so much glyphosate (Round Up).

Two would be to apply as much Dicamba (Banvel) as your growing wheat crop will allow (usually 4 to 6 ounces/acre) as late in bindweeds growing season as possible, preferably the day before a killing frost. This late application allows the chemical to work on the roots all winter. Caution must be taken with the amount of Dicamba and the size and stage of your wheat at the time.

Three is probably what I consider the biggest bang for the buck and that is to apply 24-d with some amount of Tordon. Tordon seems to have quite a bit of efficacy on bindweed, attacking the root system while the 24-d burns off the top. In a fallow wheat field this application should be done soon after harvest as there needs to be a certain amount of time that is needed for the Tordon to break down before the following wheat crop can be planted. Tordon needs sunlight, heat, and water to break down but the interval between application and planting is usually between 45 to 90 days depending on the amount of Tordon applied.

Even with all of the aforementioned controls, some bindweed will usually struggle through the following year and control measures must be continued, often for several years.

I once sprayed a quarter for bindweed for 5 years in a row always using the newest different chemical or chemical combination every year but the weed to some degree always returned. On the sixth year I suggested we just use the cheapest method and we burnt it off with 24-d and it stayed clean for at least the following 7 years. Go figure!

Maybe we accidentally did it when the moon was in the sign of the heart in August.

The Field of Dreams made 58 bushel/acre, and the control (the remainder of the field) made 37.5 bushel/acre. 

That is a 20.5 bushel/acre increase !

I will follow up with a further economic and agronomic analysis with a chronological explanation of inputs when I can, and will post the whole thing here.

Kim

Last summer, we sent off some pig weed seed from Eastern Grant county, thinking it is probably Atrazine resistant. As you can see by the picture below it too came back resistant. 4 pounds of atrazine per acre would not stop it.

It is not always a chemical failure, sometimes Mother Nature trumps all.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:  A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Deserts are defined as areas with an average annual precipitation of less than 250 millimetres (10 in) per year

This is interesting information.  This came from one of the slides in my report for the Oklahoma Wheat Tour at the Oklahoma Grain and Feed Assn. meeting.

Weather data from Grant Co. and Garfield Co. Mesonet sites

Medford

6.59 inches Sept. through April
Prorated: that would be the equivalent of 9.8 inches annual rainfall (or in other words,....... a desert)
Feb. 10th  (-)27 Degrees
April 5th 31 Degrees
April 9th 90 Degrees
117 degree swing in 58 days

Breckenridge

9.39 inches Sept. through April
Prorated: that would be the equivalent of 14.07 inches annual rainfall
Feb. 10th  (-)23 Degrees
Feb. 17th 80 Degrees
103 degree swing in a week!
April 5th 28 Degrees

Wheat is an amazing plant to even do what it has done.

When the reports were all in it is predicted Oklahoma will raise approximately a little over half of the bushels of wheat it raised last year.

According to the mesonet data, on April 5th, Medford got down to 31 degrees and Lahoma got down to 28 degrees on the same date.  Normally, these temperatures on that early of a date probably would not cause any concern, but couple those temps. with the low humidities and lack of moisture it seems to have dinged the wheat.  Part of the problem may also be the wheat's effort to go reproductive earlier than normal do to the stress of lack of moisture leaving it more vulnerable to freezing temperatures that early in the year.

There also seems to be more Barley Yellow Dwarf this year than what is typical for this area.  BYD is a disease that is vectored by aphids and fungicides will not be effective as a cure. It shows up as a "firing" or "yellowing" of the leaf starting at the tips working downward.  This year, it seems to me that some BYD has reached all the way to the flag leaf.

Having a damaged and/or a non functioning flag leaf is not a good thing but wheat can fill grain using any part of the flag leaf left and using the stem as well, and it seems to be doing just that.

Having said all of the above, you still better grease your combine.  With the exception of any wheat that had any added stress ( planted early with heavey grazing, terrace tops, summer crop grown on that acre last summer, etc.) we still have a valuable crop in the field, just not as much of of it.

In our short history with winter canola we have had to spray for the aphids at bloom and pod set almost every year so I was expecting them, just did not know when. They can reduce yield considerably, especially if the numbers are high and they are in the flowers and pods. Now we know that they are here in some places and producers should start keeping an eye out for them.

 False Chinch Bug on Canola pod   Cabbage Aphid in Canola

Other canola fields I had seen recently did not have any insect pest pressures, but some producers were requesting an insecticide application, so evidently, although not a widespread infestation, in some cases winter canola in under some insect pressure.

I would suggest you might stop by and look at yours, if you have any.

Alfalfa insect pressures in the last ten days have been tremendous. 

 It was my observation that any pyrethroid with a chaser of clopyrifos (example Grizzly and Nufos or Baythroid and Lorsban) had a good initial knockdown of insects.  You did not have any trouble seeing the ground littered with dead worms and aphids. However the efficacy of the chemicals did not seem to last very long and in 5 or 6 days it was time for a respray.

There are probably several things happening.  The alfalfa plant seems so distressed, I suppose from lack of moisture, that we are not getting any help at all from the plants self defense mechanisms.  It does not seem to be growing worth a darn. Thus you can probably throw the economic threshold numbers out the window for our area this spring.  If any number of worms were left in the field it seems to be too many, even with numbers so low that in a normal year we wouldn't even notice them.

Because of lack of growth and the explosion of the weevil hatch, we are often forced to spray basically bare dirt with some alfalfa stems sticking up.  This allows very little of the plant to take in the chemical for residual affects.  There often has been no plant to protect.

Also, about the time the weevil exploded  this area had 6 to 7 days of no sun and 40 degree temperatures. Dry......, no sun,......... cold................nothing is going to work very well......... evidently

We seem to be having some luck with Steward and am cautiously optimistic, but even this chemical's company says 6 inches of growth is needed for a 14 day residual. 

Much the same can be said in regards to insects in our wheat crop.  With our wheat crop under stress it is not going to take nearly as many aphids to hold it back as in a year with normal moisture.  With the crop as valuable as it is it won't take as many bushels to treat it either.  So again, I think the economic threshold numbers for aphids in our wheat crop are being lowered. 

We do have aphids in much of the wheat and some spraying is beginning to take place.  It takes approximately 1.1 bushel to protect your crop. 

There are many beneficial insects out there as well (lots of lady bug larvae, and mummies on the leaves) so it is going to take a judgement call on the producers part, factoring in the weather, economics, and beneficials.

 Plan your work, work your plan.

All of this is probably something a good 1 to 2 inch rain would fix.

Pray!

At this time we have a beautiful and substantial wheat crop in NC Oklahoma.  Many factors are going to come into play to see if we get that crop harvested. Weather (moisture) probably being the biggest, but we can do our part. 

At this time, in many wheat fields we are starting to see a build up of insects, aphids (Green and Cherry Oat), and still some worms.  At this time I have not seen any over the economic threshold, and there are a number of beneficial insects out there as well, (Lady bugs, and parasitic wasps).  It is too early to be a "Chicken Little" and say the sky is falling, but the crop is too good and the price too high not to keep an eye on your crop.

That's all I'm saying. 

This does not mean you should necessarily run out and spray your field now.  One economic threshold is 25 to 40% tip damage or 3 larvae per stem. 

It does mean you should closely monitor your alfalfa crop.  It would be nice if we can get a little more growth on your plant to cover with the insecticide. This would provide more coverage for the plant and get us a little farther down the road with the length of residual, but it is a fine line and needs to be watched.

As of "right now" ,in our area, the alfalfa weevil has not hatched in any numbers to warrant an application, but they have, not too far to our south, and they in all probabitiy will soon. It is the  time to start watching and they or their feeding are not that hard to spot.  Look for "holes" in your new growth leaves emerging from the bud.  You can catch them early with this method. If you see the holes you can actually find the worm in a very small size by peeling back the bud.

As soon as I see any significant numbers, I will try to post it.

Aphids are another insect that can adversley affect alfalfa, and they are not as time specific. There are usually 4 types of aphids that we have, and they are Bird Cherry Oat (black), Pea (lime green and usally a little larger), Green Bugs, and last but certainly not least, Spotted Alfalfa Aphids (very small, usually pale green with rows of spots on their back.)

I have recently seen, and heard of others, an allfalfa field in north central Oklahoma, heavily infested with the Bird Cherry Oat aphid.  These insects do not inject a toxin in the plant, but simply dessicate (suck the moisture out of) it.

So far the infestations of this aphid that I have recently seen were at such high numbers that spraying the stand and relieving the pressure was warranted.

Keep an eye on your alfalfa.

Even with todays prices on cattle and wheat, the economics seem to favor removing cattle from wheat meant for harvesting after first hollow stem. The longer first hollow stem wheat is grazed the more money per acre is lost.

Finding first hollow stem wheat does not mean every grazed field is at the same maturity but it does mean you better start making plans to move the cattle or your losing money.