Crop Alert: August 9, 2013

This Crop Alert was originally written for and distributed to farmers and other members of the agricultural industry in western New York.

By Bill Verbeten & Mike Stanyard, Cornell Cooperative Extension

Corn and Soybean Yield Contests
Time is running out to enter the 2013 Corn and Soybean Yield contests. Fields need to be entered and fees paid by August 19, 2013. For more information see the brochure on our website.

Cover Crop and Fall Forage Plantings
The next couple weeks are the time to get cover crops and fall forage seedings planted. The mild temperatures and rainfall are making growing conditions ideal for planting. Radishes, clovers, and oats need to be planted in August (along with 25-50 lbs./A nitrogen for oats and radishes) to accumulate enough biomass prior to winter. Winter triticale for silage should be planted in early September because too much top-growth (>6-8 inches) going into the winter can result severe losses from snow mold. In new haylage seedings after small grains, be sure to control the grain that sprouted behind the combine by tilling or spraying. Clear alfalfa seedings can be sprayed with Poast Plus or Select Max early on to control small grains that emerge after seeding. Round-Up Ready alfalfa fields have the added option of glyphosate for small grain control. Mixed seedings with grasses have few options for herbicide applications that will kill the small grain and not the grass. It may be better to delay the grass seeding until the spring or till the field if small grain regrowth is a perennial problem in your fall haylage seedings.

Soybean Disease Survey
We have had reports of various soybean diseases in the last couple of weeds. If you have disease pressure in you soybeans please contact us so we can document them and if necessary have samples sent out for further diagnosis. Phytophthora Root Rot, Figure 1 is one disease in particular that we need to send in to the lab for race identification

Figure 1 Phytophthora Root Rot in Soybeans

Immature Corn Silage From Larry Chase
In some parts of New York, the 2013 corn crop may not reach normal maturity. There may be small ears, poor grain fill or even no ears on the corn plant at the time of harvest. We have seen this same situation in previous years. The following points may be helpful as you work with immature corn that will be harvested for corn silage. For the full article check it out on our website.