Category Archives: 2016
Preserving Our Weed Management Tools Through Good Stewardship
by Gaylon Morgan, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, College Station, TX; gdmorgan@tamu.edu; Paul Baumann, Texas A&N AgriLife Extension Service, College Station, TX; p-baumann@tamu.edu; Josh McGinty, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, Corpus Christi, TX, joshua.mcginty@ag.tamu.edu Large farms and erratic weather makes it difficult for producers to cover all their acres for nutrient and pest management. So, everyone is looking for ways to cut trips across the fields to save money and time. However, if we are not careful, we could be doing more harm than good and costing ourselves… Read More →
Potential Income Losses in Harvesting Dry Wheat Grain
by Dr. Calvin Trostle, Professor & Extension Agronomist, Lubbock, ctrostle@ag.tamu.edu; Dr. Clark Neely, Assistant Professor & State Extension Small Grains Agronomist, cbneely@tamu.edu The standard moisture for wheat grain at harvest time is 13.5%. If your wheat moisture is above 13.5% you will be docked for the moisture. If you are too much above standard moisture content for wheat your delivery point may reject the grain, especially if they do not have the capacity to dry grain. Common incentives that drive harvesting wheat as soon as possible include minimizing… Read More →
Mild Winter and Wet Spring Provide Challenges for Wheat Producers
by Dr. Clark Neely, Statewide Small Grains Extension Specialist, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, College Station, TX, Dr. Ron French, Extension Plant Pathologist, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, Amarillo, TX, Dr. Josh McGinty, Regional Extension Agronomist, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, Corpus Christi, TX Wheat rusts have been another hot topic in wheat production for 2016. Following a severe stripe rust outbreak in 2015, most of Texas is once again seeing the effects of this disease on the state’s crop for 2016 (Fig 1). Mild winter temperatures allowed for the establishment… Read More →
Early-season Insect Management for South Texas Cotton
by Robert Bowling, Ph.D., Assistant Professor and AgriLife Extension Entomology Specialist Cotton: Much of the Coastal Bend and Wintergarden cotton is out of danger for thrips injury. It has been a quiet year for thrips and may give credence that cotton insecticide seed treatments are working fine in Texas. However, frequent heavy rain events around the area have likely helped keep their populations in check. The cotton aphid is on the prowl. There are reports of cotton aphids building on cotton growing in the Valley. Late last week… Read More →
Considerations for Cotton Planting and Early Season Growth
by Seth Byrd, Assistant Professor & Extension Cotton Specialist, Lubbock, TX As we near the time of the year when cotton planting will start in the High Plains and Rolling Plains region, it is always helpful to remind ourselves of early-season growth and development of cotton in order to start-off the season strong. Two of the primary drivers behind the growth of cotton, both at early growth stages and throughout the season, are water and temperature. While warm days certainly signal the onset of planting season, be careful… Read More →
Sugarcane Aphid Update from South Texas
by Robert Bowling, Stephen Biles, Danielle Sekula-Ortiz, and Kate Harrell Sugarcane Aphid Update: As February was fading into the sunset abundant sugarcane aphid (SCA) populations were observed on volunteer and ratoon sorghum in south Texas. Their early population increase was attributed to unseasonably warm and dry conditions in January and February. There was concern around the possibility of early season SCA outbreaks on south TX sorghum if unseasonably warm conditions persisted. Fortunately, a change in weather patterns brought rain and cooler conditions in March. Recent surveys of SCA… Read More →
Preplant Burndown Weed Control Options in the Rolling Plains of Texas
by Emi Kimura and Gaylon Morgan, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service Effective and season-long weed control in cotton starts with preplant weed management, starting clean to stay clean. The following herbicides are some viable options of burndown herbicides to start the 2016 cotton season with clean field. • EPSP herbicides (Group 9) Glyphosate (e.g., Roundup PowerMax, Touchdown Total, Touchdown Hi-Tech, and WeatherMax) controls most winter annual grass and broadleaf weeds such as henbit (Photo 1) and perennial grass such as johnsongrass (Photo 8), bindweeds, Texas blueweed, and silverleaf… Read More →
New Factsheets Available for Two Cotton Diseases
by Thomas Isakeit, Professor and Extension Plant Pathologist I have prepared two factsheets on bacterial blight of cotton and cotton root rot. They can be accessed at Cotton.tamu.edu. The bacterial blight factsheet has photographs that will be useful in diagnosing this disease. There has been a resurgence in this disease in Texas in recent years, with some yield losses documented in other states such as Mississippi. Since the severity of this disease is driven by rainy weather, I have no prognosis for the 2016 season. The cotton root… Read More →
Assessing Freeze Injury in Texas Wheat–2016
by Dr. Calvin Trostle, Professor & Extension Agronomist, Lubbock, (806) 723-8432, ctrostle@ag.tamu.edu Over the past several weeks light freezing conditions have occurred in north Texas, the northern Rolling Plains, and more pronounced freezes at the top of the Texas Panhandle. No reports yet have indicated strong injury other than a few fields in Lipscomb Co. Those fields were injured March 21, so injurious temperatures likely needed to be in the mid-20s or lower. As of March 29 some wheat was at second joint, and Lipscomb Co. ag. extension… Read More →
Balancing Preventive Insect Pest Control Measures in Cotton while Bracing for a Tough Economic Year on the Texas High Plains
by Suhas Vyavhare and Blayne Reed; Texas A&M AgriLife Extension With the growing season just around the corner, farmers are busy preparing fields and making tough decisions for 2016. Cotton, the crop often known as “white gold,” looks to have some difficulty bringing major economic incentives to the farmers this year. Commodity prices have been below production costs for the last couple of years and future market moves, or lack thereof, are suggesting prices will be about the same this year. This means 2016 is going to be… Read More →