Welcome to the University of Minnesota as
strategic farming field notes Program.
I'm Anthony Hansen, Regional Extension Educator
in integrated pest management.
Support for this program is also provided by
the Minnesota Corn Research and Promotion Council,
as well as the Minnesota Soybean
Research and Promotion Council.
Unfortunately, recording for July 30th,
2022 isn't available due
to some technical issues that we had.
So here's just a quick summary of what
was covered at the webinar for that day.
And we will have online postings
on some of the text and what we covered.
To start off, we had Dr. Jeff Coulter on to talk
about what's going on with corn pollination.
A bit of a current status update,
and then also what might be
happening in the coming weeks,
especially junit overall been
a pretty dry month and fairly warm to
to the point that we are actually coming ahead
of average on growing degree days for corn so far.
So some fields that were planted on time,
we're seeing pollination occurring already or
just starting to in about the next week or so.
But because of variability,
we had to planting date.
There are definitely some fields that are going
to be further behind than others.
But overall with the temperatures
were expected to see coming up,
pollination should be rolling along pretty well without
any significant issues with too much heat occurring,
since we're going to be in about
the lower nineties or so, we are, however,
starting to see some drought conditions
start to merge in some areas of the state.
And this could delay or affect
pollination in terms of
final yield that we will see in the crop.
So very much depends
on what part of the safe people are in
and what their fields are looking
like for drought conditions.
We also had Seth Ghibli with
the Environmental Protection Agency
on to talk about atrazine.
This is a broad spectrum herbicide
that is beginning a look again in
terms of water quality issues
and potentially being able to mitigate those.
So currently the EPA is
proposing some restrictions to the use of atrazine,
mostly to prevent run-off.
So there is a 60 day comment period open to
the public that closes on September 6th at 2022.
So he suggested that if
atrazine restrictions are going to affect anyone,
that they should check out
the public comment period and submit their comments so
they can work them into
any recommendations that are coming out.
And just as a quick final note,
we are starting to see some insect issues either
continue across the state or
starting to see some just emerging a little bit.
So first off, the big question that comes up quite a
bit around this time of year is soybean aphid.
And we are seeing some across
the state infested and soybeans,
but generally not at high numbers.
There are however, a few pockets of
the state where populations are increasing.
Now it's going to be pretty early
to be treating for soybean aphid,
but keep an eye on those populations as they start
to grow more in later July.
Alfalfa weevil has also been
a concern for some growers across the state,
especially around Central Minnesota.
Now some growers have seen damage,
especially in their first and sometimes
second cutting alfalfa weevil.
But if you are considering an application now,
be sure to actually go out and check the field
that the alfalfa weevil is still present.
Larvae can cause damage in the field,
but adults are going to be dormant this
time of year and they're not feeding
are causing significant damage either.
Now normally this time of year you're
only going to find adults.
You're usually not going to be concerned about
alfalfa weevil or treating for it any further.
However, there have been some reports
and parts of the state that growers are
finding very early instar larvae
are very young ones that have been laid recently.
Well, that's not typical for what we see with that past.
But there may be some issues
with either new strains coming
in or some other environmental conditions
that a delayed emergence of this one.
So just be sure to go out there and Sculpt.
If you do find larvae,
check that they're actually at
threshold levels because you don't want to be spraying
when that species is
on its way out for the season instead,
and you're not getting a return on
investment of the insecticide.
And also just a general reminder that court purify us.
We've had questions about that as well.
It is not allowed for any agricultural use,
even if you did have it on hand for a previous year.
This is definitely come up a few
times and questions that I've gotten.
So whether it's alfalfa weevil or
upcoming applications potentially for soybean aphid.
Be sure that you're following
current Pesticide Regulations.
Avoid ones that are no longer
allowed such as core pure PFOS,
but then also double-check and the label
that it's actually approved
for application on that crop
because of field school on the St. Paul campus next week,
our next episode of
field notes will be on the 27th of July.
So stay tuned for that episode
and we'll see you in about two weeks.