CROP ALERT – September 11, 2024

Getting Ready to Plant Winter Wheat

Riding around this week I saw some Group 0 soybeans that have lost all their leaves. With the great weather we are going to have this week, I’ll bet that some of these will come off by the weekend. That means winter wheat is not far behind so here are a few quick reminders.

I get questions about the fly free dates every year. I have never seen Hessian flies in NY, but I guess that does not mean they are not here!  I have been seeing more aphid transmission of Barley yellow Dwarf virus (fall yellows). Both pests are taken out by the first frost. Fly-free dates are determined based on altitude and hence the first frost should occur sooner at higher elevations. For NWNY the date when it is safe to plant is roughly September 10 at 1200 ft, September 15 at 800 ft, and September 20 at 400 ft.

I have seen an increase in the number of wheat growers putting down starter fertilizer with great results! Phosphorus is very important and winter grains need 15 pounds for strong seedling establishment. Wheat also likes between 20-30 pounds of nitrogen at planting to promote fall tiller development.

Start off planting around 1.3 million seeds per acre in mid-September and increase population based on soil conditions and planting date.

To figure out how many pounds per acre, use the following formula.

Seeds per acre / # seeds/lb. = lb./acre    Example: 1,450,000 / 13,000 = 111.5 lb./acre. Remember seeds per pound can vary from 9,000 to 16,000 seeds per pound so make sure you know your seed size. It should be on the bag. If you can’t find it, ask your seed dealer.

Soybean Harvest Aids

Many of the early maturity soybeans have lost their leaves and many more are yellow and fading fast. One thing that has been really noticeable is the amount of weedy soybean fields. There are plenty of foxtail, fall panicum, lambsquarters, waterhemp and marestail that are way above the beans and still green. Much of waterhemp and marestail problems are in beans that are only glyphosate tolerant, hence the issue with glyphosate tolerant weeds. By the time harvest occurs the weed seeds will probably be mature but how tough will harvest be with all of those weeds still growing? There are a couple products we can apply as harvest aids but it is usually only for weed burndown not speed up plant maturation. Many of the herbicide label restrictions do not allow application until plants are fully mature. Below is a list of labeled herbicide options from Penn State Extension with important restrictions from the label. Here is the link to the full article, https://extension.psu.edu/are-harvest-aids-the-answer-for-large-palmer-and-other-late-season-weeds.

• Aim 2EC — Apply 1.5 fl oz/acre as a harvest aid to desiccate certain broadleaf weeds. Application shall be made when the crop is mature and the grain has begun to dry down and at least 3 days before harvest. Apply in 10 gal/A water. Include necessary adjuvants and make sure spray coverage is sufficient otherwise poor control will result. Do not feed treated soybean forage or hay to livestock.
• Clarity — Apply 8 fl oz to 2 quarts after soybean pods have reached a mature brown color and at least 75% leaf drop has occurred. Wait at least 7 days before harvest. Use a non-ionic surfactant or crop oil concentrate plus nitrogen solution in the spray solution. Do not feed soybean fodder or hay following a preharvest application.
• Defol 5L — Can be applied to desiccate problem weeds in early maturing soybean. Apply 4.8 qt/acre, 7-10 days before harvest in 20 gallons/acre water. No adjuvant is recommended. Do not graze treated field or feed treated fodder.
• Glyphosate — For pre-harvest, glyphosate may be applied to Roundup Ready and conventional soybeans after 80% leaf drop (loss of all green color). Apply up to 0.75 lb ae/acre (32 fl oz of a 3 lb ae/gal formulation) in 10-20 gallons of water/acre to control weeds that may interfere with harvest or to control perennials such as quackgrass or Canada thistle but will not control glyphosate-resistant weeds or dry down Roundup Ready varieties. Allow a minimum of 7 days between application and harvest. Use of a non-ionic surfactant plus ammonium sulfate in the spray solution may improve control. Do not graze or harvest the treated crop for livestock feed within 25 days of application. Do not use on soybeans grown for seed.
• Gramoxone SL — Apply 8 to 16 fl. oz/acre plus nonionic surfactant (1 qt/100 gallons of spray) to soybean plants that are mature (65% or more of the seed pods have reached mature brown color or seed moisture is 30% or less. Do not apply within 15 days of harvest and do not graze or harvest for forage or hay.
• Sharpen — Apply 1 to 2 fl. oz/acre after physiological maturity when greater than 50% leaf drop has occurred, and remaining leaves are yellow and at least 3 days before harvest. Include MSO plus AMS or UAN to improve performance.

  

Tar Spot Update

I did not mentioned tar spot last week because there wasn’t any new finds or counties to add to the tar spot map. However, there have been quite a few positives in the last week. We added Orleans and Oswego (first time) to the map and there have been multiple new locations confirmed throughout Livingston County. I expect that we will continue to add more locations as the corn gets more mature. In the past couple of seasons, many of our sites were not found until October. Please keep scouting for additional tar spot infections so we can keep track of where the inoculum could be present next year.