Your help is needed…

Due to a major oversight on my part the cover crop flyer was sent out without specific instruction on how to get to the cover crop plot. Please find the directions below. Also if you know of anyone who may be interested in this and does check this blog please share this information with them.

Directions to plot/field day:

Take I-81 to exit 17.

Go east on Walker Rd (left if from north, right if from south).

Continue about ½ mile and plot will be on your right.

Signs will be marking the way from the exit 17.

Sorry for any confusion this has caused.

Thanks,
Jonathan Rotz

Spring has sprung…

With temperatures over the weekend in the 70's it is certainly feeling more and more like spring. Additionally, all of the small grains, cover crops and perennial forages have taken off. With a little more moisture today things are definitely ready to grow. Now is a great time to be top dressing your small grain fields as well as putting spring nitrogen on pastures and hay fields. Obviously you want to make sure you fields are fit for traffic and haven't gotten too wet lately.

This time of year is also a great time to take an estimate of weed pressure in your winter grain and perennial stands. Make sure you scout not only for weed pressure but types of weeds as well so you can make the best herbicide selection possible.

On another note you can see how my test plots are coming where we are looking into inter cropping rye and radish to allow corn planting in between the rye rows. This will hopefully allow early planting of corn into this live cover crop. If this works the theory is that some of our corn pests such as slugs may be more willing to feed on the rye undercover then venture into the sun to injure the corn. I'll keep you up to date on this as well as the other research I have a going on around the county.

IPM Network Established

This year I will again be capturing moths to attempt to follow and predict activity. This spring I will be trapping Black Cutworm Moth as well as Armyworm. Many times blanket applications of insecticide are put down to act as an insurance against early season pests such as black cutworm, but is this really needed and thus economical. Last year my site in Franklin County never reached the threshold level of moths to feel that we had enough pressure to worry with cutworms. I also didn't hear of any issues with cutworms locally, but that doesn't mean they didn't happen. The question arose from this study last year, how irregular can these moth patterns be over large areas? In other words, if I scout one area of the county do I really get a full picture of the pressure? Well with the hope to answer this question this year I'll have 8 trapping sites across the county. These sites will be located in State Line, Mercersburg, Mont Alto, Chambersburg, St. Thomas, Shippensburg, Path Valley and Pleasant Hall Areas. Hopefully we will see uniformity in numbers and times of catches with these traps. I will also be updating you on what the pressure is like via this blog. Hopefully we can get great data off of this and start minimizing our reliance on 'insurance sprays.' This will save on our bottom line as well as possibly preserve beneficial insects that can help us control some of our pest populations.