Pro-Ag Farmers Cooperative

Welcome to Pro Ag's 2012 scouting report page. This year we have two interns who will be submitting reports weekly on what they are finding out in the fields. I (Jason) will also be putting in some comments from time to time. Our goal is to keep you informed on what is going on out in the fields, and we hope that this will help you keep up to date on the latest pests and problems.


	2012 Crop Scouting Report

	8-2-12
	7-9-12
	7-5-12
	6-15-12
	6-11-12
	6-4-2012

8-2-12 08/02/12 10:23:03 AM

Well August is here, seems like fall is just around the corner! I know I have missed posting the report for two weeks, so here we are with the latest report.

Corn: We are pretty much at the stage where there isn't anything that we can do ourselves for our corn yields anymore, the rest is up to mother nature to give us a little more timely moisture and good weather to finish it out. The field that I have been in, the pollination has been looking pretty good. However there have been some reports about some poorer pollination in some fields. The last few weeks have been quite warm during the days as well as warm nights. During the hot days, pollination slows or stops until the cooler nights, but if the night-time temperatures do not cool below about 73 degrees, the corn plant isn't able to respirate as well. Basically this means it dosen't get a chance to rest. When this happens during pollination, pollination can be negativly affected. I have noticed over those warm days that our temps were in the low 70's over night, so this possibly could be the cause if any of your fields have had pollination issues. To check pollination you take the ear off of a plant, use your knife and slice the husk open on one side and carefully remove the husk. (Be careful not to pull any of the silks off while removing the husk) Then hold the base of the cob up with the tip pointing down, any seeds that did not pollinate will have the silk still attached to the seed, the pollinated ones should fall off easily.

Soybeans: Right now the big question is "Do I need to spray my fields for aphids?", while we have been spraying some for aphids, generally most field have not reached the 250 aphids/plant on 80% of plants threshold. This gets tricky when we have to go back for 2nd pass glyphosate and guys ask if we should throw in the insecticide to kill the aphids that are there, I understand the thinking of giving the insecticide the "free ride", there are a few things to consider though. One is when you spray the insecticide, all bugs are killed, and there are quite a few good bugs out in your fields helping to control the aphids, such as ladybugs, asian beetles, and lacewings. I have never seen these good insects prevent us from needing to spray, but they do hold them off for quite a while sometimes. Right now we are at the time where even if you spray for aphids at low numbers, the risk of needing a respray is almost zero. The only "risk" of spraying now at low numbers is that you might not have had to spray at all if the populations do not increase in the next 2-3 weeks.

If you have had weeds poking through the canopy, there is a good chance it was common ragweed or waterhemp. We have been having good control on the waterhemp with round up, but not near as good of control on the ragweed.

Wheat: Harvest is wraping up for some, and still going for others. Yield reports have been in the 50's mainly, but some coming in in the 60's and a few 70's, with good protein and test weight. Some have noticed "white heads" as the wheat was ripening, the U of M has been looking into this, and as of yet I havent heard what the think caused this.