Scott Dugan (Sales Agronomist, Region 3 – Western Nebraska)
Area Summary – Things observed and heard throughout central/western NE and eastern CO.
Average stage of corn – R2 (Blister)-R4 (Dough)
Dryland – If you were fortunate enough to catch a couple of rains the past 2 months your dryland might still be holding on, but if not, it is more than likely burned up and gone. I have seen a lot of places where farmers have decided to either cut silage or bale their stalks for feed, which have decent value at the present time.
Irrigated – Crops seem to be holding together for the most part. There have been a lot of issues the past 2 weeks with people discovering that pollination did not go well though. The continuous heat has caused a lot of reproduction issues with silks and pollen shed.
1) Silks- Excessive heat has caused silks to desiccate so they become non-receptive to pollen, or caused the silks to slowly emerge (mistiming). Even with good moisture and accurate emergence between pollen and silks, high temps can still reduce fertility.
2) Pollen- We had several days at the end of June and 1st week in July where temperatures were in the upper 90s to low/mid 100s. From what I observed, the majority of fields started to pollinate shortly after this. The continuous heat stress right before pollination can cause a decrease in pollen production to only a fraction of what is considered normal for the plant. Heat also reduces the length of time the pollen will shed down to a couple of hours causing a lot of the mistiming issues with silk emergence.
These pollination issues are few when looking at the region as a whole but are being seen in just about the entire region.
Insects- Corn rootworm beetles/larvae have been the biggest pest overall this year. Throughout the entire region there have been multiple reports of heavy larvae feeding early and beetle feeding as of late. Farmers have had to treat multiple times in some cases because of pressures that have been extremely substantial, not only corn on corn acres, but some rotational fields as well. Western bean cutworms and European corn borers have popped up in recent weeks in western NE but have been in isolated instances. Japanese beetles have also been reported throughout the region. Lastly, spider mites have been turning up all year long which is common due to the lack of moisture, and can flare up even worse after an insecticide application has been applied (i.e. For rootworm beetles).
Disease- Overall fungal disease pressures have been limited due to the high temps and low humidity. There have been no major reports of gray leaf spot, holcus spot, or eyespot, and only minor instances of physoderma brown spot and common rust. Recently though, there have been several reports regarding southern rust. The south central part of the state being the “hot spot” for these reports, mainly the counties bordering Adams County, including Adams. All of the diseases mentioned above can be treated with a fungicide application.
Bacterial diseases like systemic Goss were identified in several areas by UNL early in the year and I have recently visited some fields were the corn was about 6ft tall and dying from systemic Goss. The visual characteristics of systemic Goss at this stage of the corn is similar to Anthracnose Top-dieback. As for the foliar disease of Goss’ Wilt there have been little reports but we are just hitting the peak time for infections to start popping up.
As stated above, the average stage of the corn is R2-R4. This is a period where water consumption is maximized. A plant at these stages should use approximately .41 inches per day (temps @ 95), until we reach dough and then we should see water usage start to decline slowly. University of Nebraska at Lincoln has an excellent ET gauge that can be region specific. The web address is http://cropwatch.unl.edu/web/cropwatch/gdd-etdata .
I am very pleased with how the majority of our hybrids are looking up to this point. I have been to Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana and have seen first-hand the damage the drought has caused. Considering the challenges that everyone has had to endure, I believe Nebraska will have a very successful year in terms of production and Producers Hybrids will have big part in that success.
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