Justin George, Merigold
7/12/2023 – Rice: some heads emerging to some rice still going to flood. 50% is flagging and booting. Not much disease in Dyna-Gro or Hybrid rice which is all I check. Some June rice is a real headache as nothing seems to work well on grass, including Roundup!
Soybean: emerging replant and wheat beans all the way to R5. Some fungicide applied over the last two weeks without poison. Mostly 4/15 planted beans, and a lot of those were 4.5s (Great Heart 4540s to be exact)
A lot of R3-R4.5, MG 4.8s out there, that will deserve “good poison” to steer clear of worms. Moth flight isn’t in full gear yet, but is happening. Scattered 2-day old worms yesterday in Metcalfe/Choctaw area in R3/R4 beans yesterday, and in R2 fields – 4-7/25 sweeps. Setting up a lot of Fungicide/Poison together…. waited a little long on some Fungicide, and going a little early with poison in Historically Notorious worm areas. Flea Beetles, Grape Colaspis Beetles, and bollworm moths. Worms haunted me in R5.5, tall 48x9s late July last year…. Trying to keep that from Happening.
Hail damage, still might be worse than we think. Hail can obviously kill plants, not just beat them up, so I don’t think time will heal all these wounds. Looks like some “okay” beans, still took it on the chin.
Sunflower and Bolivar County as a whole look good. *Johnsongrass is a real Problem, and Select itself isn’t enough of an answer! Early applications alone, in season with Roundup/ no Roundup/ no Dicamba, whole fields, spot sprayed again, etc… still have Johnsongrass. *More Flex Beans next year and Liberty going to be necessary to help some farms Johnsongrass and pigweed issues.
Corn: full dent in early corn, and I’ve got about 200 acres waiting to tassel. Foliar disease hasn’t been bad to this point. Maybe 30% of my acres got a preventative fungicide application
Milo: Yes Milo!!!! We got a good stand, had about 75% that got sprayed correctly at planting, and it’s been trouble free. Roundup and Halex on clean ground look good.
*It’s beginning to head so my troubles are about to Ramp Up! No Sugarcane Aphids as off last week. I expect that to change, and I expect to spray midge this week.
Andy Graves, Clarksdale
7/13/2023 – All of my corn is starting to reach the dough stage and the latest is starting to dent. Most looks pretty good but we’ve had a lot of issues with green snap earlier and the corn that got laid down didn’t pollinate correctly in some fields.
Soybeans are late R2 to early R5. We’ve applied fungicides to a big number of acres and now holding up on latest soybeans due to the moth flight we have.
Most cotton is well into bloom. The July complex of everything has hit us. Bollworm moths are getting heavy and we’re seeing eggs but no larvae so far. What little Bt2 I have this year got a diamide yesterday. Spider mites are rebounding in a lot of fields and I’ve swapped over to Zeal Pro at this point. Plant bugs have been steady in a lot of fields and some aphids are showing up. I’ve seen huge explosions out of corn in spots and then in other places you can’t find anything. It’s been really challenging to keep up with and definitely lighter than expected in some fields lately.
All of my corn is starting to reach the dough stage and the latest is starting to dent. Most looks pretty good but we’ve had a lot of issues with green snap earlier and the corn that got laid down didn’t pollinate correctly in some fields.
Soybeans are late r2 to early r5. We’ve applied fungicides to a big number of acres and now holding up on latest soybeans due to the moth flight we have
Most cotton is well into bloom. The July complex of everything has hit us. Bollworm moths are getting heavy and we’re seeing eggs but no larvae so far. What little Bt 2 I have this year got a diamide yesterday. Spider mites are rebounding in a lot of fields and I’ve swapped over to zeal pro at this point. Plant bugs have been steady in a lot of fields and some aphids are showing up. I’ve seen huge explosions out of corn in spots and then in other places you can’t find anything. It’s been really challenging to keep up with and definitely lighter than expected in some fields lately.
Lee Rogers, Missouri Boothill
7/13/2023 – We finally got some adequate rain and there may be more in store. It has been really dry since early May in these parts. Between rains, plant bugs have been on the increase and have moved into a lot of fields. Cotton is starting to fully bloom and is looking good. We’ve got a long way to go but at this point, we are in decent shape.
Tim Sanders, Sarah
7/13/2023 – Cotton is nearly all blooming. Plantbugs are steady. Fruit retention looks very good. A few spider mites showing up. Bollworm moths are showing up in small numbers so we know what is coming. Most cotton is Bt 3 but we still have a little BG II. Corn ranges from late milk to dent stage. We had some early hail and green snap but nothing like pictures I’ve seen from south of us. Soybeans range from R3 to R5.5 mostly. Wheat beans at V1-V2. Insects have been light but stinkbugs are increasing in older beans. We expect those same bollworm moths to lay soon. This crop looks promising. Rice is from midseason to flowering. This is a little earlier crop as a whole than we usually have. Most rice looks good. The Provisia/Max Ace technology has worked wonders on some fields, but it is not perfect. We need to baby this technology to keep it. Rotation will be key. Stinkbugs are being treated in older rice.
Joel Moor, Greenwood
7/13/2023 – Corn is at full dent up to 50% starch line. Hoping to be done with irrigation in places that received recent rains One more watering everywhere else. Crop looks average to me, overall. Soybeans range from R3-R5. Started picking up a few bollworms and stink bugs this week. Nothing to warrant treatment.
Most all of my cotton is in the second week of bloom. Plant bugs have been fairly light but are starting to come out of corn. Finding boll worm eggs this week.
Don Collins, Yazoo City
7/14/2023 – Our corn is anywhere from full dent to 3/4 starch line. This was our last week scouting most. Ears look really impressive. I would expect an above average corn crop this year. Disease was pretty light up until the last couple of weeks and it’s really taken off. Most of the corn had made it to dent before disease really showed up so we didn’t recommend any fungicide. We did have some corn that was heavily damaged by hail. As much as 80-90% defoliation. The hail event occurred at the blister stage. Our growers elected to apply a fungicide but it is still covered up with any disease you can imagine. Our biggest worry is that by the time this corn is ready to cut, the ears will be laying on the ground. Hail stones impacted the ears so hard that it burst some blister stage kernels. Where that damage occurred, we’re seeing some rot in the ear. So, what we are able to cut will surely have very poor grades.
Soybeans are from R2 to approaching R6. Insect pressure has been very light up until this week. Red Banded stink bugs exploded in our April 1st planted beans this week. Mostly up next to levees full of Johnson grass. We also started picking up pod worms in flowering beans this week. Podworm numbers have been in the 4-8 per 100 sweep range so we haven’t pulled the trigger on any yet. We’re holding off on fungicides this week until we see what these worms will do. We will most likely be dumping out a lot of fungicide and diamide next week on our younger beans.
Our cotton is from first bloom to second week of bloom. Plant bugs were pouring out of corn the 1st of July but have really slowed down this week. They have been replaced by bollworm moths. We’re seeing some egg lays as high as 40% in places, all in BG3 cotton. We’re treating the egg lays with Acephate + Diamond in BG3 for now. We had a dry spell in late June and spider mites were on the rise. But frequent rains the last two weeks have beaten them back. Aphids have been very light to this point. With all of the rain we have gotten we have been pounding away with pix. We got an early start on most, but we’ve been beating some of these new varieties over the head with 16oz of pix once a week to get them to set fruit. I think we’re finally getting ahead of most of it. We’ve got a good bottom crop set on most acres, but we’ve got a long way to go.
John Hartley North, Madison
7/15/2023 – Cotton: Plant bug pressure low to moderate so far this year with exception to few fields with high pressure. All corn edges have been trimmed 3 times and second shot of Diamond will be out on majority of my cotton by end of this week. Tank mixing bifenthrin and acephate now on 3-gene cotton where Transform, Diamond and acephate was applied over the last couple of weeks. Aphid infestations spotty dependent on variety and scattered whitefly infestations dependent on variety but nothing of any issue. Avg 10-12% egg counts on majority of blooming cotton. All
2-gene cotton was over sprayed with Vantacor this past week with plant bug poison. Everything’s in pretty good shape this year but have struggled with rain showers behind poison jobs.
Soybean: R1 to R5.8; Very light insect pressure thus far except light bollworm numbers this past week on some hail damage soybeans. Scattered red banded stinkbugs but nothing of any issue and very little disease pressure. Most soybeans have been treated with a fungicide for few weeks but still have some going out the next several weeks.
Corn: Majority of corn is dent with 20-50% starch line. Have some that will black layer in next 10 days. Disease pressure has been 0 this year. Corn crop looks to have great potential across the board, dryland and irrigated.
Photographs from Jeff North, Madison
Phillip McKibben, Maben
7/13/2023 – Cotton we’re checking started blooming July 8-9, but most is blooming now, with 7-9 NWAF. We started finding clear signs of active Neozygites last week, and are seeing it spread across fields this week. Not that aphid pressure was high, we’ve just had small spots of heavily colonized plants that we’ve been watching as indicators of progression in the epizootic. Even though pest pressure hasn’t been difficult to navigate, the management decisions have been somewhat, with ThryvOn varieties planted up next to corn, and non-ThryvOn in the rest of the field; some fields with 3 different varieties, each having its own Pix needs. Considering its dryland production and ground-applied apps, and it gets complex.
Pigs have wreaked havoc in a number of corn fields across our territory, some with no issues prior to 2023. Growers have hunted, shot, trapped, and run dogs, each with a small measure of success, but crop loss has been measurable.
Soybeans have been smooth sailing for the most part, but cloverworms and cabbage loopers are becoming more common in our sweeps.
Sweetpotatoes are all finally planted, some greenhouse plants as recently as last week, but the first cutting foundation will likely be dug in a little over a month. We’re hopeful for this crop, but also are only 30-45 days into the 120-day venture.
Bert Falkner, West Point
7/13/2023 – It seems every time I give a crop update, we have a weather event! Last time was devastating wind and hail. I have never seen hail KILL cotton before. There were acres that were replanted after the hail – some of it went into corn. In this report we just got 5-7 inches of rain yesterday on my south end – other areas have had “just right” rains. In some areas the last 2 weeks have been too wet to run a ground rig across crops.
Cotton is 12th to 18th node with a high percent blooming. All cotton should be blooming by next week. NAWF 7-10, fruit load on cotton is okay. It will be interesting to see what the 5-7” if rain will do to the fruit load. Starting to see bollworm moths out of corn. Plant bug numbers this week, overall, are down. Treating hot spots and adding Pix. Aphids are noticeable in a lot of fields. Overall, cotton looks okay … today.
The majority of soybeans are R2-R5 growth stage. Started fungicides + Dimilin + pyrethroid last week. Insects very low in beans; older beans pod set is very good.
All corn is R4-R5 growth stage with very little dent stage today. Moisture we received will take this corn a long way. Oldest corn might water one more time.
We’ve been trying for 10 days to get a soil fungicide out on peanuts but rain has delayed this; only have about 20% of soil fungicide out on the peanuts that I check. Thank goodness the disease has been light so far.
Our crop needs sunshine and dry weather but with the root system we have, we cannot stay dry long.
Trey Bullock, Seminary
7/14/2023 – Cotton is from 2nd node 😳 to 19 nodes. Plant Bugs blew up (clouded) 2 weeks ago and most fields were treated. Plant bugs have been almost non-existent this week. Aphids have exploded in areas; fungus is taking them out in areas and we’re treating some areas. Bollworm moths are literally everywhere but eggs are really hard to find. Have seen a few small bolls with feeding but no real damage. We’ve had rains for the last 7-10 days and we are extremely thankful. We had gotten extremely dry during 1st bloom period for lots of cotton and fields were going the wrong way quick and in a hurry.
Peanuts are from 45 to 80 days old with a few green peanut fields approaching harvest. Insects are extremely light and we are primarily putting fungicides out. I do have some 45-day old peanuts (580 acres) that are peanuts behind peanuts that have late leaf spot. These infections are coming from inoculant in the fields and will make for a loooong season.
Soybeans are from V3 to R5. Haven’t had any insect troubles except for where we had some grassy young beans. Grass has lots of young falls but was treated with herbicide apps. I am picking up lots of red-banded stink bugs way south but they are in young beans that are just blooming today.
All crops look pretty good at this point.