Mark Rogers, Hernando
7/20/2023 – Cotton is from 16-19 nodes. Plant bugs light to moderate.
Heavy pix applications going out due to all the rain. Mites and aphids are light.
Soybeans are R-1 to almost R6. Stink bugs have been light to date. Spraying water damaged beans for pod worms now.
Corn at 20-50% starch line. I will start terminating irrigation next week.
Rice – RSB have been light.
Jim Arrington, Senatobia
7/20/2023 – Cotton: Most is around 7 NAWF and a small amount 5 NAWF. I hate to be overly optimistic in July but it’s shaping up to be a really good crop. Fruit set so far is fantastic and hopefully we can hold it. We’ve had some pretty timely rains but would like to see another one this weekend to take us in to August. Usually, we’re making plant bug sprays and adding PGR this time of year but seems like we’re making PGR applications and adding something for plant bugs. The counts, with the exception of small acreage, have been light most of the year. Diamond and various materials for adults have gone on most every acre; now coming back with Transform. Picking up a few aphids but nothing significant. Very little in the way of spider mites so far.
Beans: Had a few fields where bollworm counts got all the way up to 1/25 sweeps! These counts were in R3 beans. R5 beans, counts have been almost zero. Nothing like last year so far; hope it stays that way. A few BLB, 3CAH, kudzu bugs but haven’t had any treatments yet. One grower told me that every time my number pops up he says, Oh, $..t!! He said he was going to start calling me that if I said to spray; luckily so far, I’ve kept my given name. Disease has also been extremely light and only a very small amount of fungicide has gone out.
Corn: Age from blister to almost dent. Again, I’m pretty excited about the potential of this crop. Just another watering or two.
Greg Williams, Eads, Tennessee
7/21/2023 – What a difference a year makes! Last year we terminated a lot of corn, beans and cotton because of drought. This year West Tennessee and North Mississippi have been blessed with timely rains and crops look good.
Soybeans range from R2-R4.5; wheat beans V2-R1. Some fungicides and insecticides going out on older beans. Bean leaf beetle has been most of the pressure; light on the pod feeders. Frog Eye showing up in spots.
Corn – For dry land corn, this year looks really good overall; ranges from milk to dent stage. Light disease and insect pressure.
Cotton ranges from 12 nodes to full bloom. Plant bugs and aphids started showing up the last three weeks. Applications for pix plus Transform going out.
Clay Horton, Leland
7/19/2023 – Soybean range from V5 wheat beans to R8.5. Insect pressure has been relatively light until this week when we started picking up threshold numbers of bollworms in our R3.5 – 4 age beans. We are seeing very few worms in the younger but some scattered worms in the older beans. Stink bug numbers are still low in my area, even my typical hot spots just aren’t showing any numbers yet.
Corn ranges from brown silk to black layer and past. A large number of acres are having pipe picked up this week and another large portion will be picked up next week. Several guys south of 82 are running some samples in the 27-28% moisture range and will begin harvest this coming Monday 7-24.
Tim Richards, Yazoo City
7/20/2023 – Our cotton ranges from 16 to 21 nodes and all is blooming except parts of fields where we had sand blasting or fields with 2 stages of cotton due to drying out at planting (due to live weeds or dead weeds in the field at planting). We have used Transform and Diamond on plant bugs with real good control from early square to now. Pressure has been heavy in places around corn and as of late, in soybeans. Quite a few edges had to be treated fairly often. Switching to acephate plus Imidacloprid + Diamond where needed on BG3 just now. Fields are full of bollworms moths this week and on BG2 we are using 10 oz/ac Besiege + acephate. Doing variable rate Pix where we are set up for it. The forecast is for dry weather which is hitting us just right on the stage of our cotton and the bloom. We’re setting the meat and potatoes right now.
In soybeans, 90 % of ours are at R5:5 and haven’t treated any of those beans. Loopers are building in places for the last 10 days but there’s little visible feeding. We’ve found a good many Red Banded Stink bugs enough to make me believe they could be an issue in places. We have 500 acres soybeans at Valley Park that are at full bloom that we sprayed today with 5 oz/ac Intrepid Edge for heavy bollworm. Our soybean potential looks really good.
Ethan Willers, Mantee
7/19/2023 – We are on the short rows in the corn now. Irrigated fields have maybe 1 more watering. Over the last week we’ve seen a good bit of Curvularia leaf spot, but mostly in corn that is R4-5 to 5+. SCLB and some NCLB have also picked up. So far, no southern rust.
Soybeans look pretty good. The bulk of them are around R3 to R5. Seeing some pod worms in some about 1/2 threshold, we will watch the later beans close over the next week or so, maybe we can get by without needing to treat any. Web blight and frogeye have picked up a good bit with all the rain/humidity. A few fields we are pulling the trigger on a fungicide. We do have some that got an R3-4 application they look good right now.
Sweet potatoes are growing really fast with all the moisture and now some heat, and the weeds are growing fast, too. Along with that worms have picked up. Sprayed several fields for cutworms over the last week, and probably going to spray a few more. Flea beetles and cucumber beetles are starting to build in some spots; going to have to spray some of them.
Mitch LeFlore, Eupora
7/20/2023 – Cotton is at 1st week of bloom to 3rd week of bloom. Plant bugs and stink bugs picked up a good bit and being treated with Diamond during pix applications; these fields are next to corn drying down where numbers were naturally higher. Blessed with July rain and heat on dryland country and cotton’s growing strong – I’m not fussing. (A farmer told me thirty years ago when I moved over here to never fuss about a rain in July and August.)
Soybeans – R1-R5 stage and look really good with blessed recent rains. Aerial web blight started and hasn’t moved much yet but I know what it will do in July heat and humidity; fungicides starting to be sprayed and pyrethroids being added for green stink bugs that have started to pick up, especially on older beans.
Sweet potatoes – setting completed a few weeks ago and most plowed and mostly clean except where pre’s layed there and wasn’t activated – not any Roundup Ready/dicamba potatoes. Insects have been light lately after getting past click and flea beetle run the past couple of weeks.
Overall, crop looks promising; got a long way to go, don’t we Miles Jackson??
John Clark Cook, Vaiden
7/21/2023 – Corn: Should have a good bit of corn at black layer next week. Finding a little common rust but everything is past dent stage. Corn looks to be way above average.
Soybeans: Treated the first field for red bands this week using bifenthrin 1gal/20a + acephate at 3/4#/a. I don’t play with these jokers. Also treated a few fields that were at R2/R3 for podworms. Have treated a number of acres for web blight this year, hopefully this weather will straighten out and this fungus will go away. If everything stays the same, should have some beans ready to desiccate the first week of August.
Cotton: Has been pretty quiet, treating a few plant bugs and trying to get pix out. Have not treated the very few acres of BG2 for bollworms yet, but it’s probably coming.
Trey Bullock, Seminary
7/21/2023 – Cotton is from 12 to 21 nodes. Aphids have been biggest problem this past week. Picked up fungus two weeks ago so kind of held off on spraying. A week later there was still fungus but aphids were awful so lots of cotton got Transform with growth regulators. Lots of eggs but not seeing any get through but next few days will be a big test due to massive egg lay. A few fields have cutout but primarily due to dry weather. Really hoping for rain across the board this weekend.
Peanuts are still kind of quiet from insect standpoint but beginning to pick up a little southern blight in oldest peanuts. Primarily maintaining fungicide schedules and putting out some growth regulator.
Soybeans are from V-3 to R5.3. Picking up some stink bugs in some older beans and on the river side a few bollworms in blooming beans but for the most part still very quiet.