Tucker Miller, Drew
6/18/2023 – Our cotton ranges in age from 11 nodes down to four true leaves. The older cotton is fruiting nicely. The node of first fruiting branch is 5 and 6 depending on variety.
We have applied our first weed control apps and are in pretty good shape. We have a few acres that have been wet and will need a pigweed application when it dries up.
We have received beneficial rainfall this last week, and luckily missed all the wind and hail that was south of us.
Our major pest, the tarnished plant bug, is increasing now and we are scheduling insect measures for them now. Our growers are plowing middles for furrow irrigation and applying fertilizer with the plows covering it. We will be watching for the plant bugs to increase as the late cotton begins to square.
Our corn is tasseled and we are watering where rainfall has been light.
Our soybeans are at R3– R4 and we are applying fungicides. Insects are low and not adding insecticides at this time.
Larry Walton, Tupelo
6/13/2023 – Crops here in NE Mississippi are really looking good right now. Mother Nature has been wonderful thus far with weekly rain showers. Corn is maturing so fast you can almost hear it growing. Some of my own corn has the potential of being one of the best crops ever! My soybeans range from just emerging to R1. I had one grower tell me last week he was running about 2 weeks ahead of schedule versus past 2-3 years.
I am not aware of any major insect or disease outbreaks at this time. Let’s just hope that mother nature will continue to bless us with weekly rain showers as our crops mature.
Mitch LeFlore, Eupora
6/16/2023 – Cotton- Anywhere from cotyledon to 8th node. Crop is late. Thrips have been taken care of for the most part except for cotton that has been replanted or just coming up after finally getting rain to germinate seed. Few plant bugs in the older cotton but I have not treated any yet. We’ve got a long way to go
Soybeans- Anywhere from seed laying in dry dirt to R3. Older beans have been cleaned up and we are in the process of cleaning up younger ones. No insect issues at this time.
Sweet Potatoes- 60-70% transplanted before the rain thankfully stopped us. We were getting extremely dry and beginning to lose some plants. All early set potatoes look very good and we are in the process of plowing and applying pre-emergent herbicide and insecticide. Hopefully the weather will cooperate so that we can get the last part of the crop transplanted.
Corn- Very thankful for recent rains in dryland country. Corn crop has potential. Starting to apply top dress as we speak.
Ty Edwards, Water Valley
6/19/2023 – Cotton- finally starting to look like a cotton crop. Oldest cotton at 11 nodes, youngest cotton at 4 nodes. Plant bugs jumped on the back of older cotton pretty good last week, but the rains kept us out of some of it until the weekend or this week. Square retention dropped down into the mid to upper 80’s in that cotton, so we’re firing the plane up, can’t wait for it to dry up any longer. We’ve been running 1.5 oz Transform. Doing a fantastic job so far. Have also been including mepaquat on the older cotton as we go. Thrip season is about over with. We’ve got a couple hundred more acres to spray to get over the hump. ThryvOn cotton definitely held its own there. Weed control has been very acceptable.
Soybeans- beans range from R2 to still in the bag (wheat beans). Very few issues here so far. No bugs to speak of. Deer were pretty rough on some early this year.
Corn- Most corn is at tassel now, with only a few acres that got replanted late. Not much going on here. We’ve caught enough rain to keep it satisfied lately to not have to irrigate.
Trey Bullock, Seminary
6/16/2023 – Much needed rains in the last couple days have fallen in most of my counties. Still dry, dry in a couple of counties but rain chances are with us for a few more days.
Cotton is from in the sack to 11th node. Thrips picked up a little in later planted cotton but only fields that needed a thrips app was some untreated cotton. Plant bugs are very light across the board but picking up a little on Miss. River counties. Aphids exploded in one area just overnight. These fields were extremely dry and have had really good rainfall in the last 3 days. Flushing a few bollworm moths in older cotton and peanuts.
Peanuts are from 21 to 45 days old with some green peanuts around 75. Fungicide apps are going out on a few irrigated fields and where we’ve had rain or poor rotations.
Gypsum is being applied on all 40+ day old fields. Have picked up a little late leaf spot on some green peanuts that were planted behind peanuts.
Soybeans are from in the sack to R3. Most counties that will have soybeans have gotten decent rains in the last 2 days so maybe they can get planted. (If it will quit for a week).
The rains are all or nothing. They contain 60-80 MPH straight line winds, hail and 2” in 30 minutes. I’m being a little sarcastic but some guys have spent a couple of days this week getting trees out of fields and roads as well as fixing culverts, roads, etc. that were blown out.