July 20, 2006

I want to thank everyone for attending our field day. We had the largest attendance to date. I want to especially thank Marcia McMullen who helped me out with the wheat discussions, Chad Ringdahl who helped me out with weed control questions, and Hal Weiser, who did the soil pit. Members of the CCSP board, Wild Rice Soil Conservation Staff and NRCS staff were all instrumental in making the day a success. Any comments or suggestions for next years field would be welcomed.

We received a much appreciated 0.54 rain fall wednesday morning. You know its getting dry when your jealous the next guy got 0.05 more rain than you did. I came from Linton last Sunday and watched my Pickup thermometer settle in at 110 degrees for about a 20 mile stretch. Sounds like it was close to than around here as well. In spite of the heat and the drought, our crops are doing quite well. I am seeing some corn firing in the plots on higher ground that is on a little lighter soil. The winter wheat is very close to harvesting. I decided not to round up the winter wheat. The 3 days of near 100 degrees appears to have done the job. We did round up the spring wheat today. I thought it would tighten up the interval between combining the two wheats.

We found soybean aphids in the soybeans today. Nothing close to thresholds yet. I did not find any last week. I have been hearing that spraying is recommended in the 150-250 range depending on who you talk to. I have much more experience with aphids in potatoes but I think their nature is pretty much the same which is an initial slow increase, followed by a very rapid one. The local Cenex in Forman has been scouting and have not found many either, but we need to keep looking as weather conditions are good for development. When scouting, it appears that they like to colonize the new tri-foliates first, and don't forget to look at the stems as well.

Lets all hope for a nice general rain.

Have a good week.

Kelly Cooper- farm manager