BURNDOWN – Believe it or not, there are still some acres needing burndown herbicides applied.

• Gramoxone with various preemergence herbicides will become more of the norm.
• And some folks have missed the opportunity to wipe out the marestail with 2,4-D.
• We are seeing many glyphosate resistant marestail behind applications of glyphosate only. This is the way that resistance gets started. We have a chance to stop it if everyone would use 2,4-D or dicamba in every burndown application of glyphosate.

If a glyphosate drift issue occurs and tissue samples need to be analyzed, South Dakota Ag Labs has taken over the responsibility of analyzing for glyphosate. Several other consultants have called recently about drift onto grain sorghum, and there may be others who need the information for SDAL.

SDAL also can run analyses for Valor, Goal, Leadoff, and other possible suspect herbicides that may be involved in drift complaints. It is generally best to ask for the analysis of all products that were applied in the suspected application rather than just glyphosate. This can aid in pinpointing the suspected application which may have been involved in the drift issue.

The lab will be managed by Dr. Regina Wixon (regina.wixon@sdaglabs.com) 605-692-7325. It’s website is www.sdaglabs.com.

Shipping address is:
South Dakota Agricultural Labs
Attn: Regina Wixon
Brookings Biospace
1006 32nd Ave #103 & #105
Brookings, SD 57006-4728

COTTON – Cotton acres have gone from a slight increase to a substantial decrease because of the market’s inability to move to the $1.00/lb mark.

Someone seemed surprised the other day when we mentioned that soybeans cost almost as much to produce as cotton – if soybeans are treated as an agronomic crop and not just as a petunia bed.

It will take two fungicide apps, several herbicide apps, lime and mixed fertilizer on much of the land (if the yield goal is over 30 bu/ac) and multiple insecticide applications.

However, due to the stagnant nature of cotton prices, some farmers have opted to reduce acreage due to the risks, high inputs and high rent.

• Phytogen 499 may be in short supply, but it seems we will have more than enough to plant what cotton acreage we will want in that variety. It has performed exceptionally well the past two years on silty clay loam and clay soils.
• We observed enough of it last season to recommend that at least 40% of silty clay loam and clay soils be planted to 499. The rest could be planted to ST 5288, DPL 0912, or DPL 1137.
• If 499 is planted on strong silt loam soils or in late May it must be intensely managed with Pix to make it set fruit at an earlier node than it normally would under extremely good growing conditions, otherwise it may not set fruit until node 12, 13 or higher. We have not had the opportunity to observe it on the very best soils yet and need more experience on those soil types before recommending it on them. ST 5288, DPL 1133, DPL 0912, and ST 5458 are OK for silt loam soils.

SOYBEANS – Soybean planting is 75% complete. Most acreage left to plant will be behind wheat.. Hopefully, all soybeans planted are treated with an insecticide and a fungicide. The insecticide is always needed. The fungicide is not necessarily needed if planting into ideal moisture with good conditions for emergence for 5 days after planting.

CORN – Corn acreage will probably decrease slightly although it seems we are seeing more corn than we saw last year.

• We are noticing lots of sulfur and/or zinc deficiency symptoms in corn, especially on the lighter, higher pH soils.
• Some of these fields had been sampled, but the sampler chose not to recommend either nutrient or not enough of the nutrient to correct the shortage.
• And now, because of the dry weather, some N deficiency in lower leaves of corn on very sandy loam soils where the dry weather has caused the corn roots to die back, thus they are unable to take up the nitrogen that has been applied.
• We observed some Northern corn blight last week in the northern area of Avoyelles Parish. It ws in a hybrid that is tolerant of the disease, but it is nonetheless present possibly because corn plants are weakened due to dry conditions.

GRAIN SORGHUM – GS acres will be increasing by 20%. Fireants, chinchbugs, and armyworms will be issues. And Anthracnose if present in moderate to high levels on 4 – 5 leaf GS.

RICE –  Rice acres will be down by 20% primarily because of the higher grain sorghum and soybean yields we observed last year on irrigated fields. Also, higher costs for urea has some farmers “refiguring” input costs for rice. It doesn’t cash flow on paper. And, there is less risk with soybeans than with rice. Farmers are also concerned about the way their rice is being graded.

Tags: burndown, herbicide drift, louisiana