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Owen Taylor, Editor

This our first late-week edition of AgFax: Southern Grain, which includes field reports gathered after our regular issue was distributed on Wednesday.

The late-week edition will only be available on our web site and through Southern AgUpdates on Friday nights.

To subscribe to our Wednesday email edition, click here.

OVERVIEW

Stink bugs galore

The pest continues to build in parts of the lower South, and in some cases is now migrating out of corn and into soybeans.

Wheat harvest continues

Yield reports continue to be very encouraging in areas that missed heavy winter rains.

Drought has taken hold

The lower South continues to get drier. See this week’s Georgia drought summary.

CROP REPORTS

Gary Swords, Swords Consulting, Arlington, Ga.

“Last week, we found very few stink bugs in corn. This week, though, there’s a big movement into it, mainly brown stink bugs. We’re treating most of the corn now, including fungicides with some applications. Last year, we didn’t have a big disease year until the end, and we didn’t get much effect from the early applications. We’re in the same kind of dry, hot pattern like we were this time last year. We’ll still make some fungicide applications, partly to make comparisons.

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“Most of our soybeans are going behind wheat. So far, we’ve had some cases where soybeans popped out of the ground evenly, while others were slow to emerge. All the germ was the same, but some plants were just slower, and it’s taken more water to get them out of the ground. It’s dry. We really haven’t gotten a good rain since April.”

Billy McLawhorn, McLawhorn Crop Services, Inc., Cove City, N.C.

"Most of our corn is at the 6-leaf stage. It’s hot and dry, and a lot of it is starting to twist. Rainfall recently has been isolated. Pockets have gotten nice rains, but most places have consistently missed showers. It’s helping with wheat harvest, and we’re able to get herbicides out on cotton and soybeans, but we’re going to need water on this corn pretty soon.

“Most growers just finished planting full-season beans, and some of the earlier ones are at third trifoliate. Wheat harvest started a couple of days ago. Yields that I’ve heard about, so far, are mostly good for this area, with a lot in the 60s and 70s. A little of our wheat was hit by freeze damage. One grower with a yield monitor was averaging 60 to 70 bu/acre around the edge of woods, but when he got into the field the monitor showed 10 to 15.”

Jay Chapin, Extension Specialist-Small Grains, Blackville, S.C.

"We’re hurting for rain. It’s dry, and lack of moisture has already hurt the corn. On the other hand, these are excellent conditions for cutting wheat, and growers are very pleased with yields. I’m talking to a lot of people cutting in the 80s in dryland wheat, and nearly everyone is pretty happy with yields and test weights. We do have areas that sustained Hessian fly injury and small pockets of bottoms were hit with cold damage, although I think we mostly dodged that. Oats have done well, too. Quite a few people are making over 100 bu/acre on oats.”

Angus Catchot, Mississippi Extension Entomologist

"We’re still getting calls about stink bugs moving into flowering soybeans in some areas. In most cases, numbers are low, but many people are beginning to find lots of stink bug egg masses in these areas. We’re still trying to hold folks off making an application on our early threshold of 3/25 sweeps if that’s all they are averaging until R3. On the higher counts of 9/25 sweeps, we are treating these fields even if we are not at R3 quite yet.

“Most consultants are reporting numbers coming down in corn. These are very likely the stink bugs now moving into soybeans. Stink bugs range from all browns to a mix of greens and browns to mostly green. There was one report last week of bollworms being found in beans in low numbers, but these have cycled out this week. A consultant also found a single redbanded stink bug in the Belzoni area. Last year, we found redbanded stink bugs in low numbers as far north as Starkville. This pest has not yet become established in this state, but we are seeing increased incidences every year. This one can be very difficult to control, and it will be important to correctly identify it if we start seeing treatable numbers.

“It can be easily confused with the redshouldered stink bug, which we have been seeing in high numbers over the last several years. Both are smaller than our more common southern greens and have a red line across the back. The easiest way to make an ID – if the stink bug is an adult – is to look for the spine between the legs. If the spine is there, it’s a redbanded. If the spine is not, it’s a redshouldered.”

Click here for more stinkbug ID info, photos.

Gene Miles, NW Tennessee Area Crop Specialist

“Pheromone traps are indicating we are having our first generation moth flight from overwintering southwestern corn borer larvae. Larvae usually show up a week or so after moths appear. This is a fair sized flight in some areas, especially in the northern corn counties. One trap in Weakley County caught 250 moths in the last five days. This is a sure sign that there was a nearby source of overwintering larvae in non-Bt corn last year. Our corn planting dates are unusually spread out, and this generation will target the bigger corn. Bt corn is safe from attack, of course. At least a few non-Bt fields will reach the treatment threshold during the first generation – 20% of plants infested with larvae.”