E6-Corn Talk, Lancaster Farming, Saturday, October 18, 2003 Gettysburg Area Young Farmers Gather For Crops Meeting DAVE LEFEVER Lancaster Farming Staff HANOVER (Adams Co.) Weeds and how to control them were main topics at the Gettysburg Area Young Farmers’ twilight agronomy meeting Aug. 26. Dan Winters, farmer and ag consultant, hosted the event on his farm near Hano ver. For many years, Winters has conducted field trials for new com and soybean variet ies on his land. This year, “the biggest chal lenge was getting it planted,” Winters said, referring to the wet conditions this spring. Farmers attending the meeting had a chance to view test plots, identify weeds, hear news from a number of seed and chemical companies, and earn spray applicator credits. It was a challenging year for weed control, according to chemical company representa tives at the meeting. Dan Winters shows the group an asiatic day flower plant. Asiatic day flower is an invasive weed becoming more of a problem in the area. why pay? ..for hauling grain to the mill? ..for storage at the mill? ..for shrinkage at the mill? ...for hauling the grain back to your farm as feed? John Flanagan of Syngenta said that wet years like this one showed that herbicides don’t always work as well as farmers expect. “Chemicals are just tools,” Flanagan said. “They all have limitations.” Some weeds were tougher to control this year, especially weeds that grew too big for herbicides to do their job. Flanagan gave velvetleaf as an example. Glyphosate is la beled for controlling velvetleaf to a maximum height of 12 inches. When the weeds are taller than that, farmers can’t expect to get good control. Weather and soil conditions also play a big role in the ef fectiveness of the chemicals, Flanagan pointed out. “If conditions were perfect, probably every herbicide out there would work at half (the labeled) rate,” Flanagan said. Don Coulson of Miller Chemical talked about the need to check water hardness' and alkalinity on a regular basis to make sure herbicides and surfactants work proper ly. “(Water quality) can make a big difference whether you have control or don’t have control,” Coulson said. Coulson recommended that farmers use drift control agents in sprays, especially around populated areas. Seed and chemical repre sentatives on hand included those from American Seed, Dekalb/Monsanto, Doebler, Garst, Hubner, Mid-Atlantic Independent Tech Services, Mid-Atlantic Seed, Miller Chemical, Seedway, and Syn genta. Dan Winters has also been experimenting with foliar (leaf) feeding of com and soy beans to increase yields. Winters has compiled two articles on the subject, discuss ing the possibilities of XOO bushel/acre soybeans, and in creasing com yields by 25 bushels/acre. “We’re learning every day,” Winters said. For more information, check his Website at winter sag.com. Store grain On-Your-Farm for as low as 15C per bushel. We can also process your feed with roller or hammer mills. i't 3-» V * > < ’> ' x : + _, ~' *-,*>' '> '0 Donna Tuckey com pares corn roots from hybrids with and without the Bacillus thuringien sus (Bt) gene for control ling rootworm. Rob Kauffman talks to farmers about his inde pendent corn hybrid field testing service. I '*H ■ 10 Years Of Com Talk (Continued from Page E 4) gestibility or those items crit ical to certain growers became a “lot more finely tuned,” Troop noted, in those 10 years of research and development. Those traits are now “very targeted” in com varieties. Traits have also improved for overall crop protection, such as a Bt com for European com borer and now for com rootworm; herbicide-tolerant hybrids, such as Roundup Ready com; and other spe cialized crop protection. Troop served as president of the association from 1992-1994. mm miLi miwo PENNSYLVANIA CORN GROWERS ASSOC., INC. How Wet Was It? Greg Roth Professor Of Agronomy Penn State It sure seemed like a wet year to grow com. How did we fare compared to the record books? Here in State College, Sep tember was officially the sec ond wettest on record and that followed August, which was the wettest August since they began keeping records 108 years ago. Rainfall totals here were 5.32 inches in June, 5.41 inch es in July, 9.1 inches in Au- Despite many changes, some things haven’t changed in 10 years such as the for mat for the Five-Acre corn re sults, published in the March issues of Com Talk. And Com Talk is published three times a year, with little change to the schedule in the past decade. Roth calls the columns and inputs that appear regularly in addition to strong feature reporting on the success of growers throughout the state the strongest factors in the “collaborative effort” of the section/newsletter. gust, and 7.21 inches in Sep tember. This was the first time we have had four consecutive months with 5 inches of rain since records were being kept. By the end of September, we have received 42.83 inches of rain compared to our normal total of 38.5 inches in an entire year. The bottom line we just had another very unusual year, on the heels of a very un usual year in 2002. Let’s hope for something more “normal” in 2004. 1
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