Hello Harrison County!

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$Purdue Extension Harrison County 247 Atwood St. Corydon, IN 47112 812-738-4236 (office) 812-738-2259 (fax) http:\\www.extension.purdue.$ As I write this letter, I m watching the clouds roll in with another blast of rain on its way. Hopefully your crops have received adequate rain and are looking good!

As I write this letter, I m watching the clouds roll in with another blast of rain on its way. Hopefully your crops have received adequate rain and are looking good!

As we roll into summer, I ll be working on assisting a few producers with a research trial that started last fall through SARE (Sustainable Research and Education).

Those forages are now up (and when I say up, I mean past the tractor hood on a couple of farms!) and ready to be grazed or harvested for a forage product.

I m looking forward to the county fair and seeing all of you at some point during the week.

Let me know what else you d like to see! I appreciate all your hard work! See you soon! Sincerely, Miranda C. Ulery County Extension Educator, ANR Harrison County mulery@purdue.

1 Purdue Extension Harrison County 247 Atwood St. Corydon, IN (office) (fax) Harrison County Agriculture and Natural Resources Newsletter June-August 2015 Hello Harrison County! What a wet spring we ve had! As I write this letter, I m watching the clouds roll in with another blast of rain on its way. Hopefully your crops have received adequate rain and are looking good! My garden is looking very plentiful! As we roll into summer, I ll be working on assisting a few producers with a research trial that started last fall through SARE (Sustainable Research and Education). Several of you attended the spring field day at Jennifer Lattire s farm where we discussed the research using cover crops as a forage alternative. Those forages are now up (and when I say up, I mean past the tractor hood on a couple of farms!) and ready to be grazed or harvested for a forage product. Our SARE Grant will allow us to continue analysis of this year and next year s crops for their nutritional and economical value. Stay tuned! I m looking forward to the county fair and seeing all of you at some point during the week. Don t forget, the Master Gardeners have a booth in the Merchant Building and will be showing off their skills and answering questions about plants throughout the week! Have I left anything out? Let me know what else you d like to see! I appreciate all your hard work! See you soon! Sincerely, Miranda C. Ulery County Extension Educator, ANR Harrison County mulery@purdue.edu Check us out on Facebook! Top Left: Tim & Jennifer Lattire s cattle grazing triticale and turnips; Top Right: Steve Sieg mows triticale for hay; Left: Tony Day measures triticale vs. winter wheat to determine when to harvest for hay. It is the policy of the Purdue University Cooperative Extension Service that all persons have equal opportunity and access to its educational programs, services, activities, and facilities without regard to race, religion, color, sex, age, national origin or ancestry, marital status, parental status, sexual orientation, disability or status as a veteran. Purdue University is an Affirmative Action institution. If you have special needs call us prior to the event at or call 888-EXT-INFO and ask for the Harrison County office. 1

Calendar of Events: June: 3-6 Master Gardener State Conference, Evansville, IN 5 Grand Opening Celebration for Corydon Farmers Market, 4-7pm, 124 S Mulberry St.

9:00 am, Feldun Research Station-Bedford 18 Master Gardener Meeting, 6:30pm, Extension Office July: 3 Extension Office Closed for Independence Day 10-16 Harrison County 4-H Fair 12-18 Harrison County

2 Calendar of Events: June: 3-6 Master Gardener State Conference, Evansville, IN 5 Grand Opening Celebration for Corydon Farmers Market, 4-7pm, 124 S Mulberry St. Corydon 8-12 Junior Master Naturalist Training, 9:00am-12:30pm, Purdue Technology Center New Albany, IN 9&10 Grazing 102, Southern Indiana Purdue Ag Center Dubois, IN 16-IBEP Bull Test Weigh Day. 9:00 am, Feldun Research Station-Bedford 18 Master Gardener Meeting, 6:30pm, Extension Office July: 3 Extension Office Closed for Independence Day Harrison County 4-H Fair Harrison County Agricultural Fair 16 Master Gardener Meeting, 6:30pm, Extension Office 21- IBEP Bull Test Weigh Day. 9;00 am, Feldun Research Station-Bedford August: 1 Cattlemen s and Farm Bureau Fair Oaks Trip 2-8 National Farmers Market Week 7-23 Indiana State Fair 18 IBEP Bull Test Weigh Day. 9;00 am, Feldun Research Station-Bedford 20 Master Gardener Meeting, 6:30pm, Extension Office 29 Ag Seminar featuring keynote speaker: Trent Loos; Lincoln Hills Christian Church-Corydon Volunteer Request: Corydon Farmers Market need volunteers to wear pea and carrot costumes, and to serve as parking lot attendants every Friday from 4-7pm. Volunteer for an hour or the whole time! Contact Catherine or Tom at

IDNR Nursery Program Tree Seedling Ordering Now Available! Pick up an order form at the Extension Office today!

mission statement. Plant materials cannot be redistributed or resold for profit.

distribution of the seedlings. If you are consulting with a forester or tree planter, please be sure that only one order is submitted.

We strongly encourage checking the nutrition of your forages and feedstuffs before feeding them to your livestock.

Soils should also be analyzed before planting a new crop, whatever it may be. We have several options for analysis depending on what your needs are.

The Master Gardener club meets every third Thursday of the month at 6:30 pm. If you are not receiving emails from either Ken or I, please let us know!

3 IDNR Nursery Program Tree Seedling Ordering Now Available! Pick up an order form at the Extension Office today! Any individual may purchase seedlings as long as that person agrees to plant them in Indiana for conservation plantings as stated in the Nursery Program mission statement. Plant materials cannot be redistributed or resold for profit. If seedlings produced by our nurseries are to be given away, the buyer must conduct an educational program stating the Nursery Program mission prior to distribution of the seedlings. If you are consulting with a forester or tree planter, please be sure that only one order is submitted. Forage, Feedstuff, and Soil Analysis Available! We strongly encourage checking the nutrition of your forages and feedstuffs before feeding them to your livestock. You may be surprised at how much energy and nutritional value may be lost in a year of storage! Soils should also be analyzed before planting a new crop, whatever it may be. We have several options for analysis depending on what your needs are. If you have questions about how to sample your forages, feed ingredients, garden, field, or yard, please contact me! Harrison County Master Gardeners, Inc. The Master Gardener club meets every third Thursday of the month at 6:30 pm. If you are not receiving s from either Ken or I, please let us know! Also, if you have not been very active lately and would like to try and become more involved, we have options for you to get started again. We would love for anyone who has taken the training in the past to join our efforts to improve our community! Ask Miranda how! Interested in a Gardening or Farming Magazine but don t want to sign up for the whole year? Check out the extension office library! We have several issues available for: Vegetable Grower Fruit Grower Hobby Farm Indiana Prairie Farmer Hoosier Farmer 3

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Identifying Poisonous Plants By Miranda Ulery Springtime brings on many unwanted plants in our yards, pastures, hay and crop fields.

This list is not complete, be aware of other weeds that you have noticed on your property and note whether they are poisonous or not.

The leaves are spirally arranged, with a deeply toothed margin.

Locations: Cultivated fields, stream banks, beaches, farm yards Symptoms: Appearing within a few hours, weakness, unsteady gate, twisting or neck muscles, depression, nausea, vomiting, labored

7 Identifying Poisonous Plants By Miranda Ulery Springtime brings on many unwanted plants in our yards, pastures, hay and crop fields. Many of these weeds are fairly harmless, but there are a few that can be detrimental to the health of us and our livestock. This is a list of common weeds that can be found in Harrison County. This list is not complete, be aware of other weeds that you have noticed on your property and note whether they are poisonous or not. Cocklebur - Xanthium chinensis Affected: Horses, cattle, sheep, swine, poultry Description: A course, herbaceous annual plant growing 1 to 4 feet tall. The leaves are spirally arranged, with a deeply toothed margin. The seeds are produced in a spiny, globose or oval-chambered, single seeded bur covered with stiff, hooked spines, which stick to fur and clothing. Locations: Cultivated fields, stream banks, beaches, farm yards Symptoms: Appearing within a few hours, weakness, unsteady gate, twisting or neck muscles, depression, nausea, vomiting, labored breathing, rapid weak pulse, death. Treatment: Unknown Control: Aerial or ground broadcast application of 2,4-D, Banvel/Clarity (dicamba), or Crossbow. Bracken Fern - Pteridium aquilinum Affected: horses, cattle, sheep Description: Perennial fern develops an erect and stout stem about 2.5 feet tall with a single compound leaf extending. Leaves vary in color from yellowish green to medium green, mostly bipinnate. Locations: Open fields, woodlands, low ground, dry, rocky soil Symptoms: Slow to develop, loss of flesh, jaundice, loss of appetite, weakness, staggering gait, high fever, labored breathing, drooling, hemorrhaging from nostrils, blood in urine and feces, convulsions Treatment: Thiamine treatment in horses, unknown treatment in other livestock. Control: Large infestation may be reduced gradually by pulling or mowing the fronds in June and August. Fertilizing and liming infested areas may also reduce fern growth. Pokeweed - Phytolacca americana Affected: Cattle, pigs, sheep, horses, humans Description: Tall ( up to 9 foot), glabrous, green, red-purple, perennial herb. Berries are black-purple in drooping racemes. Locations: Waste areas, meadows, edges of woods Symptoms: Occuring two or more hours after ingestion, retching spasms, vomiting, purging, convulsions. Treatment: Mineral oils to clear the digestive tract, blood transfusion Control: Glyphosate at 0.75 to 1 lb per acre was used up to 48 in tall pokeweed with 95% control. Crossbow can also be effective up to 80%. Remember it will also affect surrounding grasses and legumes. Tall Buttercup - Ranunculus acris Affected: Cattle, horses, sheep, goats Description: Perennial with small, 5-petaled yellow flowers on widely branched, smooth, hollow stemmed plant growing 6 in to 2 feet tall. Two types of leave, petioled basal leaves roundish with scalloped edges and alternatively placed leaves, deeply divided making 5 narrow lobes, often 3-pointed. Locations: Pastures, meadows, roadsides, anywhere moist. Symptoms: Inflammation and blisters where plant juice touched animal, drooling, loss of appetite, acute inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, colic, bloody urine, weak pulse, loud breathing. Control: Mowing before the plant seeds is best option. It is hard to control with herbicides, but the most effective active ingredient is MCPA. Glyphosate can also work. It can take up to 3 treatments to eradicate. 7

Wild Cherry Black - Prunus virginiana Affected: Cattle, sheep, goats, deer, dogs, cats, pigs, horses, and poultry Description: Tree or shrub, branches can be scaly, reddish-brown with prominent

Locations: Fence rows, roadside thickets, and rich open woods. Symptoms: Anxiety, breathing problems, staggering, convulsions, collapse, death.

Control: Remove plant from fence rows, don t lay pruned branches in proximity to pastures. Nightshade - Solanum sp.

8 Wild Cherry Black - Prunus virginiana Affected: Cattle, sheep, goats, deer, dogs, cats, pigs, horses, and poultry Description: Tree or shrub, branches can be scaly, reddish-brown with prominent cross-marks. Leaves are alternate, simple, elliptic-pointed, leathery in texture, and finely toothed. White flowers in drooping clusters with dark-red to black cherry fruits. Locations: Fence rows, roadside thickets, and rich open woods. Symptoms: Anxiety, breathing problems, staggering, convulsions, collapse, death. Treatment: Call your veterinarian for an antidote if the animal is found quickly after ingesting. Keep the animal calm. Control: Remove plant from fence rows, don t lay pruned branches in proximity to pastures. Nightshade - Solanum sp. Affected: Cattle, horses, sheep, goats, pigs, poultry, dogs, people Description: Low-branching annual, 1 to 2 feet tall with triangular stems, that bear oval, thin-textured, alternate leaves with wavy margins. Tiny white flowers, borne in drooping clusters on lateral stalks, resembling tomato flowers. Fruit is green when immature, purplish-black when ripe. Plant is quite unpalatable, toxic risk is higher if plant is included in processed foods. Locations: Open dry woods, cultivated fields, pastures, fence rows, waste areas, farm yards. Symptoms: Abdominal pain, stupidity, dilation of pupils, loss of appetite, diarrhea, loss of muscular coordination, unconsciousness, death (rare). Treatment: treat symptoms. Rarely lethal, unless copious amounts consumed. Control: Glyphosate products, Gramoxone Extra, or Pursuit may help to control. Always read and follow the label on all herbicides used! Poison hemlock is not only dangerous in pastures but in hay fields too! Adapted from UK AgNews and U.C. IPM Poison hemlock is a weed that people mistake for a common non-toxic weed, Queen Ann s Lace. Unfortunately, when it s in your hay field, it could be a costly mistake if misidentified. It s important to scout your hayfields and reduce the weed population as much as possible to allow your grasses and legumes to develop into a high quality forage product. Even more important is to know which weeds are poisonous and which weeds aren t. There are even different levels of toxicity that can be found in weeds. With all this detail, it could be hard to keep track. I know it is for me! Identification It is a weed native to Europe and brought to the United States as an ornamental in the 1800s and is now found regularly in roadsides, ditches and stream banks, creek beds, fence lines, and on the edges of cultivated fields. It is poisonous if ingested by livestock or humans in both its vegetative growth stages and when dry. Yes, that means even when it is dried and baled or ensiled with the forage products, it can still be deadly! Lucky for you, livestock tend to avoid poison hemlock when other forage is available and will pick out the larger stems in bales of hay. Poison hemlock is usually a biennial but can be more like a perennial in favorable locations. The cotyledons are distinctive and simple, tapered at the base, elliptical, rounded at the tip, and have a prominently veined undersurface. The first true leaves are smooth, pale green, and triangular with many deeply lobed leaflets arranged along both sides of a main stalk. 8

9 The first year s growth is usually limited to a large rosette that will be of dark glossy-green leaves that are at least 2 feet long, sheathed at the base, and divided several times along the main stalk. The foliage of poison hemlock can resemble wild carrot, but poison hemlock lacks hair on its leaves and stems. In the spring of the second year s growth, the plant develops branching erect stems that bear alternately arranged leaves. The stout, ridge stems are hollow (except at the nodes), typically growing to about 6 or 7 feet in height in our area. The stems are also covered in purple spots. Green stems and leaves lack hair and exude an unpleasant odor when crushed. The fleshy white taproot is long and sometimes branched. The plant blooms from spring until summer in the second year of growth and have small white flowers clustered in multiple flat to slightly convex shapes at the end of the stalks. In comparison, wild carrot will have a similar looking flower cluster, but tends to bloom later. The plant will typically die after it sets seed, leaving the stems long into the winter. Symptoms All classes of livestock and wildlife are susceptible to poison hemlock from ingestion. Cattle, goats and horses tend to be the most sensitive. Lucky for you, livestock tend to avoid poison hemlock when other forage is available and will pick out the larger stems in bales of hay. Symptoms of poisoning include nervousness, trembling, knuckling at the fetlock joints, ataxia, dilation of pupils, a weak and slow heartbeat, coma, and eventually death from respiratory paralysis. These symptoms can occur within 30 to 40 minutes in horses and 1.5 to 2 hours in cattle and sheep. Toxicity usually occurs in the spring when poison hemlock is among the first green plants to emerge. This is also when concentrations of the potent alkaloids are at their highest. In the fall, regrowth or newly germinated poison hemlock may be the last green forage available. Control Managing the problem before it spreads and within the first year will give you the best results. Depending on the amount of infestation, you could control it with a few different options. Mechanical Control Hand removal can be quite effective in smaller patches of growth as long as the entire taproot is removed. However, if seeds have already developed, you may find several new plants growing in the area that you ve just cultivated. Plowing or repeated cultivation can prevent establishment. Biological Control There has been some research done on the use of a moth that uses poison hemlock as its feeding site. This has not been proven to be effective. Chemical Control Herbicides are quite effective on seedlings and small rosettes. Once the plant has bolted and produced a seed head, your chances to control the weeds reduce greatly. You may need to make more than one application in a year depending on if the poison hemlock has a regrowth in the fall. The broadleaf selective herbicide 2,4-D is most effective when applied soon after plants reach the rosette stage. Triclopyr is also an effective herbicide that won t kill the majority of grasses. Use caution and keep livestock away from hemlock that has been treated with a herbicide. If a herbicide is used on a hay field, read the directions on your bottle to determine the proper wait time before cutting/baling or ensiling. 9

Each year thousands of farmers or member of their families and farm workers sustain life changing injuries or develop serious health

AgrAbility experts can give you ideas on how to modify your buildings, your equipment, and your home.

AgrAbility experts can also introduce you to others who face challenges just like yours.

Ideas and suggestions from AgrAbility can help men and women involved in production agriculture maintain their independence and their rural

The local contact is Linda Tarr, Hoosier Uplands (812) 849-4447 or via email at ltarr@hoosieruplands.org. AgrAbility is a program of the USDA.

10 Each year thousands of farmers or member of their families and farm workers sustain life changing injuries or develop serious health conditions. If you or someone you know is one of them, the AgrAbility Project was created for you. AgrAbility experts can give you ideas on how to modify your buildings, your equipment, and your home. They can suggest ways to restructure your work to maximize productivity through local peer support networks. AgrAbility experts can also introduce you to others who face challenges just like yours. AgrAbility staff helps farmers, ranchers, and farm workers as well as their family members identify ways to make the most of their abilities. Ideas and suggestions from AgrAbility can help men and women involved in production agriculture maintain their independence and their rural way of life. For more information or a free consultation, call AgrAbility today at or visit The local contact is Linda Tarr, Hoosier Uplands (812) or via at ltarr@hoosieruplands.org. AgrAbility is a program of the USDA. August 1, 2015 Cattle Association and Farm Bureau Members! Cost: $20 per person Sponsored by Farm Bureau, INC. If you plan to go and have yet to sign up, please do so immediately. The bus is filling up quickly. Deadline to sign up is July 6th. Payment is due by July 10th! Contact Miranda for more details. Details coming soon... 10

Poisonous Plants in Pastures. Jason Ferrell Extension Weed Specialist

Poisonous Plants in Pastures. Jason Ferrell Extension Weed Specialist Poisonous Plants in Pastures Jason Ferrell Extension Weed Specialist Common Misconceptions 1. I have never had an animal poisoned from eating toxic plants Just because death doesn t result, does not mean