North Carolina Cooperative Extension July 2013 Bertie County Farmline Richard W. Rhodes County Extension Director Contact Us For more information regarding any of your farming needs, please feel free to contact our office at 794-5317. Your questions and concerns are important to us. Bertie Cotton and Soybean Scouting School A cotton and soybean scouting school has been scheduled for Thursday, July 18, 2013 beginning at 9:30 a.m. and ending at 11:30 a.m. The site of the meeting is the Windsor Community Building, located at 201 S. Queen Street. Jack Bacheler and Dominic Reisig, Extension Entomologists from NC State are scheduled to make presentations on the current insect concerns, insect identification and scouting techniques. We plan to go to the field following their formal presentations. Those planning to attend scouting school need to call our office at 252-794-5317 to register. Pesticide and CCA credits will be requested for this meeting.
Corn Earworm Treatment Thresholds for Peanuts and Soybeans Corn earworms (CEW) are present in peanut and soybean fields in Bertie every year, but growers need to scout to determine if they have reached treatment threshold. The CEW flight generally occurs between mid-july to mid-august. To sample for an active infestation in peanuts, reach halfway across plants along 2 feet of row with a dowel rod and shaking the foliage vigorously for 5 to 8 seconds toward the row middle. Using the dowel, push the foliage back so that you can see the soil under the plant. Carefully identify and count the worms. The treatment threshold is 4 worms per row foot up until September. For the first two weeks in September, the action threshold is 6 worms per row foot and after mid-september, it is 10 worms per row foot. For soybeans, concentrate scouting first in fields that are most attractive to the CEW (blooming soybeans with open canopies). If worms are found in these areas, continue to scout all of your acreage on a regular basis. Corn earworm numbers can vary considerably over a short distance. I have seen, in the past, fields on one side of the road severely infested with CEW, which warranted an insecticide treatment while fields across the road had very low levels and did not need spraying. The Corn Earworm Economic Threshold Calculator can be found at webipm.ento.vt.edu/cew/. When scouting soybeans, remember the worms you find will not all be the CEW, so you will need to have a general knowledge of the various worm pests you may encounter in order to make the proper treatment decision. The green cloverworm is prevalent in soybean fields most years and can be found in low numbers at this time. This worm is light green with a faint white stripe along its body. Sometimes the stripe is not obvious. They have three pair of abdominal prolegs and move with a looping motion similar to the soybean looper (loopers have only two pair of prolegs). When disturbed, the green cloverworm thrashes violently. In contrast, the small corn earworm is usually brownish with small dark spots. Larger CEW caterpillars may be green, brown, yellow, or black. Their bodies are stocky with prominent pale brown or orange heads. Light and dark stripes run the length of the body, which has four pair of prolegs. When disturbed, the CEW will drop to the ground, curl up and remain motionless for a short period. If you need assistance with identifying worms in your fields, please give me a call at 794-5317. Green cloverworms only eat foliage. They make holes in the leaves and are damaging only under very high populations or in combination with other defoliators such as the bean leaf beetle or other foliage feeding caterpillars like the yellowstriped armyworm, beet armyworm, silverspotted skipper, and the saltmarsh caterpillar. Treatment thresholds for defoliators vary depending on growth stage of the crop. Spray when defoliation exceeds 30% percent prior to bloom and insects are actively feeding. From 2 weeks before bloom through blooming and pod set an insecticide application is suggested when defoliation exceeds 15%.
Insect Update From Jack Bacheler, Extension Entomologists Thrips Season over for most: Thrips beat some folks up (cotton seedlings, that is) pretty bad this year, with most damage hitting producers who used a seed treatment but didn t respond quickly enough when the seed treatment residual ran out early after only about 2 or 2½ weeks of residual activity following a stretch of warm very dry weather. This weather pattern served to dry down thrips weed hosts surrounding cotton fields, resulting in large incoming adult flights that were on the late side but into generally late cotton. Add in some herbicide injury and heavy rainfall, and many cotton fields got off to a rough start. It s nice to see our present good moisture conditions and warm weather at least for many. Chill: With the thrips season over (or almost past) for most NC cotton growers, we often have a period when insects leave us alone. Hopefully that will be the case this year. We have only had a few calls about spider mites and plant bugs so far nothing yet treatable has been brought to our attention. Judging from a random sampling of cotton field drive-bys, weed management looks like significant challenge for many. Big year for plant bugs? Based on a few cornfield assessments and some ditch bank sweepings, we seem to have more that our usual level of plant bugs so far this season. Many wild flowering weeds are good early hosts for plant bugs. Once these hosts and corn silks dry down, adult plant bug movement into cotton can materialize quickly. Square retention assessments: With some cotton fields now squaring, square retention monitoring should be underway in those fields. Weekly checks of upper square retention is the most efficient way to assess if plant bugs can either be ruled out as an economic concern at that time or if sweeping for the adults and nymphs is needed. An upper square retention rate of 80% of more usually indicates that plant bugs are not present at damaging levels. If upper square retention is less than 80%, we recommend sweeping 6 to 8 or 10 locations in the field away from the edge, looking for live adult and immature plant bugs (see Cotton Information, page 126-127 for more details). In most years in North Carolina, square retention is very high often in the mid-90 s. A threshold of 8 or so plant bugs per 100 sweeps usually indicates that a spray is needed at that time. Remember that when cotton is approximately 1 week into blooming, a 5-foot black beat cloth is a more accurate sampling devise than the sweep net for plant bug, especially immatures. We ll discuss this sampling option in the coming weeks.
Kudzu Bug Scouting & Control Information Many soybeans fields in Bertie County currently have adult Kudzu bugs present. The treatment threshold is 5 bugs per plant for soybeans a foot or lees in height, 10 bugs per plant for beans 1 to 2 foot tall and the established threshold for beans 2 feet or taller is 1 kudzu nymph (immature kudzu bug) per sweep of a sweep net. Please go to the web site at www.nccrops.com for information on this insect pest as well as the current situation concerning other field crop insects in North Carolina. Bertie Agricultural Information Bertie County Farmers can call 794-5331 to receive the daily Peanut Leaf Spot and Sclerotinia Spray Advisories. This information will also be posted on our office web page bertie.ces.ncsu.edu/. Hopefully, this service will get underway during the first week of July. Peanut growers are reminded that in well-rotated fields, the first fungicide spray should be applied at the very early pod stage (R3), which usually occurs in the first week of July under normal growing conditions. You may wait 2 additional weeks (R3 + 2 weeks) before beginning sprays on the cultivar Bailey or Sugg. After the first spray, apply fungicides according to the leaf spot advisory. Wet Weather Blight On Cotton by:keith Edmisten and Steve Koenning The wet cloudy weather at planting was fairly conducive to wet weather blight, particularly for some planting dates. Wet weather blight is caused by ascochyta fungus. We see this from time to time in cotton in North Carolina during wet cloudy periods. All the situations that have been brought to our attention have the disease showing only on the cotyledons as seen in the picture below. Notice that the new leaves look healthy and the symptoms are limited to the cotyledons and older leaves. This outbreak should be of little consequence unless we hit another extended period of cloudy wet weather.
Richard W. Rhodes County Extension Director Bertie County Center North Carolina Cooperative Extension 106 Dundee Street, PO Box 280 Windsor, NC 27983 Phone: (252) 794-5317 Fax: (252) 794-5375 E-mail: richard_rhodes@ncsu.edu North Carolina State University and North Carolina A&T State University commit themselves to positive action to secure equal opportunity regardless of race, color, creed, national origin, religion, sex, age, or disability. In addition, the two Universities welcome all persons without regard to sexual orientation. North Carolina State University, North Carolina A&T State University, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and local governments cooperating. July 11 th - Stevia Production in NC Time: 4 to 6 p.m. Location: Avoca Farms (841 Avoca Farm Road), Merry Hill, NC What is stevia and could it be a crop to add to your rotation? New buyers in NC give this crop economic potential. Come see first and second year field-grown plants, learn about production practices, new research, and market demand. Agenda: Stevia: What is it and why grow it? (Hal Teegarden, Vice President, Agricultural Operations for Sweet Green Fields) Production in NC: experiences so far (Dr. Chris Reberg-Horton, Crop Science, NCSU) Disease Management (Dr. David Shew, Plant Pathology, NCSU) Harvest, Post-harvest, and Q &A July 18 th - Bertie County Cotton & Soybean Scouting School Time: 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. Windsor Community Building July 25 th Northeast Ag Expo The 2013 Northeast Ag Expo Field Day will be held on Thursday, beginning at 7:00 a.m. with registration and breakfast at Roberts Brothers, Inc., 169 North Gregory Road, Shawboro, North Carolina in Currituck County. A catered lunch will be served at 12:00 noon to complete the Field Day activities. For more information or to register, go to http://www.ncneagexpo.com or call 252-232-2262. August 7 th - 2013 Blackland Farm Managers Tour Wednesday, August 7, 2013, beginning with registration at 8:00 AM Location: 5887 Christian School Road, Pantego, NC 27860 August 15 th - Bertie County Field Crop Tour Time 8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. The tour will begin at Carolina Farm Center on Hwy. 308, approximately 1 mile west of Windsor and will conclude following lunch at the Peanut Belt Research Station.
NC Cooperative Extension Bertie County Center 106 Dundee Street PO Box 280 Windsor, NC 27983 RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED