Extension district wheat test plot results released

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Cottonwood Extension District agent Stacy Campbell shares updates from the district. 

 

Transcript:

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James Bell 

We plot test results from the Cottonwood Extension District have been released agent Stacy Campbell stops by to share with us the details on this episode of the Post Podcast.

 

Stacy Campbell 

Monique Koerner just started yesterday as our new family community wellness agent here in haste. And she just started yesterday. So yeah, you know, you want to invite people to swing in and meet her or give her a call. But yeah, Monique Kerner is our new family community wellness agents that started just yesterday here in the Hayes office for the cottonwood district. And then there's, you know, a search on for two more agents for four H Youth Development agent and horticulture agents. So stay tuned.

 

James Bell 

Very cool. Very cool. Yeah. When she gets settled in you tell her to swing on by. Okay. We'll do Yeah, we could still hit it. Oh, good. Great, great. We get some important things we're gonna talk about today. You, we just had the harvest got over. And then the fair, you had some results from the wheat, right?

 

Stacy Campbell 

Yeah, yeah, we cut our you know, little little, I can say little, our wheat demonstration test plot that was south and west of town. And we've got those results up on our website. So if you just go to triple w.cottonwood.ksu.edu, click onto the crops and livestock tab, there's kind of some tabs over to the left, if you click onto that. And then under hot topics, I believe is where that's at. And that's a lot to remember. So one of the things I just kind of tell people anymore, if I'm if you just type in Cottonwood extension, and put comma KSU should be able to get our website to pull up and then just click on to the crops and livestock section. And you'll see should see the local wheat demonstration plot results there and also have some other decision aid tools there. There's a publication that extension, you know, updates annually, puts quite a bit of time and effort into it. Called they renamed it now. But in the past, it's been called the wheat variety, disease and insect publication and I forget what they renamed it. But that's that's useful to look at different ratings of wheat varieties for disease resistance, insect resistance. So that's always been updated, it's on there on the website as well. And then one other kind of cool tool that is out there that actually Colorado State University has, and I've got the link to it under the hot topics on the website is a decision tool to where you can do head to head comparisons of two different varieties of wheat. You can look at different locations. And and they basically have compiled all of the different Experiment Station results of wheat variety plots in the Great Plains that includes Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, Colorado, they've got all that data in there. And then they've got just a real simple decision tool, or like I say, you can do a head to head comparison of two different varieties and see which one, you know and it'll say, like variety X, you know, out yield a variety Why 55% of the time in 12 different trials. So it's a pretty cool little tool put out by Colorado State University. And the link is on the website there to look at that. And then you know, of course, we're We're hot and we're dry. We're probably in a drought. So was talking to our veterinarian, one of our veterinarians last week at the fair and he said yeah, cool cows are coming into the sale barn. So you know, guys are getting rid of some some cows, probably going to be some early weaning. And then I would encourage guys to also do preg checking, you know, early when they take them off of pasture here in the fall and get rid of those opens. And then one other thing just to throw out there. If they when they do cut their hay and I know the hay is not growing a lot because of the drought, but if they do swath and put it down, the tendency is to put that cutting bar pretty low two inches off the ground give or take a little bit, or nitrates accumulate in that lower stem of the plant. Because of stress and drought stress is often how we get nitrates. So if you can raise that cutter cutting bar up from say two inches to six inches that can really help Keith harmony, the range scientist at the experiment station one year and drop in a dry year went out there and did some hand clipping of you know, sorghum Sudan and and He clipped at two inches versus six inches. And I believe I'm just kind of going from memory that there was almost a 50% reduction in nitrates from two to six inches cutting height. So that's that's an impact. It's pretty significant. So and you know, this year, I think he's going to be short. So every bits going to count. So I know your tendency is to lower that to keep that cutting bar low. You're gonna pick up probably not pick up that much more tonnage, if you raise it up, you know, two to four inches and could sure reduce the amount of nitrates significantly.

 

James Bell 

You know, and for us lay people that are out in the fields. Like what what benefit does that give you know long term I know we hear about nitrates quite a bit especially in water supplies and then right your drainage ponds, things like that.

 

Stacy Campbell 

So high nitrates and forages can can actually kill lactating cattle. So it just just causes kind of a, it basically, gosh, hadn't thought about this for a while, but it kind of reduces the amount of of oxygen in the blood. So it can kill your lactating cows, if it doesn't kill them, sometimes it'll cause them to abort. So just trying to reduce those nitrates in our, in our feed is is very important. And like I say, nitrates accumulate in the lower part in the stem of plants, when there's a stress and oftentimes in our part of the world, it's because of drought stress, they're just the plants just really kind of shutting down if you will, and it's not really metabolized and what nitrates and has an in pushing them up for growth because there's not enough moisture there. It's hot, it's dry, they're just trying to survive. So they just kind of in a matter of speaking almost, you know, kind of kick into a hibernation mode if you will, and they're just not metabolizing those nitrates and utilizing them and so they're accumulating in that lower stem. So anything we can do to raise that cutting height on those drought stress plants can help reduce those those nitrates, you know, and, and cause cause fewer headaches down the road. I mean, you know, you lose a cow or two because of that that can pretty much you know, definitely dips into the profit or maybe wipes out any potential profit there was for the year. Thanks. Yeah, yeah, so and then one other little kicker our always mentioned soil sampling, you know, before you plant your next wheat crop, it'd be beneficial to go out and take a soil sample we sampled where we're going to put our wheat plant back in again this year and need quite a bit of nitrogen you know, we've we were able to fortunately have some good yields this year again. And so wheat definitely uses nitrogen. It's a it's a user a consumer of nitrogen. So if you've had some good yields, probably be beneficial to go out there and take two foot if you can get down there, profile soil sample for your nitrogen and see how much you're gonna need for the next for the next crop, whether it be wheat or grain sorghum, if it's grain sorghum, you can wait till you know next spring to sample for that. I guess that's the other thing is whatever its buys to sample kind of consistently at the same time of year. So for wheat, you know, you may be tight pulling samples in August 1 part of September, and then for your summer crops, maybe sample those in the in the spring. You kind of do that consistently. When you do take samples, you know the same time of year for those particular props. It's advisable