(Lakefield, Mn.)– Area crops continue to make good progress. Jim Nesseth of Extended Ag Services of Lakefield says corn will be much taller than knee high this Fourth of July…
“We’ve got a lot of corn right now that’s chest high or even head high in some cases, and so it really has come along nicely. The soybeans, they’re at R-1 stage, they’re blooming, and some are getting close to R-2, the early planted beans, and they really look good, those early planted beans. It looks really good.”
Nesseth says there have been some challenges with weed control in soybeans…
“Water hemp has just really been a problem this year. It just seems like a weed that just doesn’t want to die out there, and so we’re having some re-spray situations. The water hemp issue is just something we’re starting to see some resistance to some of our herbicides and it’s one of those biodiverse weeds that just has a lot of different biotypes in the plant itself. So environmentally we’ve had some issues there. The weather hasn’t just been perfect to get a good kill and so we’re seeing some re-sprays there and some frustration there with our producers but that’s just part of the game.”
Nesseth adds fungicide treatments will likely be needed for corn…
“And you know with this warm, humid, weather that we’ve got right now, ample moisture, probably a good environment for tar spot to maybe reoccur. It overwinters and so I think with our good yield potential in our corn I think that’s something our producers will really want to consider is maybe doing a fungicide treatment during tassel time or around that time. I think that would help with other fungal diseases. Tar spot is easy to control, you just need a fungicide treatment to take care of that problem.”
Nesseth says the second cutting of hay is also getting underway in some areas, and he says there are reports of some lodging in oat fields.
