Weed control economical, yield-critical in corn

Posted on August 10, 2017 by rhallberg

by Kay Ledbetter, Texas A&M AgriLife

Just how much water are weeds using in a corn crop, and is it more economical to treat or not is the focus of a Texas A&M AgriLife study.

Dr. Jourdan Bell, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service agronomist in Amarillo, and her Texas A&M AgriLife Research graduate student Aislinn Walton have found in early results heavy weed pressure could result in a 100-bushels-per acre yield loss on a corn crop. Continue reading →

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Event in North Carolina highlights the good and bad of kudzu

Posted on August 10, 2017 by rhallberg

In the Mountain XPress

by Kari Barrows

For a reviled invasive species, kudzu has a surprising number of fans. Nancy Basket is one. The artist first encountered the plant when she moved to South Carolina from the Pacific Northwest in 1989.

“Nobody liked it — everybody had jokes about it,” Basket recalls. “But I’m Cherokee on my dad’s side, German on my mother’s, and I have a different outlook. Just like some people can dog-whisper, I could kind of whisper to plants, and I felt kudzu was reaching out, trying to find somebody that liked it.” Continue reading →

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US Forest Service establishes Incident Team in Mississippi for southern pine beetle

Posted on August 10, 2017 by rhallberg

The U.S. Forest Service announced today that it has established an Incident Management Team to direct efforts to suppress southern pine beetle infestations that threaten to damage tens of thousands of acres of pine forests in Mississippi.

Forest Health officials have classified the level of infestations as a severe outbreak. “This outbreak is unprecedented in scope with beetle activity progressing at breakneck speed with infestations rapidly escalating in size, coalescing, and decimating whole plantations,” said Jim Meeker, an entomologist with the Forest Service. Continue reading →

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Extension demo plot shows most economic management tool during heavy fall armyworm year

Posted on August 10, 2017 by rhallberg

In Delta Farm Press

by Mary Hightower, University of Arkansas

Fall armyworms don’t bother with calendars. They’re here, they’re hungry and – never mind that it’s mid-summer — they’re in their second generation.

However, they can be managed, and that’s what Kelly Loftin, Extension entomologist, and Hank Chaney, regional agricultural and natural resources specialist, have been working with Steven Stone, Lincoln County Extension staff chair, all with the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, have been eager to show in a pasture outside of Star City in southeastern Arkansas. Continue reading →

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APHIS Adds an Additional Portion of the East Fork Wildlife Area in Clermont County, Ohio, to the Asian Longhorned Beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis) Regulated Area

Posted on August 10, 2017 by rhallberg

Effective immediately, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is adding 576 acres of the East Fork Wildlife Area in Clermont County, Ohio, to the Asian longhorned beetle (ALB) regulated area. APHIS is taking this action in response to the recent detection of ALB-infested trees in the East Fork Wildlife Area. As a result, the total regulated area for ALB in Clermont County has expanded from 61 square miles to 62 square miles.

The attached Federal Order describes the regulated area and includes the associated reference to 7 Code of Federal Regulations 301.51 et seq. that lists the provisions for the movement of ALB-regulated articles. This action is necessary to prevent the human-assisted spread of ALB. Continue reading →

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