1. Field Observations

Winter grains are reaching maturity, and everyone is crossing their fingers that this recent bit of wet weather will not lead to pre-harvest sprouting. The 10-day forecast has some much-needed heat (see our lack of heat in section 2), but more of the highly-unpredictable scattered thunderstorms. The uneven corn emergence is finally revealing how much seed is never going to come out of the ground, and canopy closure is rapidly approaching. No growing season is easy, but this one has thrown just about everything at us - and it's still June….

We've seen more cutworm damage this year than in recent years, but nothing above threshold (that I've seen). Potato leafhopper numbers are still well-below thresholds (and are all but absent in every field I've sampled), but stay tuned to Section 3 in the coming weeks to see if that changes.

2. Growing Degree Days (See: Climate Smart Farming Growing Degree Day Calculator)
Growing degree days (GDD) are calculated by taking the average daily temperature and subtracting the base temperature for development of a given organism ((High + Low)/2 - base temp = GDD). For corn silage, we are using base 50/86, as corn development starts at 50 degrees F and ceases above 86. Check your location and planting date:

3. Pest and disease monitoring

Potato Leafhopper

Alfalfa weevil season is finally over! There are a lot of aphids out there, but there seem to be just as many ladybugs and other predators. And thankfully, we are still seeing very few leafhoppers (far below threshold). When we have more numbers to report, we'll add that data table here.

Black Cutworm (BCW) and True Armyworm (TAW)

Numbers have largely dropped this week, and next week will be the last recording of BCW and TAW this year. Starting two weeks from now, we will begin reporting Western Bean Cutworm (WBC) and Fall Armyworm (FAW).