1. Field Observations and Weather Outlook

If anyone has experienced damage to their crops as a result of this week's extreme weather, please reach out and let us know. See a list of contact information to report storm damage on farms below. This helps us make a case for Natural Disaster declaration if warranted.

See below for a few resources for assessing crop damage. Hopefully you don't need them(!), but save them for potential use in the future.

Here are two YouTube videos regarding hail damage:

Assessing mid-season hail damage in field corn (youtube.com)

Assessing mid-season hail damage in soybean (youtube.com)

So far our temperatures have been much higher than last year at this time, and we're about 1 week ahead of "normal". According to the forecast, we're looking at a lot of heat and thunderstorms during the first half of next week, followed by some calmer weather. See the images below for our longer-range outlooks:

2. Growing Degree Days (GDD) (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 Monitoring

This year we saw some minor black cutworm damage in a few places and almost no true armyworm.

This past week we saw some patchy potato leafhopper pressure with some fields far below threshold and some well above the economic threshold (those farms have been notified). Some of these rainstorms may knock PLH numbers down briefly, but large weather systems can also bring more PLH in from other regions. If you're leaving 3rd cutting to flower in the interest of prolonging your stand beyond 4 years, try not to look at the yellowing leaves and know your heifers and dry cows will be well-fed!

This week we switched from monitoring black cutworm and true armyworm and will now monitor western bean cutworm (WBCW) and fall armyworm (FAW) for the rest of the summer. Looking forward to seeing some silk and tassels in those fields!