Crop/Weather report for week of August 22

Weather- For the most part, weather continues to be ideal. We have enough dry, warm days to allow for crops to get harvested but still counter that with sporadic rain showers that continue to help our later maturing crops along.

Harvest- A vast majority of the durum, spring and winter wheat, and barley has been harvested. Yield reports for these crops continues to remain very good but protein readings are down somewhat. Most of the second cutting alfalfa is completed and tonnage remains very good.

Other crops- Sugarbeets in the irrigated valley continue to look very good. The outlook for sugar beet harvest is very positive. Both irrigated and dryland corn are doing well also. I have not seen any corn taken off for silage as of yet but it would not surprise me if there was some that has been cut.

Pests- I have noticed fields where there have been some weed escapes. Although not a major weed problem, there are quite a few sugarbeet fields with volunteer corn plants scattered throughout. A great article on scouting for glyphosate resistant weeds and for roguing out weeds in sugarbeets can be found here.

I have now been collectiong army, pale western, and dingy cutworm moths as part of a monitoring program for MSU since the beginning of August. The site that I have placed the pheromone traps is a dryland site just north and west of Sidney. I have collected moths for two weeks now and, have yet to catch any army cutworm moths. I have caught a few pale western cutworm moths, but not enough to cause much concern.

My biggest catches to date have been dingy cutworm moths. The first week I caught 13 of them and this week there were another 25 in the trap. So what does this mean? For this year's crop it does not mean much of anything. These numbers should be used as a guide and a notice that when planting next year, some consideration should be given to scouting for dingy cutworm larva.