Tips for a successful corn silage harvest

There are several sites dedicated to making sure that your corn silage harvest goes as well as possible.  I just thought I would list a few.

• Here is some information from Wisconsin Extension
• A very thorough article on everything from judging the right stage of the corn to properly packing the silo can be found here

There are several other sites that offer great tips but these are two of the more thorough, research backed, publications that I have found.

Has your farm and/or ranch been in the family for 100 years or more?

If so, you should receive some recognition for it.  The Montana Historical Society has a program designed to recognize farms and ranches that have remained in a family for 100 years or more.  The "Centennial Farm and Ranch Program" was created by the Montana legislature in 2009 for the purpose of recognizing and commemorating the agricultural traditions of Montana.

On November 8, many of the agricultural-related agencies in Richland County are going to host a celebration recognizing 150 years of the existence of the United States Department of Agriculture.  One of the events that we hope to accomplish at this meeting is to recognize those farms and ranches withing the county that have been in existence for at least 100 years.

If you would like help with the application process, feel free to contact Tim Fine.

Small grain, pulse harvest winding down

It is not uncommon to hear the term "mixed bag" when people talk about grain harvest in this area.  The problem we have in Richland County is that we have a fair amount of irrigated acres and a proportionally larger amount of dryland acres.  So when it comes time to evaluate the harvest, you almost have to weigh the two systems against each other to make it fair.  However, this is not usually what people want to know about, they just want to know how the crop did overall.

So, overall, I guess I would surmise that the wheat crop did rather poorly.  I was recently at a meeting to determine whether or not Richland County qualified for USDA disaster status and there were several reports of farmers not even bringing their combines into fields because it wasn't worth using the fuel to even try and harvest the crop.  With all of the stress our wheat crop sustained, protein levels seem to be pretty good but even bonuses for higher protein cannot make up for losses in yield.

Most of the reports of barley yield that I heard early on were fairly good.  However, most of our barley crop is irrigated so the lack of rains should not affect it as much.  Even with the good yields reported, I also heard that there was alot of the crop that did not make malting quality probably due to the extended periods of heat we sustained during the growing season.

Pulse crops more than likely did not fair too well either but I haven't heard any reports of how they did this year.

So, we have the sugarbeet crop, what corn was not harvested for silage, and the safflower crop essentially left before we finish our harvest season.  Hopefully better news will come when these crops come out of the field.

Roosevelt County Irrigation Tour

On Wednesday, August 29, Agri Industries, the Roosevelt County Conservation District , Horizon Resources, Farm Equipment Sales in Culbertson, the Roosevelt County Extension Office, and the Roosevelt County NRCS office will be hosting an irrigation tour.  The actual tour will be held at the Dean Harmon farm, which is about 6.5 miles south of Bainville on County Road 1007. 

Topics and demonstrations for this tour include:

• Irrigation development and evolution- from dry land to flood and pivots

• Multiple pivot system with pressure sensing automatice control valves

• Tail water re-use

• Precision agriculture

•  No-till row crops

• No-till beets into alfalfa

•  Row crops on borders

• Seeding perpendicular to irrigation

• Seedbed preparation with defoliator

• Flood damage and cottonwood regeneration

• Reclaiming poor soils with sulfur-sulfur burner

• Display of seeding and beet equipment and the Conservation District dredge

After the tour has concluded, a free steak dinner will be prepared for all participants to enjoy.  To make it easy for people from our neck of the woods to get to the event, there will be a bus leaving the fairgrounds in Culbertson at 12:30.  For more information and/or details you are welcome to contact either the Roosevelt County Conservation District at 787-5232 or the Roosevelt County Extension Office at 787-5312.

Drought and wildfire resources

While the recent drought and related wildfires that have been reported in Montana have not affected Richland County directly, parts of the county are still dry and have not received the rain that the Sidney vicinity has.  Montana State University Extension has created a drought and wildfire resources page that has some great information.

To find it, log onto the MSU Extension homepage (http://msuextension.org) and click on the "Montana Wildfire and Drought Resources logo.  Here is a sampling of the information you can find there.

• Links to the national and regional drought monitors
• Links to information regarding water conservation
• Links to smartphone apps that show where wildfires are currently burning
• Links to prepare your home and property in the event a wildfire is near
• Links to help recover after a wildfire

While that list does not encompass all of the resources available, it does give a fairly good summary.I would encourage anyone, whether they are currently impacted by drought and/or wildfires or not, to check out this invaluable resource.

Alfalfa Weevil a real problem this year

Our warmer-than-normal winter and accompanying spring have allowed the alfalfa weevil population to flourish this spring and early summer.  Here are a couple of websites dedicated to providing options for control.

http://www.ipm.montana.edu/Training/PMT/2006/AlfalfaWeevil.pdf

  

http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/aginfo/entomology/entupdates/ICG_11/10_ForageCropInsects2011.pdf

I wish that I had taken pictures of our alfalfa fields before they were cut but I didn't get it done in time.  Which, in hindsight is kind of a good thing because that means that our producers got their hay cut in a timely manner to try and prevent further damage from this pest. Here are a couple of pictures that I found from various sources that show the damage the weevil does and what the larva and adult look like.

The grayish-white areas in this field are typical of what you would see if driving by an alfalfa field that has been infested.  This picture is courtesy of Iowa State University.  The affected areas show where no treatment was applied.

And here is a picture of the larva courtesy of Oklahoma State University Extension.  This is the growth stage of the pest that does the most damage.

And finally, a picture of the adult beetle, also from Oklahoma State University Extension.

Come to field days, get pesticide points and recycle old pesticide containers

The USDA's Northern Plains Agricultural Research Lab (NPARL) in Sidney will be hosting two field days on Thursday, June 28 and Friday, June 29.  On the 28th, the field day will be held in Froid at the Froid Research Farm located just 8 miles north of Culbertson on Highway 16.  The field day on the 29th will be held at the Rasmussen dryland research station just 4 miles north of Sidney off of Highway 16 at the corner of county road 129 and county road 346. 

There is too much going on at the events to post all the topics but there are two things that I want to point out.  First off, private and commercial applicators who have a Montana pesticide applicators license will get two points for attending either field day.  Secondly, if you have old empty plastic pesticide containers please bring them with you as Ron Ahlgren with the Montana Department of Agriculture's pesticide container recycling program will be on hand to talk about the program and to recycle properly prepared containers.  For more information about the recycling program, click here!