Area Farmers Assess Wheat Following Freeze

B&L Farms, of Live Oak Florida, sent some pictures as they made assessments of their wheat crop following the freezes of March 24 and 25, They recorded low temperatures of 28 degrees at the farm. After a thorough look at the field, they feel like the wheat crop is in good condition at this time. Dr. Dewey Lee of UGA has a publication available online, "Field Diagnosis of Freeze Injury in Wheat." There are some very good pictures included if you are not confident in identification of Freeze Damage.

For more information:

http://www.caes.uga.edu/commodities/fieldcrops/gagrains/documents/FreezeInfo.pdf

Peanut planting in North Florida

A few peanuts went in the ground Saturday on one North Florida farm. Employees were making adjustments to plant six seeds per foot on twin rows and adjusting planting depth. They were also calibrating insecticide and inoculant output.
Soil temperature at Live Oak averaged 65 degrees on Saturday. However, we are expecting cloudy weather and maybe some rain early this week, so planting conditions are not optimal, but this crew will be ready when they "wave the green flag."

Freeze Damage in Corn

We had freezing temperatures area-wide on the mornings of March 27 and 28th 2013. I scouted some corn fields to assess the damage to early planted corn. Overall, damage is minimal. I found one area field with more significant damage, but with warmer temperatures in the forecast, the corn should be fine. The nearest weather station, Alachua, recorded a low of 30.8 degrees on March 28th.

This farmer is going to proceed as normal, however we agreed he should wait a few days before making postemerge herbicides until a new healthy leaf is emerged. He will be waiting about a week on the field with more significant damage, until "normal" growth is resumed. Sidedress applications of nitrogen have begun on the corn planted the first days of March.

March 2013 Peanut Planting Intentions

The Peanut Farm Market News summarized the Peanut Planting Intentions from the March 2013 report. Locally, we expect  Florida will probably be down 25-30% from last year. We were surprised by the numbers in this report.

Controlled Release Nitrogen in Corn

We laid out one of our test plots this week. Pioneer P2024VBT was planted on March 20th. We went on to get a 4" rain after planting on March 21. These heavy rainfall events on sandy soils is why I'm looking at the application of controlled release nitrogen fertilizer. It is randomized replicated small plots of 4 rates of control release nitrogen, a control with no added nitrogen, and a conventional treatment with 4 applications of quick release Nitrogen. Dealers now have the ability to custom blend polymer coated urea, with quick release fertilizers like the Ammonium Sulfate I used. The cover crop was rye, ryegrass, clover, peas, and radish. 

I've used ESN, a brand of controlled release nitrogen, as a sidedress application. I dont think that product matched the application timing and crop nitrogen demand. I would like to offer farmers better recommendations on how to use this technology to make higher yields, reduce application costs, reduce fertilizer costs, and reduce losses to groundwater.