SDSU Extension publishes the South Dakota Pest & Crop Newsletter to provide growers, producers, crop consultants, and others involved in crop production with timely news pertinent to management of pests, diseases, and weeds in South Dakota.
Follow the field crops during the 2020 growing season.
August 10, 2020
The Nitrate QuikTest for forages is available at various SDSU Extension locations across South Dakota.
Some oat fields are showing plants wilting with tillers dying prematurely and heads looking bleached. Inspecting the crown and sub-crown area reveals the discoloration and rotting and sometimes a pinkish color can be observed. These are typical symptoms of Fusarium root and crown rot.
During most years, we start worrying about true armyworm activity in wheat fields in mid-July. However, the strong southerly winds that we experienced during the last two weeks pushed several insect pests north ahead of their normal schedule
Fact sheet discussing conservation of round bale storage.
A few oat fields that were recently scouted were found to have barley yellow dwarf virus infected plants. The infected plants were few and scattered throughout the oat fields.
Spring is a busy time for South Dakota farmers and ranchers with planting, calving, and other field preparations. Soil sampling and fertilizing pastures, alfalfa, or other forages might be overlooked.
The weather conditions during the spring and summer of 2019 contributed to many challenges for farmers and livestock producers. For crop producers, one of those issues is crown rust in oats. The abundance of this crop disease has raised questions for livestock producers.
In last few years, interest in using cover crops has been increasing tremendously among crop and livestock producers in South Dakota. Growing cover crops following small grain is gaining more attention due to feasibility in cover crops species selection and also the time of the year where cover crops receive longer growing and establishing time than following row crops.