Storm Damage Recovery

The recent rains, flooding and wind from Hurricane Irene have caused some signifcant damage throughout the state. While attention to human needs(health, living and communications) are of utmost importance, once those are attended to, dealing with the after effects on livestock, crops, and structures will be important to farm viability. Having clean water and clean feed for livestock is a necessity(have any questionable sources tested if possible). Check structures to be sure they have not been compromised. Dont go inside them if at all questionable(leaning, sinking, etc). Try to secure from the outside first and have a second person with you(with a cell phone) if you do need to go in a compromised building. Be careful in dealing with electrical issues within the structure or in using generators. With crops, the best advice, if flodded, is to get the water off the field ASAP, then watch for diseases and other problems as the days go by. And of course, dont forget to call your insurance agent before doing anything significant to the affected livestock, buildings and crops. Many more tips and suggestions in dealing with these and numerous other issues can be found at the following Extension website: www.njaes.rutgers.edu/storm

Zane R. Helsel 

2011 Penn State Winter Wheat Preformance Trials

Before long we will be moving into small grain planting season. If you are looking for winter wheat variety preformance information Penn State has recently posted the results of their 2011 trials. Also available for review are the results of the 2011 University of Maryland wheat variety trials . The University of Maryland also has trials with scab resistance ratings available for review.

Bill Bamka

September is National Preparedness Month - Are you Ready Ag?

Fire, flood, feed contamination, foot-and-mouth disease. Farm and ranch disasters can come without warning. Is your crop, livestock or poultry operation secure? Is it biosecure?

A team of Extension professionals from across the US came together to develop an educational tool to assist farm and ranch managers become better prepared for any disaster The tool is called ReadyAG—Disaster and Defense Preparedness for Production Agriculture.

Brown Marmorated Stink Bug in Field Corn

We are beginning to get reports of brown marmorated stink bugs in field corn in South Jersey. So far populations have mainly been confined to field edges near wooded areas. Counts have been as high as 3 to 5 per plant. I have heard of some fields with significantly higher counts. Populations in the interior of the fields were light. I have seen some isolated kernel damage. Stink bugs have not yet been encountered on adjacent soybean fields. Though we would expect to see movement into soybean fields eventually.  In Maryland, there are currently evaluations of edge treatments to see how effective they are when kernel damage is occurring. As we have mentioned before we are still in the learning curve in trying to deal with this relatively new pest.

Bill Bamka

Be on the look out for Palmer Amaranth

I received a phone call from Mark Van Gessel, the Extension Weed Specialist from the University of Delaware (who also serves as our RCE Field Crops Weed Specialist). He was letting me know that they have found several fields in Delaware with Palmer Amaranth in them, and that we should be on the look out for it in New Jersey. At this point we do not have any Palmer Amaranth present in New Jersey that we are aware of.  According to Mark, "It looks a lot like our “typical” pigweeds, but it has no hairs on the stem, often a white watermark on the leaves, long petioles, and long slender seedheads." The concern is that this species is very aggressive, and is referred to as "pigweed on steriods".  It has the ability to be resistant to many different herbicides. It is proving to be a headache to cotton producers across the south. The populations found in Delaware are not herbicide resistant at this point. Dr. Van Gessel notes it is important that we identify it early and aggressively start to manage it before it becomes a problem. The University of Georgia has a fact sheet on the biology of Palmer Amaranth . Kansas State University has a guide to help in identification of Palmer Amaranth .

Bill Bamka