Weeds, pests topic of MU field day

Tim Reinbott, Bradford Farm superintendent at left, describes current weed control problems during a recent weed and pest management at the Bradford Farm field day. His audience included corn and soybean producers Brooks Reid, Bosworth, and Janet and Don James, Mooresville, while Marc Linit, MU associate dean of agriculture, listens.

Crops emerging up to a month later than normal have attracted new insect and disease problems in the wet weather of the 2008 planting season.

As a result University of Missouri Extension specialists discussed new control requirements and a host of old problems at a weed and pest management field day held at the MU Bradford and Extension Center near Columbia.

"We updated reports until the field day depending on what insects were causing problems at the time," said Wayne Bailey, MU Extension entomologist.

During wagon tours MU entomologists, weed scientists, plant pathologists, and agronomists presented their research and answered questions from farmers. There was strong interest in the use of fungicides to control diseases on corn, soybeans, and wheat.

Reid Smeda, MU weed scientist, showed results of volunteer corn in fields of continuous corn. Volunteer corn appears when kernels drop at harvest time and sprout the next spring and such corn becomes a weed problem when the variety is herbicide resistant, he said.

Bill Wiebold, MU Extension agronomist, discussed management practices for corn-after-corn rotations. High grain prices have renewed farmer interest in crop research, Wiebold said.

Kevin Bradley, MU Extension weed specialist, shared results of several years of tests on experimental herbicides that will be available commercially in 2009.

We have several new herbicides for which we have yield comparisons," he said. "We extended the time devoted to the tours of weed plots this year."

Eighty-seven registered for the field day, according to Tim Reinbott, Bradford Farm superintendent.