By Nicolle Ritchie and Angie Gradiz
Weather
The past week was mostly cool and dry with only light precipitation. Some areas experienced freezing temperatures early in the week. Thanks to a period of dry weather, planting made great progress in several crops. Light precipitation is expected to fall in the form of scattered showers over the weekend, with a chance of several days of substantial rainfall Monday, May 18, through Wednesday, May 20. Temperatures are expected to increase heading into the weekend, then level out in the 60s next week.
Crops and pests
Corn and soybean planting made great progress over the past week. Some soybeans are emerging. For the most part, they have been able to emerge pretty quickly, reducing the likelihood that soil-dwelling pests like seedcorn maggot cause much damage to the seed. Fields or parts of fields that had colder, wetter or harder soils that delayed emergence had light instances of suspected seedcorn maggot feeding.
Adult moth counts have remained mostly low over the past several weeks. Bucket traps in Berrien County near Berrien Springs and Benton Harbor, St. Joseph County near Centreville and Van Buren County near Lawrence have caught the following.
Winter wheat is at early Feekes 10 (awns or head emerging). Shortly after the head completely emerges, it will begin to flower, starting in the middle of the head. The ideal timing for preventative fusarium head blight fungicide application is at 50% flowering. For product efficacy against fusarium and other diseases, reference the Crop Protection Network’s fungicide efficacy tables or tool. Product efficacy should be paired with thorough head coverage during the fungicide application and high genetic resistance in the wheat variety for the best fusarium head blight prevention.
Source : msu.edu