Starting this column with this inspiration from a Sept. 2019 column. Marine Corporal Joshua Bleill shared this at a meeting I attended: One: Remember the ‘why’ behind what we do every day and keep that fire within us to do our best. Two: Live life so at the end of each day we hopefully made a difference to another person. Good reminders as we continue to press on this year!

Crops rapidly turned this past week. Hearing beans went from 15%-10% moisture in a matter of days…sometimes the same day. Shawn Conley and Seth Naeve with University of Wisconsin recently shared a blog post on off-color soybean in some Enlist E3 soybean varieties. It’s important to note that not all Enlist varieties have this off-coloration and environment and disease pathogens can also play a role. I haven’t personally noticed much of this. You can read the full article and see photos here: https://coolbean.info/2022/09/01/sboc-one-more-thing-to-think-about-this-fall/.

Fall Armyworms: I’m still truly hoping we don’t have to deal with these too this year! My colleague, Nathan Mueller, got a report during husker harvest days of fall armyworm in the Beatrice area in 5^th cutting alfalfa. So, it would be wise for those of you reading this in the southern few tiers of counties to be on the lookout for them in alfalfa, pastures, newly planted wheat/rye/cover crops, and in lawns. If these progress, we’ll need to be watching replant corn too.

Pine Trees are still showing very slow recovery, if any, after the June 14 hailstorm. One question I continue to receive is “what happened to all the evergreen trees?” If the browning is primarily on the west and north sides of the trees, I’m fairly certain it’s due to the hailstorm. There are pockets where the damage is also on the south side where there was rotation that occurred. Spruces and cedar trees also were greatly impacted, but I’ve seen some new regrowth on them, whereas I’m hard-pressed to find that on pines. Some Scotch and Austrian pines pretty much just died after the hail due to them already being stressed from pine wilt nematode. However, it’s also interesting to me how many Scotch and Austrian are holding on. Ponderosa’s are native to Nebraska, thus aren’t impacted by the nematode, but are still slow in hail damage recovery.

As I continue to be asked what’s going to happen with the trees, my honest answer is that I don’t know, but I’m hopeful. I would encourage people to be patient and wait to remove them unless you didn’t want a tree in a particular spot or there’s one tree nearly dead amongst others that have half the tree living. My hope is that they will slowly begin the process of recovery and I’m estimating it may take at least 2 years before we see much. In the meantime, watering them can help with recovery. Truly hoping we don’t lose many of these evergreen windbreaks in the area!

Fall Invaders: It’s that time of year for fall invaders such as millipedes, centipedes, crickets, spiders, roly polys, earwigs, and lady beetles. They’re not pests that do damage but are looking for a place inside as temperatures drop. They often die within a few days of making their way indoors. You can manage fall invaders once they enter the home by vacuuming them. You can also use sticky traps, just be careful not to use these where people or pets can come in contact with them. There are home-owner sprays that can be used on the outside perimeters of homes to help reduce the number that enter your home. Sealing any cracks and crevices repairing screens, and checking weather stripping is another way to help exclude them.