It was a blessing to get away for the national ag agents conference and then on vacation! The keynote speaker was Dwayne Fisher who is the VP Marketing and partner at Champion Produce Sales in Idaho. His speech was about relationships. My takeaway from him was, “The more, more, more is creating less, less, less when it matters most, most, most. When we don’t feel we have time for one more thing, pause and take time to do something for someone else. (Regarding people)-Notice them, Value them, Serve them, Encourage them. We can’t replace Relationships.” This was a helpful reminder and “shot in the arm” for me; hopefully, helpful in some way for you too.

For the ag tour, I learned about wool production and marketing and toured a sheep ranch that was 45 miles from Yellowstone National Park in the mountains. The rancher shared the challenges of grazing thousands of sheep in the mountains with wolves and bears migrating from the park and killing sheep. The specific wolves and bears have to be tracked and ID verified before they can be eliminated. They work with experts to use drone technology and game cameras to help identify the specific animal. At the wool-buying stop, we learned that China dictates the market based on weekly wool sales in Australia. Australia sells more wool in one week than what the U.S. sells in 1 year. The take-home from the wool-buying stop was to buy more natural fibers like wool and cotton.

Fungicides: Received many questions last week on fungicide applications to corn and soybeans. First, tar spot is still at low levels where it’s been found in fields and hasn’t hit the 5-7% thresholds. It prefers temps in the 60’s-70’s, which to me explains why we’ve mostly seen it get worse in fields at the end of the growing season. I realize a lot of fungicide is going on corn. Economically and threshold-wise, I’d wait as long as possible before applying a fungicide. The research from Indiana showed that it was still economical to apply through milk-early dough stage. Waiting will allow for residual for when you may need it later in the season if tar spot or southern rust take off. There won’t be residual left for those making apps now. Just for consideration as the economics don’t justify multiple applications.

For soybeans, if the field had never had white mold in the past, I would not worry about a fungicide for white mold. If it’s a seed corn/soybean or corn/soy rotation field and had white mold in the past, one could aim for one fungicide application at full flower (R2). If you’ve had 2 years of corn followed by beans this year, you probably don’t need a fungicide. And, if you planted soybeans green into a small grain, again, you shouldn’t need a fungicide as we’ve seen small grains keep white mold at bay. I realize I’m more conservative with recs compared to most, but this is based on economic thresholds and understanding the pathogen and crop rotation history. Also, a reminder if you’re interested in using plant nutrition in either corn or soy for on-farm research, please let me know.

Summer Grazing Field Day July 24 will be held at Eastern NE Research & Extension Center near Mead from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. (Registration at 8:30 a.m.). The cost is $20 and they are requesting RSVP for lunch count. More info here: https://beef.unl.edu/news/summer-grazing-field-day-strategies-beat-slump/. The day will be casual and discussion-based. Take a look at the summer phase of a double-crop annual forage system—where warm-season forages like sudangrass (with or without sunnhemp) are being grazed by both cow/calf pairs and stockers. Additional topics include:

• How to manage warm-season annuals to get the most out of them
• What the performance data says (ADG, stocking rate, carrying capacity)
• How the economics compare between cow/calf and stocker systems
• New prussic-acid free sorghum-sudangrass variety
• Virtual fencing in action