Blog Archives
JenREES 8/7/22
The buildings and barns are now emptied, exhibits taken home and people are weary. But what remains
are the friendships, the connections re-established, the smiles, the gratitude, the pulling together, the awards given to the youth, the lessons learned. When I was in 4-H, I had no idea the amount of time that Ag Society, Extension staff, volunteers, my 4-H leaders or even my parents put into the fair. I could’ve said ‘thank you’ so much more! This was my 19th county fair on ‘the other side’ and it never ceases to amaze me the list of items to accomplish in order to ensure a successful fair. It takes many dedicated people to achieve all of this. I’m so grateful to the ag society, 4-H Council, Extension staff and board, FFA advisers, 4-H leaders, numerous volunteers, and parents that pull together each year to pull off county fairs! As I reflect, things that make my heart happy and make me smile are thinking about the number of wonderful people who help me in Ag Hall each year, the youth proudly wearing their medals around the fairgrounds on Thursday evening after the award’s ceremony in York Co., the crop plot for ag literacy in Seward Co., seeing the fairgrounds so busy in spite of the heat, watching people from across the counties reconnect, people pulling together in the midst of adversity, and the hard work that especially ag society puts into the fair behind the scenes to ensure that attendees enjoy the fairs. Thank you also to all of the sponsors! Grateful to all for making the York and Seward Co. fairs a success!
Produce not Ripening: Many have green tomatoes. My colleague, Scott Evans shared it’s due to the heat as temps over 90F prevent the plant from producing lycopene and carotene. You can bring mature green tomatoes indoors to ripen (sunlight isn’t needed) or you can wait for cooler weather for them to turn. How do you know if they are mature enough to bring indoors for ripening? Look for an off-green to a tinge of white on the shoulders of the fruit on the stem side on fruit that is the right size of for that variety. He said the same can be done for peppers that aren’t turning orange, red, or yellow. For cucumbers, fruit production declines with the heat but doesn’t impact maturity.
Spidermites: Just a reminder of this helpful article as the heat has really brought on spidermites in crops: https://go.unl.edu/9v6u. For those with gardens, spidermites are also impacting vegetable and flower plants. Symptoms include webbing and yellowish ‘stippling’ or tiny spotting on the leaves which eventually turn brown. You can take a white piece of paper and knock the leaves on it. If you see tiny insects the size of pinpoints moving, it’s most likely spidermites. Spraying plants with heavy streams of water ensuring each side of the leaf is hit helps knock them down. Proper watering (reducing drought stress) can help reduce spidermites. Those two things can drastically and naturally help with spidermites in garden settings. Insecticidal oils and some plant extract products can help. Just be sure to read the labels to ensure the product is safe for the plant you’re applying it to and never apply these products when temperatures are above 90F to avoid damage to the plant.
Irrigation: The heat is progressing plant and seed development in crops not replanted. Corn at dough needs 7.5” till maturity, 5” at beginning dent, 3.75” at ¼ milk, 2.25” at ½ milk, and 1” at ¾ milk. Soybean at beginning seed (R5) needs 6.5”, end of seed (R6) needs 3.5”, and 1.9” at leaves beginning to yellow.
Soybean Management Field Days are this week (Aug. 9-12)! Last year a team of us tried an approach of more discussion with attendees and this year we’re seeking to format more parts of the field days this way. Each location will be unique to the situations that area of the state is experiencing. Join us for discussions on insects, diseases, weed management, cover crop implementation, precision ag, economics, irrigation, and biodiesel. Closest locations are Blue Hill on Aug. 9 and Central City on Aug. 10. Hope to see many at one of the locations this week! More info. here: https://go.unl.edu/xukf.
JenREES 8-9-20
Fair: As fairs wrapped up in the area, in my opinion, it was a great way to cap off the summer for the youth. So much has been taken away from them and I really appreciate Ag Societies working hard with Extension staff to give the youth an opportunity to showcase their projects! There were several moments throughout fair where I thought “this is why we do this”…to watch youth and adults so excited to see the ribbons on projects, watching siblings and club members supporting each other, families helping other families, and friends catching up. Fair did look different this year. But it forced us to think about things differently with the blessing of some changes may be kept as a result! Thank you to all the Ag Society, 4-H Council members, Extension staff, newspaper staff, and volunteers who gave youth and adults alike the opportunity to showcase projects and safely gather at fairs! Thank you also to health departments for advising on directed health measures and providing PPE and nurses who helped with screenings!
Crop Updates: I didn’t get into the field much this past week but the primary questions I received were regarding tip back on corn, spidermites flaring, and if it was too late to spray fungicides in corn. The answer to the latter is no. If southern rust is showing up pretty good low-mid canopy of your field, it’s something to consider to help with stalk strength as that’s my concern. I’m hearing of some guys having to apply a second round of fungicide due to rust. Hard for me to see guys spending the money to do that thus prefer avoiding automatic tassel applications. While I’m not aware of research to prove it, I think coverage is another issue. Consider asking the aerial applicator to use 3 gallons/acre to increase coverage. I hear some are refusing to do more than 2 gallons/acre and I think that’s part of the problem. Some farmers are also chemigating fungicide and insecticide through the pivot in hopes of improving coverage.
Typically we’d say southern rust occurs on the top side of leaves unless severe, whereas common rust typically occurs on both sides of leaves. On leaves that were flipped over from the wind, I’m seeing southern rust spores (confirmed via microscope) on the undersides of leaves that are now technically facing upward, but not on the ‘normal’ top side of leaf (an interesting observation that a crop consultant asked me about and then I also saw this week to confirm it truly was southern).
Spidermites continue to flare 7-10 days later because most of the products used don’t kill eggs. Sometimes second applications are needed. Insecticides with activity against eggs and immature stages (not adults) include Zeal, Oberon, and Onager whereas the pyrethroid (Bifenthrin products like Brigade in corn and soybeans) and organophosphate products (like Lorsban used in soybean) can help with adults but not eggs. Product has to come in contact with the mites. Thus at least 3 gallons/acre are recommended with aerial applications. Entomologists share aerial applications early in the morning or late in the evening can be more effective to avoid hot rising air away from plants (be careful of inversions). With twospotted spider mite, perhaps all that can be accomplished is to slow the rate of population increase.
Tip back on corn occurs most often from some sort of stress. For this year having good pollination weather, some are surprised regarding how much tip back we’re seeing. It’s important to count kernels long as there may be more kernels than one realizes in spite of tip back occurring. You can tell approximate timing of stress events by the appearance of the kernels. If kernel formation isn’t evident, the stress occurred before or during pollination. If kernels are very small or appeared to have died, the stress was after pollination as the kernels were filling. Water stress is a major stress outside of temperature as to kernels not pollinating and/or aborting. Each ovule (and later, each kernel), competes for water and nutrients. Water and nutrients are necessary for pollen tube formation down silks to fertilize ovules. Water and nutrients are necessary to fill individual kernels with the tips being sacrificed for filling kernels at the base of the ear first.
CARES Act Tax Planning for Farmers: The CARES Act included the Payroll Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL), which many farmers utilized. However, several other provisions didn’t get as much attention. For tax planning this fall, check out this helpful info. from Tina Barrett: https://go.unl.edu/re6e.
True topside of leaf that was flipped over with windstorm to be on underside. Can see indentations of lesions but not pustules.
True bottomside of leaf that after being flipped over with windstorm was showing as the top side. Notice the pustules on this side of the leaf.
Under the microscope, the spores were truly southern rust (oval-shaped). Common rust pustules are circular in shape.
It’s Fair Time!
This week is the Clay County Fair! We hope you will come out to view the 4-H and Open Class exhibits, 4-H/FFA youth showing their animals, family fun night, 4-H Council Bar-B-Q, cattle sorting, mutton busting, Amanda Winter concert, mud drags, and much more! I absolutely love our fair for the focus on youth and families! I also enjoy watching the fairgrounds come alive with excitement from youth and families as they bring their projects and show them. It’s such a blessing to work with wonderful people who desire what’s best for the youth! A full schedule of events can be found at http://clay.unl.edu. See you at the fair! (photo is of those wearing “orange out” t-shirts the last day of the fair in 2014-Photo courtesy of Tory Duncan, Clay County News).
Determining Your Needs
In the Clay County Fair Open Class flyer printed in the Clay County News, you will find the middle page pulls out and is a survey. Nebraska Extension in Clay County and our Clay County Extension Board have launched a survey to determine programming/information needs you deem critical to you and your families. We know that we provide crop, 4-H, and some horticulture programming and information, but there is much more that Nebraska Extension as a whole provides that we haven’t necessarily offered as much as we could in Clay County.
The survey is meant for those of you in Clay County, if you’d be willing to take less than 5 minutes to fill it out, we’d greatly appreciate it! You can also fill it out online at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/clayext. The survey will remain open till the conclusion of the Clay County Fair on July 12 this year. Please pass this information along to Clay County constituents as we’re trying to reach as many people as possible. It really is important that we receive as much feedback as possible. It’s important as the goal is to better serve you-and we can’t do that without your input! Please do take a few minutes and complete this for us as we’ve only had a handful complete it thus far. Thank you and please encourage others to complete it as well!
County Fair Time!
This year marked my 10th Clay County Fair. It was bitter-sweet in a way as I have watched this group of youth from their pre-4-H 
years through graduation this year. It’s neat seeing the young men and women they’ve become, ready to take that next step in life towards college and careers! Rachel and Kristen, our interns, helped us greatly in different ways which was a blessing; it was another smooth fair overall!
Also bittersweet is the fact that this was Cindy Strasheim’s last Clay County Fair as a UNL Extension Educator as she plans to retire in December. We will miss her and if you see her around, please thank her for her 29 years of dedication to the Clay County Fair and serving our constituents here!
I realize I say this every year, but we wouldn’t have fair if it wasn’t for all of our 4-H and FFA leaders, families, and youth-so thank you all for your hard work and efforts with your projects and the many ways you volunteer at fair! Thank you to our awesome fair board who we greatly enjoy working with and who kee
p our fairgrounds looking great! Thank you to Deanna, Holli, and Cindy for the long 
hours of preparation and also during fair in ensuring everything ran smoothly! Thank you to our 4-H Council and all our Superintendents for working so hard in various capacities during fair and throughout the year! Thank you to Tory, Kris, Teri, Karla, and Megan with the Clay County News for sticking out all the shows in the heat to cover the fair for us; we truly appreciate your support! Thank you to Lonnie Stripe for auctioneering, all our auction buyers, plaque and award sponsors, and donors for supporting our 4-H and FFA youth! Thank you to everyone who made the 2013 Clay County Fair a success!
County Fair-Special Time of Year
Fair time is a special time of year. It’s the one time in the year where people from all parts of the county come together for the
youth. Yes, there’s healthy competition involved, but 4-H and FFA are building life skills in our youth. Families congratulate each other and are excited for a youth’s job well done. It’s the one time in the year where people from all parts of the county come together for the youth.
It’s always fun for me to watch the fairgrounds come alive Wednesday night as youth bring in their static exhibits and livestock entries. People are smiling and most youth-particularly the younger exhibitors-are excited. Many people, including me, checked the weather forecast throughout the fair in hopes of rain. This is the first fair in a long time that it didn’t rain Wednesday night or anytime during the fair. Thursday is a busy day with exhibits being judged, livestock being weighed in and the beginning of livestock shows. Something I always enjoy is family fun night on Thursday night. Clouds appeared and families enjoyed kiddie games, shelling popcorn, an obstacle course, and roasting hot dogs and marshmallows. Friday and Saturday continued with the remaining livestock shows and plenty of heat. Sunday brought a fun beef-fitting contest where youth of various ages and clubs worked together. It also brought smiles watching the young children tell their stories and show animals in the Rainbow Classic, watching all our top showmen compete in the Round Robin Showmanship Contest, and wonderful support from all our buyers at the Livestock Auction; we’re thankful for your support.
While probably most people are hot and tired by fair’s conclusion Sunday evening, it’s always a little saddening to me to watch the fairgrounds become empty so quickly again. Deanna and Holli in our office spend a great deal of time preparing for it as do all the youth, parents, grandparents, and 4-H leaders; thank you for all you do and the time you all
invest in our youth! Thank you to the Fairboard members who spend countless hours preparing the Fairgrounds and always take care of things during fair with a smile-no matter how often they have to plunge the toilets! Thank you to 4-H Council for your help on various committees, your work with the food stand and BBQ, and for all you do. Thank you to all our superintendents and to all our volunteers; without you our 4-H program and fair wouldn’t be possible. Thank you to Tory and the Clay Co. News for all your support and coverage of our fair. We have something so special in our county and I truly feel blessed to work in Clay County! We may not have big-time entertainment at the fair, but I love our fair. I love how the focus is on our 4-H and FFA youth and families; many other counties would love to have that. Our numbers and entries are similar to counties much larger than us and I appreciate the quality brought to the fair each year from our youth. Thank you to everyone for making the 2012 Clay County Fair a success!
National 4-H Week and Reflections
Happy National 4-H Week! Thank you to all the volunteers and supporters that make 4-H in our area counties and the State a success; we wouldn’t have the 4-H program without numerous volunteers such as many of you reading this!
A few weeks ago, I was attempting to explain not only Extension but 4-H to a group of people who didn’t understand either. A
survey found that nearly 96% of people recognize the name 4-H but only 35% recognize Extension. That’s why at our County fair, I put up the large red flags to help people make the connection between Extension and 4-H. I think many in our county are familiar that 4-H has to do something with the fair, but it’s so much more than that! Essentially 4-H is a youth development program coordinated by land grant universities such as UNL through the Cooperative Extension System. The National 4-H site at http://4h.org states that “4-H fosters an innovative, “learn by doing” approach with proven results.” A study conducted by Tufts University found that youth involved with 4-H are nearly two times more likely to get better grades in school, are nearly two times more likely to go to college, 41% less likely to engage in risky behaviors, and 25% more likely to positively contribute to their families and communities.
The 4-H pledge explains what the 4 H’s stand for including pledging our:
*Heads to clearer thinking
*Hearts to greater loyalty
*Hands to larger service
*Health to better living….for our clubs, communities, country, and world.
I remember reciting this pledge at every monthly meeting at a 4-Her. I’m so thankful for the numerous volunteers-particularly the amount of time our club leader invested into the youth in our club-teaching us to sew and the importance of straight seems, cook the 4-H way, model sewn garments, importance of volunteering and community service, and teaching us parliamentary procedure by empowering us as youth to run and conduct meetings. I’m thankful for volunteers who spent each week during the summer teaching me about weeds, trees, and horticulture ID….skills I use nearly every day of my Extension career and as a homeowner. While we often worked on them last minute and weren’t thrilled about doing them, I’m thankful my mom required us to do 4-H presentations each year to develop public speaking skills. I’m thankful my grandma taught me how to make homemade bread and rolls and that so many volunteers worked with me on my 4-H Jr. Leader projects to help me develop leadership skills. I’m also thankful for the Extension staff at the office while I was growing up-they were always so friendly and helpful and modeled the way for me in my career today.
Thinking about my 4-H experiences reminds me that you are encouraged by the Nebraska 4-H Foundation to share your 4-H story! Some have asked me what this means. Essentially, any of us who have went through the 4-H program or volunteered with the 4-H program has a story to tell about how 4-H has benefited us or how we’ve seen the program benefit others. It may be a funny story or a serious one. The best part is that it’s YOUR story and the 4-H Foundation wants to hear them to help with promoting 4-H! The deadline is November 30th and you can find more information at: http://www.ne4hfoundation.org. Thanks again to everyone involved with helping or supporting the 4-H program and to the 1 in every 3 Nebraska youth currently involved with the 4-H program!
County Fair Reflections
A HUGE thank you to all the Fair Board members, 4-H Council, leaders, youth, parents, volunteers, Clay County News Staff, and Extension staff that made the 2011 Clay County Fair a success! 
Words can’t really express my appreciation. Driving home every night, I had time to reflect on each day so I decided (for all you farmers) I’d give you a break from irrigation scheduling : ) and provide some reflections from the county fair.
I love watching the fairgrounds come alive…to see the barns and buildings filling up and the excitement of the youth and parents. 
While it’s a lot of work, I really love fair week and I’ve always appreciated our county fair in Clay County. I appreciate that the focus is on the youth and families-exactly where it should be; we truly have something special here! There was several times in conversation a person this week would say “I haven’t been to the fair in X years” to which I’d respond “Welcome back!”. For those of you reading this and can identify with that statement, I’d really encourage you to come out next year-because you truly are missing out on something special.
Every year different things stand out as I’m sure they do for the youth and parents as well. This year, these are some of my reflections looking back:
*Deanna and Holli working so hard to prepare before fair while Cindy and I continued programming right up to fair. Everything was ready to go and we felt prepared for everything this year!
*The Fair Board Members working so hard before fair, deciding not to run me over before fair : ), and cheerfully picking up trash each morning and doing various tasks throughout fair.
*All the Superintendents, 4-H Council members, and Leaders pitching in wherever needed-how you all organized your volunteers to make the shows, exhibit judging, and the food stand run so smoothly.
*Kurt and Amy-the FFA Advisors from Sutton and Sandy Creek becoming so involved this year-it was great having them as a part of our team!
*The adults and youth who pitched in to clean out horse stalls Wednesday night before the fair.
*The beautiful day for the poultry/rabbit show outside and the youth excited to show their bucket calves and do their interviews on Thursday.
*The family fun night on Thursday night-I love seeing all the
families come out and see what the 4-H clubs come up with each year! Games, face painting, campfire, and all the work that went into pre-cutting the wheels and blocks to make small vehicles out of wood-a really cool and fun night!
*Beautiful morning for the hog show and the horse shows running so smoothly.
*The sheep and meat goat judge working so well with the youth –
frankly all our judges did a great job with this-it’s where the focus should be-but the sheep/meat goat judge was exceptional!
*The beef judge commenting the quality of our breeding beef can compete with any show anywhere; just watching our youth building their herds for
the future with hopes of coming back-that is exciting!
*The awesome buyers at the livestock auction, the excellent job that Bruce McDowell did as always and that Lonnie Stripe did as well, and a smooth-running auction!
*The dedication of the Clay County News staff-especially Tory who endured all the shows in order to capture those special moments and feature stories!
*The way so many swine families stuck around at the end to clean up the swine/sheep barn and help me put things away this year so I didn’t have to do that myself. I really appreciated that!
*There are many moments but for the sake of space, THANK YOU ALL for making the Clay Co. Fair a success!
Llama-4-H Experience
Saturday was a neat day at the Clay County Fairgrounds starting with the 5K and 10K runs in which I heard 65 people ran or walked in! It was exciting to see the crowd that turned out to watch this first year event and hopefully it’s conducted again because it seemed like a success for the first year! After the road race, it was
our Regional 4-H Dairy Cow and Goat show. That’s always an enjoyable show as it is laid back and fun-but it’s also a reminder that fair is just around the corner!
Following the dairy show, we tried something new. Some 4-H families adopted some rescue llamas so they were hoping to show them. While livestock isn’t my strong suite, I know nothing about llamas so we opted for an exhibition this year. A 4-H Club from Polk County generously came down and ran the exhibition for us.
It was interesting watching showmanship as the youth held the halters high but not close to the llamas’ mouths and they never changed sides when the judge walked past. Probably the most
interesting part was watching the obstacle course. Essentially it’s like a glorified trail’s course for horses, only more interesting! Youth had to pick up a hula hoop and put it around his or herself then have the llama essentially walk through it. The llama had to back between logs, walk over bridges, change pace, and in different spots it had to put two feet in a ring laying on the ground and the youth had to do things like show the judge the llama’s hooves or teeth! Needless to say, it was very interesting and I think everyone watching learned a great deal!
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