Our first significant heat wave hit Indiana this week with the added benefit of high humidity.
Our first significant heat wave hit Indiana this week with the added benefit of high humidity.
This half-day event will highlight grain and fiber research trials, processing demonstrations, and novel applications of hemp.
Corn growth stages are quite variable across Indiana but several areas with early planted corn are reaching tassel.
Many areas of Indiana experienced excessive rainfall from mid-May through late June (Figure 1), with some locations receiving more than 10–15 inches of rain between May 31 and June 29.
The phrase is an old folk proverb that entered the written record gradually in the mid-1800s. The phrase has a historical agronomic basis, it’s just not relevant today. Public interest in the phrase can be filed under the category: “Perennial Folksy Questions About Corn That News Media Like to Write About”. If I had a penny for every time someone asked me about the popular Corn Belt adage “Knee-high by the Fourth of July” over the 40+ years I spent as Purdue’s Extension Corn Specialist, I would have a lot of pennies and no where to spend them in today’s economy. The news media especially love to publish folksy articles this time of year on this well-known “metric” of growing corn and have been doing so for well over one hundred years. The most rigorous tracing of the origin of the phrase (etymologist Barry Popik’s 2012 article) finds the saying[Read More…]
The average spring (March–May) temperature in Indiana was 55.9°F, which was 4°F above the 1991–2020 normal.
Southern Indiana experienced wet feet for much of May with totals from 6 to nearly 12 inches.
Indiana has received quite a bit of rain in the last few months, and fields are flooded throughout the state. How can you determine if you just have a flooding injury or a seedling disease has taken hold? Standing water leads to root suffocation as roots are oxygen-deprived and CO2 builds up. Digging up a few plants in the area can help determine the issue. If the outer root tissue sloughs off and reveals the white hair-like core of the root, then there may only be a flooding injury. If the roots appear rotted, brown and mushy, then a root rot may have infected the stressed plants. Flooding also kills the nitrogen-fixing bacteria, so you can cut open the soybean nodules to see if they have lost their healthy pink color. In contrast, seedling diseases, such as Phytophthora root and stem rot, can leave the roots brown and rotted, but[Read More…]
Although not a pest in all of the state, the Western bean cutworm (WBC) has been in an issue for Indiana producers for 20 years – the first recorded adult capture was documented in the Pest&Crop newsletter on July 7 2006 both in pheromone traps and black light traps, at PPAC in Wanatah, and NEPAC in Columbia City, respectively.
Indiana has seen several rounds of severe weather, and many are likely ready for a break.
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