News
With drought intensification, Nebraska farmer concerned about disease pressure
A South-Central Nebraska farmer says he has concerns that the drought could increase disease pressure in this year’s crop.
Randy Uhrmacher tells Brownfield he opted not to apply fungicide in some fields. “We didn’t do any non-irrigated this year because we didn’t know if we were going to get enough moisture to get a crop off it.”
He says he’s noticing an emergence of western bean cutworm and another disease. “I was out in the field changing a pivot tire last night. I’m sure glad we did it because you can see the gray leaf spot coming up from the bottom of the plant.”
And, Uhrmacher says, if Japanese Beatles move farther west, it could be a significant problem for his soybeans. “That’s something we’re going to have to keep an eye on. Hopefully they don’t get to an economic threshold where we have to start spraying those, too.”
He says he just wrapped up fungicide application for his irrigated corn last week.
