Adaptation to Extreme Weather Events with Cover Crops
This article considers how cover crops can contribute to the adaptive management of extreme weather events like droughts, floods, extreme precipitation, and extreme soil temperature fluctuations.
Grain Production and Management
Extension specialists and educators provide timely resources and information to help Wisconsin crop producers and their agricultural consultants manage crops efficiently and profitably.
Articles
Mycotoxins: Beware of this hidden danger in this fall’s harvest
In Wisconsin, it seemed like every passing rain cloud dropped an inch or more of rain, and those clouds just kept coming. Combine record moisture in some areas with high humidity and clouds, and it was the perfect storm for slugs, molds, and diseases to infiltrate our crop fields and cause damage.
▶ Watch: Biological Nitrogen Products
In the September 25, 2024 Badger Crop Connect webinar, Dr. Steven Hall, Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist in the UW–Madison Department of Soil and Environmental Sciences, discussed the context, challenges, and potential opportunities for biological nitrogen fixation products in cereal crops.
6 common traits of top-yielding fields
Many factors affect crop yield; only one of them is fertilizer. The six factors listed here have a strong relationship with consistently better-yielding areas of a farm field.
▶ Watch: Wheat and Soybean in 2024: When grains do the hokey-pokey
The July 24 Badger Crop Connect webinar featured Dr. Shawn Conley, Extension Soybean and Small Grains Agronomist and Professor in the Department of Plant and Agroecosystem Sciences, University of Wisconsin–Madison. Shawn discusses preliminary results from 2024 Wisconsin winter wheat performance trials including yield, test weight and disease presence data; cover crop challenges in 2024; and the status of soybean stands across Wisconsin.
▶ Watch: Midseason Disease Update
The July 24 Badger Crop Connect webinar featured Dr. Damon Smith, Extension field crops pathologist and Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology, University of Wisconsin–Madison. Damon gives an update on what diseases he’s seeing in Wisconsin farm fields in late July 2024. He mainly discusses white mold in soybean and tar spot in corn and management practices for each.
▶ Watch: Managing Tar Spot in Corn
Damon Smith, UW–Madison Extension field crops pathologist, and Michael Geissinger, outreach specialist with UW-Madison Extension Nutrient & Pest Management in Northwest Wisconsin, talk about the conditions this year, what that means for tar spot development, and management considerations for controlling it if it shows up in your field.
DON Considerations for Wheat Grown for Livestock Feed
DON (deoxynivalenol or vomitoxin) is a mycotoxin produced by the fungus responsible for Fusarium Head Blight (FHB), a common and economically important disease in small grains. DON is a problem because it is toxic to humans and animals. Grain grown on-farm and fed to livestock should be managed properly to avoid negative effects.
▶ Watch: Cover crop research updates at the U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center
The July 10 Badger Crop Connect webinar featured Jose Franco, a research agronomist with the U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center (USDA). Jose summarized current research efforts at the U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center on cover crops and continuous living cover. Ongoing research includes cover crop breeding efforts, work on alternatives to winter cereal rye following corn silage and some of the benefits of including flowering cover crops, and a whole systems approach to dairy forage systems evaluations.
▶ Watch: Building knowledge about Wisconsin’s cover crops through citizen science
The July 10 Badger Crop Connect webinar featured Dane Elmquist, a conservation cropping outreach specialist in the UW–Madison Division of Extension Agriculture Institute. Dane gave an overview of the Wisconsin Cover Crop Citizen Science network and highlighted project results. He also showcased the project’s interactive data dashboard and provided information on how to participate in the project for the 2024-2025 season.
▶ Watch: Corn and soy situation and outlook
The June 26 Badger Crop Connect webinar featured Dr. Brenda Boetel, Professor and Department Chair of Agricultural Economics, and Extension Agricultural Marketing Specialist at UW–River Falls. The grain markets are off of their February 2024 lows; however, prices still remain lower than what farmers have experienced the previous few years.
▶ Watch: Farm finance and policy update
Dr. Mitchell opens with a quick update on prevented planning options with crop insurance and where we are with crop progress and crop conditions based on USDA NASS data. He then examines various indicators about the current state of farm finances in this year of projected tight margins for corn and soybeans, such as land values, loan repayment rates, interest rates and inflation. Discussion focuses on financial steps farmers can take now as they prepare for fall. Dr. Mitchell closes with some updates on where Congress is with the Farm Bill and some of the changes being proposed for commodity support and crop insurance.
