We sprayed every acre once, some twice, and the beetle pressure is still so intense that any smaller plants are either not getting ahead or are being killed outright. Crops ranges from nearly bolting to bare ground. The bare spots upon much closer inspection still have many small plants, but the number of beetles per plant won't let them grow bigger than 1/4" leaves. Lots of dead plants too, some were quite big. Spot sprayed some more areas again yesterday, although I think by the 1st of July that is completely futile even if those beat up little plants survive they are way too far behind. A few cut worms too.
Scouting requires looking close at nearly every acre, almost constantly. When plants were too small to see from a great distance, it wasn't apparent how much damage there was if you check all the wrong spots.
Trying to understand if there is any logic to where they are worst. Only common theme is any areas that were late in germinating or stressed are guaranteed to be worse. Lots ended up too deep. Inspite of the moisture, I was gunshy about having seeds stranded too shallow in dry soil after the past two years of no rain all spring. Would have worked fine, except the gully washer rains collapsed the seed trench left by drill and buried many seeds 1 to 2" deep then crusted over. Those areas that only have a couple plants per foot must have the same number of bugs as the good areas so they just do that much more damage to the remaining plants. Same with wet areas that are way behind and short on populations.
Beyond that the damaged areas seem completely random. Seeding date, Rich black soil in one area, then clay in another, didn't matter what the cropping history was, or tilled vs no tilled. One quarter of direct seeded hay sod was really bad, another 20 acres of direct seeded hay sod ( later) shows no damage.
Trialed a couple bags treated with Lumiderm, it is a week ahead of the crop without seeded same day, and has almost no holes regardless of soil type or depth. In hindsight, that would have been cheap insurance on every acre. 3 Invigor varieties, 4 pioneer, all the same except for the Lumiderm treated.
Going to need to pull off another miracle ( third year in a row) to make any worthwhile average yield this year. Many areas plant will need to fill in 6 foot gaps, and flower for 3 months again. Combined in November two years in a row, maybe we can do it again.
Scouting requires looking close at nearly every acre, almost constantly. When plants were too small to see from a great distance, it wasn't apparent how much damage there was if you check all the wrong spots.
Trying to understand if there is any logic to where they are worst. Only common theme is any areas that were late in germinating or stressed are guaranteed to be worse. Lots ended up too deep. Inspite of the moisture, I was gunshy about having seeds stranded too shallow in dry soil after the past two years of no rain all spring. Would have worked fine, except the gully washer rains collapsed the seed trench left by drill and buried many seeds 1 to 2" deep then crusted over. Those areas that only have a couple plants per foot must have the same number of bugs as the good areas so they just do that much more damage to the remaining plants. Same with wet areas that are way behind and short on populations.
Beyond that the damaged areas seem completely random. Seeding date, Rich black soil in one area, then clay in another, didn't matter what the cropping history was, or tilled vs no tilled. One quarter of direct seeded hay sod was really bad, another 20 acres of direct seeded hay sod ( later) shows no damage.
Trialed a couple bags treated with Lumiderm, it is a week ahead of the crop without seeded same day, and has almost no holes regardless of soil type or depth. In hindsight, that would have been cheap insurance on every acre. 3 Invigor varieties, 4 pioneer, all the same except for the Lumiderm treated.
Going to need to pull off another miracle ( third year in a row) to make any worthwhile average yield this year. Many areas plant will need to fill in 6 foot gaps, and flower for 3 months again. Combined in November two years in a row, maybe we can do it again.
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