Many farmers in the Upper Midwest use agricultural tile drainage to produce crops. Farmers in Wisconsin and Minnesota have been using agricultural tile drainage for decades. Tile drainage is used to achieve moisture conditions that improve field access, promote crop growth and yield, and decrease surface runoff. Tile drainage can also serve as a conduit for sediment and nutrient transport to surface waters and more information and education is needed to reduce this potential pathway for transport. 

Although there is a great deal of research on soil health, the concepts are still loosely defined, and there are not clear resources for farmers to determine their farm’s impact on soil. More research is needed to determine the most effective methods of measuring soil health, and whether those measurements relate to management decision and crop yield. 

Current manure application practices require nutrient analysis procedures that can lead to significant variation in manure nutrient application. Many time manure samples are not timely, where samples are commonly obtained during application and analyzed at the laboratory using wet chemistry methods that provide results after application. This methodology only allows for updating maps and nutrient management plans to reflect the actual nutrient application rates and does not allow for adjustments during application. In addition, composite or limited samples are collected and analyzed which are used to represent the manure characteristics of an entire manure storage. These practices lead to inaccurate accounting of the manure nutrients applied to a field. This can result in yield reductions if under-applied or loss of valuable nutrients leading to negative environmental consequences if over applied. This project aims to assess the utility of a NIR nutrient prediction sensor using laboratory and fields methods to determine nutrient characteristics during application and vary the rate of manure to improve accuracy of manure nutrient applications. Data presented will show the variation in manure nutrient concentration from manure storages, variation in laboratory nutrient measurements, ability of a laboratory NIR system to measure manure nutrient concentrations, and the nutrient application rates measured in the field from a manure spreader equipped with an NIR sensor system and flow meter. 

Manure nutrients are beneficial when land applied but can contribute to environmental degradation when lost as runoff, emissions, or leachate. Applying manure nutrients to better meet agronomic crop needs has potential to reduce losses but transporting manure nutrients to nutrient deficient fields is commonly cost prohibitive. Densifying manure nutrients into manure based products has the potential to reduce transport costs but current technologies, including solid liquid separation, composting, and pelleting, can remain cost prohibitive in areas of high livestock density. This project aims to assess converting manure solids to biochar and its impact on nutrient densification and availability. Data presented will show impacts on manure phosphorus and nitrogen during biochar production, and availability of phosphorous when manure-derived biochar is applied to a loam and sandy loam soil during a 182-day incubation study. 

Highlights of our recent potato and vegetable research include: 

• In the herbicide evaluation program, we’ve conducted field studies on over two dozen crops in recent years. This process typically starts with a multi-species herbicide screen, where we take a first look at many herbicide active ingredients across more than a dozen vegetable crops. Those that show promise are moved on to crop-specific replicated studies, and if there remains to be crop safety, added value for weed control and registrant interest, we then conduct refined studies to evaluate aspects such as crop variety tolerance, weed control spectrum, multiple soil types and viable use patterns (timing, rate, adjuvants, tank-mixes, etc.). We continue to work across regions to custom-tailor local solutions. While new herbicide active ingredient development is rather sparse in recent years, we still have several herbicides that are registered in other crops that look promising and are in various stages of the registration process. For example, in 2021 we began to evaluate a new herbicide proposed for use in potato that in Europe has already become the most widely used product for potato weed control. We’ll continue that work at multiple locations. 

• We continue to work on ways to make small-seeded vegetables such as carrot, onion and cabbage more competitive with weeds in the early season and to optimize yield per unit of crop inputs, such as fertilizer and water. Our efforts recently have been focused on using natural plant growth regulators in combination with competitive varieties and seeding configurations to enhance production. We have a new graduate student starting on this project in 2022 and have established collaborations with researchers in multiple states. 

• Similarly, we initiated work in 2020 to study the use of plant growth regulators to hasten uniform potato emergence and canopy development. The results of this preliminary study were interesting, suggesting that early-season potato growth can be significantly altered by low rates of plant growth regulator application. In 2021, we continued this work by looking at both seed and early foliar treatments and will follow these through harvest to determine tuber yield, size distribution and quality implications. In 2022, we’ll work to refine the application rates and timing that best improve competition with weeds while also monitoring tuber size distribution and yield. 

With rapid spread of herbicide-resistant Palmer amaranth and waterhemp in central Wisconsin in particular, we anticipate continued adoption of synthetic auxin-resistant soybean. The applied research that we’ve recently conducted has been used to inform regulators, growers and processors about the risks associated with potential drift, volatility or tank contamination. We’ll continue to provide objective, science-based information to these important discussions such that they’re grounded in reality and not just marketing. Additionally, waterhemp management in potato and rotational vegetables will be an outreach focus in 2022 based on grower and consultant input. 

• In 2021, we initiated preliminary investigations of using an interseeded rye cover crop in strip plantings every 4 potato rows or between each potato row as a potential mechanism to capture leachate below the potato root zone. One of the greatest challenges in mixed species cropping is herbicide selectivity – getting acceptable weed control without killing the cover crop. In 2022, we’re amending our methods to include fall-planted annual and perennial cover crops to improve that herbicide selectivity. 

• We continue to lead related efforts and projects, such as serving on the DNR Groundwater Technical Advisory Committee and the Wisconsin IPM Program. We’re also now investigating potential economically viable alternative crops that could further diversify Wisconsin’s agricultural portfolio. In 2020, we established alternative crop studies in two central Wisconsin locations, Antigo and Arlington and continued this work through the 2021 growing season. The groundnut is of particular interest in the potato rotation and 2022 studies will focus on agronomic optimization of this crop that is a drought-tolerant, nitrogen fixing legume with high protein content. 

Corn growers continually face many production challenges including low grain prices, high input prices and regulatory pressure to minimize nutrient losses to the environment. Nitrogen management figures prominently into these challenges with questions surrounding selection of N fertilizer rate. The objective of this study was to evaluate the profitability and efficiency of N rate selection tools currently used in Wisconsin. 

Soil phosphorus (P) tests used for crop nutrient recommendations should be correlated to crop yield response and calibrated to identify interpretation classes of responsiveness. Common soil P tests recommended for the U.S. north-central region have been correlated to crop yield response, and include the Bray-1, Mehlich-3, and Olsen tests. Which test is used more predominately in a state is a function of the recommendation systems in place, chemical reactions between soil constituents and the extracting solutions, and its overall intended use. Also important is the ability to use a test to extract and measure additional elements, which is the case for the Mehlich-3 test in Iowa or Bray-1 test in Wisconsin. 

Nitrogen use efficiency assessment in Wisconsin is an ongoing project. Please check out the following Discovery Farms publications: 

Nitrogen Use Efficiency: Statewide NUE benchmarking for corn grain and silage 

https://uwdiscoveryfarms.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/1255/2020/08/DiscoveryFarms-NUE-ForOnline.pdf 

Nitrogen Use Efficiency: A guide to conducing your own assessment 

https://uwdiscoveryfarms.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/1255/2020/07/NUE-A-guide-to-conducting-your-own-assessment.pdf 

Project results will be continually updated on the Discovery Farms website (uwdiscoveryfarms.org). 

Tar spot of corn, caused by Phyllachora maydis, is a newly established and emerging disease in the United States. Since 2018, it has had significant yield impacts on corn production in northern Indiana and regions around Lake Michigan, causing an estimated 20 to 60 bu/acre yield loss. Tar spot has also continued to spread as it has now been confirmed in 14 states and Canada. The tar spot fungus can overwinter in the upper Midwest resulting in high inoculum levels that are able to cause disease in future seasons when favorable environmental conditions occur. In 2021, significant losses expanded beyond northern Indiana to pockets in the southern part of the state. A summary of our experiences in Indiana on the distribution and spread of tar spot will be presented, as we continue to improve our understanding of this disease. 

Sclerotinia stem rot (a.k.a. white mold) is a disease of soybean (Glycine max) caused by the fungal pathogen, Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (Roth et al., 2020). In highly conducive years, white mold can cause soybean yield losses of up to 61 million bushels in a single season (Bradley et al., 2021). Sclerotinia sclerotiorum most successfully initiates infections in soybean during flowering periods by releasing puffs of ascospores into the canopy of the crop. These ascospores then germinate and grow on senescing plant tissues such as flowers, leading to infection and colonization of soybean vascular parts. Upon full constriction of the soybean stem by S. sclerotiorum, the infected soybean plants begin to prematurely wilt and die, resulting in reduced seed fill and subsequent yield losses. While yield losses due to white mold can be substantial, a disease severity index (DIX) rating of 40% is needed for significant losses, with severe losses only being found at a DIX of 68% (Willbur et al., 2019). In order to prevent the development of white mold and the resulting yield losses, management practices for controlling this disease have been the focus of many independent research efforts. 

Tar spot of corn, caused by Phyllachora maydis, has become a major disease issue in corn production in northern Indiana. The annual impact of this emerging disease will be a function of the weather, hybrid and when the disease epidemic initiates, earlier vs. later in the season. Our research has found that some hybrids are more resistant than others, but strong hybrid resistance can be overcome by a favorable disease environment. Fungicide application can reduce tar spot severity, but product and timing are important. Fungicide application needs to occur close to the onset of the epidemic and the number of applications and optimal timing are going to vary year by year. In 2019 and 2020 in uniform fungicide trials, fungicides significantly reduced tar spot and protected yield by 1.5 to 7.9% over the non-treated controls. Products that had two or three modes of action (MOAs) decreased tar spot severity over not treating and products with one MOA. Three MOAs significantly increased yield over not treating with a fungicide or using a single MOA group. A summary of our research in Indiana will be presented as we continue to improve our understanding of tar spot disease management options to mitigate yield loss. 

Corn for silage is an important component of a dairy cow’s diet. This staple can be responsible for more than 50% of the total dry-matter intake for the cow, especially in the winter. To produce high-quality silage the use of brown mid-rib hybrids (BMR) has become common. These hybrids have lower indigestible lignin and can produce a higher-quality feed than their counterparts. However, with low lignin comes the tradeoff in low disease resistance. Gibberella ear rot and stalk rot have become diseases of concern in silage corn production in the northern corn production belt of the United States. Gibberella diseases not only damage the plant and can reduce yield and quality but can also lead to the accumulation of the mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON). To manage these diseases and reduce DON on susceptible corn hybrids, farmers are becoming increasingly reliant on foliar fungicide applications. Research has indicated that foliar fungicide applications can lead to mixed success in managing Gibberella ear rot and stalk rot. Research has also demonstrated that DON can accumulate in the stalk and ear portions of the plant independently. Weather from one year to the next may play a role in the type of disease (ear rot or stalk rot) and where DON accumulates. The location of infection by the Gibberella fungus and accumulation of DON likely influences the success in using fungicide to reduce DON levels in finished feed. This presentation will discuss what we know about DON accumulation in corn plant parts. We will also discuss current knowledge on managing DON accumulation using fungicide. Other aspects of Gibberella infection and effects on silage feed will also be discussed. 

Cropping system diversity is an important aspect of agricultural sustainability. This is especially true in Wisconsin dairy systems where farmers seek forage and grain options that can potentially minimize nutrient loss and erosion over winter months and provide land for summer manure applications. Hybrid rye is a relatively new alternative crop option; however, we lack basic agronomic recommendations for our farmers. Two studies were conducted in Wisconsin to evaluate the nitrogen needs of hybrid rye. Studies were a split-plot design with four replications. Two varieties (KWS Propower and KWS Serafino) were fertilized at four fall (0, 17, 34, 50 kg N ha-1) and six spring (0, 34, 67, 101, 135, 168kg N ha-1) nitrogen rates. Trials were established in September 2020. One study evaluated nitrogen needs for forage production and the other for grain production. The forage trial was harvested at Feekes 10.1 in May 2021 and the grain trial at Feekes 11.4 in July 2021. The ‘lmer’ package in R was used for linear regression. Both fall and spring nitrogen had a significant impact on forage yield, with yields increasing as nitrogen rates increase. Results of grain yields were similar, although there was a stronger yield response to spring nitrogen application in treatments receiving no fall nitrogen. When compared to other forage and grain crops in Wisconsin, hybrid rye yields were comparable or better. Data on forage and grain yield and quality will be presented. These trials will be repeated at two locations in 2022 and data will be used to create preliminary nitrogen management guidelines for hybrid rye. 

Ransomware attacks continue to affect the food and agribusiness sector, with many instances hitting very close to home here in Wisconsin. It’s imperative that agribusinesses understand the implications of lax cybersecurity, how to protect your operations from a breach, and, finally, what to do if your systems are attacked by cybercriminals. 

A carbon credit is a tradable asset (similar to a certificate or permit) that represents the right to release or emit carbon into the atmosphere. Typically, each credit represents one metric ton (2,204 pounds) of carbon dioxide or an equivalent amount of another greenhouse gas. Carbon credits are created when entities (compared to a set baseline) reduce their carbon emissions or sequester carbon. 

A growing number of private initiatives are offering farmers compensation for the generation of agriculture carbon credits as well as other ecosystem services, such as improvements in water quality. Agricultural producers can create carbon credits in a variety of ways: moving from conventional tillage to reduced or no tillage, reducing stocking rates on pastures, planting cover crops or trees, reducing fertilizer rates, or converting marginal cropland to grassland. The result of this is an emerging agriculture carbon credits market that is a mixture of coexisting programs, each with different rules, incentives, and players. 

Objective: Evaluate the efficacy of five different at-plant insecticide treatments on two different sweet corn hybrids for control of seedcorn maggot (DIPTERA: Delia platura). 

Experimental design: This trial was conducted at the University of Wisconsin’s Arlington Agricultural Research Station, located 3 miles southeast of Arlington, WI, on a silt loam soil in 2021. Two separate plantings were established intended to evaluate efficacy against the second and third generation of the seedcorn maggot lifecycle, respectively. The second generation planting was established on May 26, 2021, at coordinates 43.316713, -89.335280, while the third generation planting was established Jun 23, 2021, at coordinates 43.317012, -89.333932. Each planting measured 120 ft. wide by 135 ft long, containing four replicates of 12 adjacent 10 ft (4 rows on 30 in. spacing) by 30 ft long plots, with 5 ft of unplanted space along rows separating replicates. Seed was planted using a 2-row planter equipped with a cone feeder. Each 30 ft. row received 45 seeds, for an approximate seed spacing of 8 in. 

Remote sensing is an innovative, timely, non-destructive and spatially comprehensive approach to improve existing in-season crop production management practices. Remote sensing typically provides several narrow spectral bands (~ 3 to10 nm), which can capture fine absorption features of crop nutrients (e.g., leaf chlorophyll, water and nitrogen). So far many studies have indicated that remote sensing can be effectively applied to predicting crop parameters/variables, such as leaf area index, biomass, foliar N concentration, and leaf chlorophyll content. 

The corn-soybean rotation of the U.S. Corn Belt is the dominant cropping system. It is a relatively young cropping system that is currently challenged by many abiotic and biotic factors. A question often asked, “Is it sustainable?” Resilient, stable, and productive cropping systems are needed to endure increasingly frequent climatic extremes. Our objectives were 1) To identify superior corn-soybean cropping sequences for stability and resilience across environments, and 2) To explore the relationship between productivity, stability, and resilience of corn-soybean rotations. Productivity is the average yield across normal years. Stability is the minimal variability of yields across normal years. Resilience is the ability of a system to withstand a climatic crisis with high yields and not deviate during the crisis with the ability to recover from a crisis and the speed of this recovery. An experiment initiated in 1983 involving tillage and corn-soybean rotations was used to evaluate stability and resiliency. Crop rotations included continuous corn, continuous soybean, corn-soybean rotation, and 5-yrs corn followed by 5-yrs soybean. In every year all phases of the crop sequences was established. The rotation effect lasted two years for corn and slightly longer for soybean. Greatest yields were measured during first- and second-year corn and soybeans. The pattern for corn yield response to rotation phase is different than the pattern for soybean. First year soybean following 5-yrs of corn yields more than rotated soybean. In corn, stability was not affected by rotation phase. In soybean, stability decreases as rotation phase increases. The standard deviation range between rotation phases is + 15 to 17 bu/A for corn and + 5.1 to 5.6 bu/A for soybean. The resiliency of the corn-soybean yield response pattern is similar across rotation phase. Seasonal growing degree day accumulation does not affect grain yield as much as precipitation. Warm/dry stress years affect grain yield more than cool/wet years. For soybean, the year following a warm/dry stress year was better yielding than an average year. Management decisions involving cropping sequence should be based upon productivity rather than stability or resiliency. 

IN A BEAN POD: 

–Soybean A.I.-based cropping systems were, in general, successful in increasing yield and profit compared to typical systems 

–Across all locations, following soybean A.I. recommended systems would have increased mean yield by ~7 bu/ac and mean profit by ~$40/ac compared to typically used cropping systems 

–The potential of corn A.I.-based cropping systems to increase yield and profit was not clear 

–The corn A.I. tool recommended systems resulted in either increased or similar profit with typical systems by applying 19-223% lower nitrogen fertilizer rate

Both abundant crop productivity and attention to stewardship of natural resources are foundations of solid agronomy and are aligned with objectives expressed as “sustainability.” These dual objectives for crop and soil management are challenging, but essential. 

Maize (Zea mays L.) yields have risen continuously since the adoption of hybrid maize in the US in the 1930s. About 50 to 60% of this increase has been attributed to genetic improvement with the remainder being credited to advances in crop protection, fertilization and other cultural practices. 

Modern maize breeding programs are designed based on advances in genetics, biometry and experimental design and they usually demand large amounts of genomic and phenotypic data to pursue these goals. With the rapid decrease in sequencing technologies costs, there has been a recent “bottlenecking” in the acquisition and analysis of phenotypic data in the breeder’s pipeline. This situation has brought this new science of “phenomics” to the forefront of plant breeding. 

The first part of this talk will provide a broad overview of the progress of maize yield in the last 100 years focusing on plant traits that have changed significantly as a response to selection affecting directly or indirectly grain yield (as yield components). The second part will emphasize how critical it is to obtain high throughput measurements of phenotypes to achieve genetic gain in modern breeding. Four examples of recent technologies delivered by academic research laboratories will be addressed: (1) A method for computing maize ear, cob and kernel attributes automatically from images (2) A system for automated image-based phenotyping of maize tassels, (3) High throughput non-destructive prediction of maize kernel composition and morphology measurements using an NIR flatbed scanner and (4) The use unmanned aerial systems to predict plant height and its relationship with yield. 

In 2022, Bayer Crop Science is planning a limited commercial launch of SmartStax PRO with RNAi Technology. SmartStax® PRO will be the first product with three modes of action for corn rootworm control, two from B.t. proteins (Cry3Bb1 and Cry34Ab1/ Cry35Ab1) and one from a unique RNAi mode of action (DvSnf7 dsRNA). Large scale field studies implemented in 2021 assessed SmartStax® PRO Technology and other leading corn rootworm products, including SmartStax® Technology, Optimum® AcreMax® XTreme Technology, Qrome® Technology, and Agrisure Duracade® Technology across a range of corn rootworm pressure. SmartStax® PRO Technology consistently had lower node injury scores compared to the other corn rootworm technologies. 

As African swine fever virus (ASFV) continues to spread across Southeast Asia, classical swine fever virus (CSFV) reports occur in Japan, and foot and mouth disease virus (FMDV) spread continues with new strains emerging in China, there is increased concern that foreign animal disease (FAD) may enter naïve countries (Bachanek-Bankowska, 2018). Entry of FADs would be devastating to the livestock industry, but also to those that produce feed and ingredients. The ASFV incursion into China in 2018 illustrates this case. The disease quickly spread throughout the country, directly causing extremely high levels of swine morbidity and mortality, but also indirect repercussions throughout the entire agricultural industry. In May 2019, pig feed production was only 2/3 of the previous year’s production in the Shandong Province (FAO, 2019). 

With spring and fall seasons becoming increasingly wet and unpredictable when it comes to the weather, farmers and commercial manure applicators are looking for alternative periods of time to apply livestock manure. Applying manure to corn (Zea mays L.) during the growing season, referred to as sidedressing, could provide farmers with a window of opportunity while maximizing nutrient uptake efficiency. The practice needs to be fine-tuned, however, to increase adoption by farmers in the region. Four studies have been conducted to evaluate different aspects of sidedressing manure, two involving the use of a drag hose system and two involving tanker application. 

There is growing interest in using cover crops to improve soil health and protect water quality. In cool, northern climates, however, the short growing season makes it more difficult to get cover crops established in the fall, especially on farms that also fall-apply livestock manure. Traditionally, manure is applied after the cash crop is harvested followed by cover crop seeding. This leaves little time – and growing degrees – for the cover crops to successfully establish. Interseeding cover crops into a cash crop allows more time for growth and is becoming popular. But how can manure be applied into a living cover crop without damaging it? Newer injection technologies allow liquid manure application beneath a living cover crop with minimal disturbance, but many questions about the practice remain. Our primary goals for this project were to develop and demonstrate best management practices for the integration of cover crops and manure injection. Secondarily, we evaluated whether the combination of practices has added beneficial effects when compared to each practice alone. 

Dairy manure is a valuable nutrient source for row crop production but requires judicious management to reduce potential application risks to ground and surface water quality. The first-year nutrient “book values” of liquid dairy manure (< 4% dry matter, < 1 hour to incorporated or injected) is estimated at 7 pounds of nitrogen (N), 3 pounds of P2O5, and 11 pounds K2O per 1,000 gallons (Laboski and Peters, 2012). Therefore, manure applications followed by potential nutrient runoff and/or leaching events can pose water quality risks. According to the Wisconsin Water Quality Report to Congress (WDNR, 2020), 13% of Wisconsin’s evaluated surface water bodies are classified as impaired, with phosphorus as the most frequently cited pollutant. In terms of groundwater, nitrate is the state’s most widespread contaminant, with approximately 10% of private drinking water wells exceeding the safe drinking water standard (WDNR, 2021). It is estimated 90% of Wisconsin’s groundwater nitrate enrichment results from agricultural input use, including manure and fertilizer applications (WDNR, 2021). 

The 2020-2021 cropping season provided some unique opportunities and challenges for cover crop incorporation into Wisconsin cropping systems. 2020 fall field conditions led to early crop harvest and cover crop establishment. This provided an opportunity for good fall growth and spring biomass production. A tremendous amount of biomass was observed from winter rye in late spring 2021. Spring crop planting conditions were challenging; dry soils, lack of rainfall, late spring frost, and on cover crop acres, tremendous biomass, created a perfect storm for challenging corn and soybean establishment. Fields were planted and, in some cases, re-planted in challenging conditions. Many issues observed in the field can be attributed to changes in anticipated conditions, but many could have been resolved with more planning. Cover crop termination plans/goals, planter set-up, down-pressure, closing wheels, and maintenance all contributed to field success and failures when planting into the greater than normal cover crop biomass accumulations. Throughout summer, cover crop biomass provided excellent weed control and help preserve moisture. With many areas of Wisconsin receiving less than normal precipitation, moisture management was going to be a key to retaining average crop yields. The lack of timely rains challenged cover crop interseeding and summer weed management program relying on residual chemistry. Late summer brought many late emerging weeds, especially waterhemp and fields with cover crop biomass helped hold off the germinating weeds. Fall conditions were ok for cover crop establishment although soil conditions remained dry in early fall. Early-November provided an excellent window for cover crop establishment. Moving into spring of 2022 keep an eye on snow cover, precipitation levels, and have a plan to terminate cover crops when appropriate. Take time to review planter maintenance, set-up and new techniques and technologies for implementing diverse crop rotations. 

Further Information: 

Cover Crops in Wisconsin http://fyi.uwex.edu/covercrop/ 

Nutrient and Pest Management Program Cover Crop Resources 

https://ipcm.wisc.edu/covercrops/ 

Cover Crops 101: A4176 University of Wisconsin Publication 

https://learningstore.extension.wisc.edu/collections/farming/products/cover-crops-101 

Fall armyworm (FAW), Spodoptera frugiperda, is an uncommon pest in the Midwest. You may have heard of FAW in the past as the insect to evolve resistance in the field to Bt corn (Cry1F). That was in the mid-2000s in Puerto Rico. It has also been in the news in the last few years as an invasive pest, spreading from the Americas into tropical areas of Africa and Asia. FAW is a tropical insect. In the Americas, its native range is in South and Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean. Larvae don’t diapause, and thus they can’t survive freezing temperatures. In the US, moths spend the winter in southern Texas and south Florida, and occasionally into areas along the gulf coast. FAW moves north as temperatures warm. Unlike other moths such as black cutworm or true armyworm, it rarely gets to our region. If FAW does make it the Great Lakes region, it is typically in low numbers as too late in the year to be of concern. Over my career in Michigan, I have only seen it a handful of times, as a few larvae in corn ears. FAW will feed on many hosts, but prefers grasses. There are two strains, recognized genetically and also by differences in host range. The corn strain prefers corn, sorghum and broadleaf crops like cotton. The rice strain prefers rice, turf, pasture grasses and forage crops. 

In late summer 2021, headlines read “Worst armyworm outbreak in 30 years” and FAW population “wreaking havoc in Wisconsin crops”. FAW infested and defoliated turf, small grains, alfalfa, clover, mixed hay, and various cover crops. This was clearly the rice strain of FAW. 

Why did this happen? 

• Favorable conditions (cool temps and rain) for population increase in mid-summer in the southern states; big populations appeared early 

• Unusual wind patterns in late July and early August carried moths north into our region 

• There were higher than average temperatures in August and well into fall, favorable for a tropical species. Several generations appear to have been completed. 

• It was easy to miss feeding by small larvae, and larvae often feed at night. 

• Once discovered, management was a challenge. Entomologists did not have a lot of experience with this insect. I personally kept hoping the weather would turn cold! And should sprays be done late in the season? 

• Some insecticide applications ‘failed’, likely because larvae were much too large when sprays were made, thus difficult to kill. Also, insects could have been resistant to pyrethroids, since they are exposed to insecticide applications in southern crops. 

What about the future? We can make a prediction that as the climate changes, FAW will become more of a problem in our region. Consider trapping for FAW so we know if/when it arrives. Lures and bucket traps are commercially available. The online Great Lakes & Maritimes Pest Monitoring Network is a place to see and contribute trap catches in the region. 

There are many defoliators in Midwestern soybean. Their feeding gets lumped together when estimating injury to determine the need to treat. Action thresholds in the region are similar among states: 30-40% in the vegetative stage, 15% at bloom, and then 20-30% up to R6 when spraying is not needed. These thresholds are good, developed in field trials in across many states, using both natural and artificial defoliation. The thresholds seem high, but remember the measurement is not of damage to pods or beans, but simply to leaf tissue which has some ability to replace itself. Also, spend some time under a typical soybean canopy – Its shady under there. While the top leaves capture full sunlight, the lower leaves aren’t working at full speed. They are extra capacity which can make up for defoliation at the top of the plant where insects like Japanese beetle, bean leaf beetle, and grasshoppers tend to feed. 

Alfalfa has been a foundational forage crop on Wisconsin dairy farms for decades, and for good reason. It has a reputation for its high quality forage and usefulness in a crop rotation. However, alfalfa has a tough time persisting in the poorly drained soils that characterize some of the state’s most dairy-dominant regions, leading to more tillage, expense and frustration for farmers already on tight profit margins. While alfalfa continues to be a great crop for many parts of the state, there are more appropriate options for areas with challenging soil conditions. Before alfalfa became popular, cool season grasses were the foundational forage crop. They are well-suited for Wisconsin, and while grasses are often perceived as being inferior to alfalfa in respect to forage quality due to higher fiber and lower crude protein, that is not necessarily always true. When managed appropriately, grasses have shown the potential to produce high quality forage, but this is not widely known across the industry as many nutritional standards and guidelines have been developed around alfalfa. Furthermore, the economic and environmental tradeoffs of managing grasses for high quality forage versus alfalfa are not well understood. Trials were conducted in 2020 and 2021 at the Marshfield Agricultural Research Station to explore the potential of various perennial and annual cool season grasses when managed for forage quality goals. Several species and varieties of perennial grasses were managed under an intense cutting (5x) schedule to evaluate yield and quality through the season. Italian ryegrass was managed under a similar cutting schedule and 7 different fertilization regimes (sources, rates, application methods) to evaluate yield and quality through the season. Perennial grasses seemed to show greater yield and quality potential than Italian ryegrass with less inputs of fertilizer-nitrogen (N) than Italian ryegrass required. Italian ryegrass yield and crude protein significantly increased as fertilizer-N was increased, but high rates of fertilizer exceed University recommendations, add significant cost of production, and leave a high amount of residual N in the soil as opposed to moderate fertilizer rates and other sources of fertilizer such as manure. 

Cereal rye (Secale cereale L.) has become a popular cover crop (CC) in corn (Zea mays L.)) and soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] production fields across Wisconsin and beyond. With the rise of herbicide-resistant weeds across Wisconsin, there is increased interest in adoption of cereal rye as a cover crop as part of an integrated weed management strategy. Previous research has shown that a cereal rye cover crop can be effective at suppressing small-seeded weeds such as waterhemp [Amaranthus tuberculatus (Moq.) Sauer]. The effectiveness of cereal rye in suppressing waterhemp is related to the amount of above-ground biomass produced which competes for resources (e.g., light, water, nutrients) while also providing a physical barrier. Achieving high cereal rye biomass can be challenging in corn-soybean rotations in the upper Midwest given the short window for cover crop growth. Research conducted in 2021 near Brooklyn, Wisconsin estimates that it takes ~7,000 lb of dry cereal rye biomass per acre to suppress waterhemp emergence by 50% however ~800 lb of dry cereal rye biomass per acre was enough to suppress waterhemp growth in 50%. Given the already narrow window which Wisconsin producers face for harvesting crops and planting cover crops, it can be difficult to obtain this level of cereal rye biomass. One strategy to help growers achieve more cereal rye biomass is targeting an earlier planting date of the cereal rye, which is not always an easy task with Wisconsin’s usually wet falls. Historically, the recommendation for terminating a cereal rye cover crop is 10 to 14 days before crop planting; however, some producers have started ‘planting green’ into a living cover crop to maximize its biomass in the spring and weed suppression potential. Over the last three years, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Cropping Systems Weed Science Program has conducted research on the value of fall-seeded cereal rye for weed suppression in corn and soybeans. Recommendations include fall-seeding cereal rye after corn preceding soybeans, pairing the cover crop with PRE-emergence herbicides containing multiple effective sites of action, and delaying termination of the cereal rye until the time of planting or 10 to 14 days after to maximize cereal rye biomass. Results will be summarized in this presentation to provide best management practices when considering adopting cereal rye as an additional tool as part of an integrated weed management strategy. 

Herbicide-resistant weeds have become commonplace across the Wisconsin row-crop landscape in recent years. Waterhemp [Amaranthus tuberculatus (Moq.) Sauer] has become one of the primary troublesome weeds for corn (Zea mays L.) and soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] producers due to its aggressive growth, extended emergence window, and rapid development of herbicide resistance. At current, waterhemp accessions have been determined resistant to ALS- (Group 2; imazethapyr), EPSPS- (Group 9; glyphosate), and PPO- (Group 14; fomesafen & lactofen) inhibitors in Wisconsin. The first comprehensive Wisconsin state-wide assessment of waterhemp response to a diverse group of herbicide site of action (SOA) was conducted by the UW-Madison Cropping Systems Weed Science Program in 2019 & 2020. Results suggest that imazethapyr and glyphosate POST are ineffective for waterhemp control and that atrazine PRE is ineffective for waterhemp control on silty clay loam soils in Wisconsin. Giant ragweed (Ambrosia trifida L.) is another troublesome weed for Wisconsin row-crop producers due to its aggressive growth and extended emergence window. Resistance to ALS- and EPSPS-inhibitor herbicides has been previously confirmed in Wisconsin. In 2020, a putative fomesafen-resistant (PPO-inhibitor) giant ragweed accession was detected in in food-grade, non-GMO soybeans in Rock County, Wisconsin and a greenhouse experiment was conducted to confirm resistance. Results indicate that this giant ragweed accession is highly resistant to fomesafen. To our knowledge, this is the first confirmed case globally of PPO-inhibitor resistance in giant ragweed. Fall panicum (Panicum dichotomiflorum Michx) is a reemerging troublesome weed in corn production and in 2020, a putative ALS-inhibitor (nicosulfuron) resistant fall panicum accession was detected in a sweet corn field in Dodge County, Wisconsin and greenhouse and molecular experiments were conducted to confirm resistance. This is particularly important as nicosulfuron is commonly used for POST grass control in sweet corn production. Results indicate that this fall panicum accession is highly resistant to nicosulfuron. This is the first confirmed case of ALS-inhibitor resistance in fall panicum in the USA. During this presentation, results will be shared to generate awareness on the current status of herbicide-resistant weeds in the state of Wisconsin and 

Increasing our understanding of the interaction of the effects of soil temperature, residue, and tillage type would potentially aid in developing new recommendations for corn production under reduced tillage practices. Therefore, the overall goal of this study was to determine the impact of conservation tillage on NUE and productivity of corn in Wisconsin.

Field trials are commonly used to estimate the effect of different factors on crop yield. To

date, evaluating the effectiveness of management practices to increase yield has been restricted

to specific soil types and weather conditions (i.e., environments) and background management

cropping systems. Thus, results of such experiments cannot be safely generalized to farms with

diverse soil types and background management. Currently, a method that evaluates and predicts

the effectiveness of tens of thousands of possible cropping system interactions to increase yield

in each specific field across the US does not exist. We have developed a novel approach to

perform such evaluation by aggregating data from thousands of experiments across the US by

leveraging the power of artificial intelligence algorithms. Our approach and algorithms can help

accelerate agricultural research by generating accurate yield estimates for thousands of cropping

systems and environments for specific fields. The result of this work can allow individual

farmers to identify the most appropriate cropping system (i.e., practice adoption) for their

specific environment and ultimately increase yield and/or profitability.

Fungal diseases can have a detrimental impact on soybean and corn yield. Foliar fungicides are

used to manage fungal diseases and minimize yield loss, along with cultural practices like tillage

and crop rotation. Prophylactic foliar fungicide use does not consistently increase yield for corn

and soybean, especially when disease pressures are low. Also, there are concerns about the

impact of fungicides on non-target organisms, including fungi living in the soil. We tested the

effects of tillage, crop rotation, and foliar fungicide use on corn grain and soybean seed yield

over three growing seasons. For both crops, rotation was key to achieving high yields, although

there was an interaction of tillage   crop rotation for soybean and crop rotation   fungicide for

corn. For soybean seed yield, both foliar fungicide treatments showed a small yield increase over

untreated plots. Additionally, we assessed bulk soil fungal communities in a subset of treatments

(crop rotation and fungicide treatments in no-till plots), using ITS sequencing and PLFA-FAME.

We observed distinct fungal communities in the continuously cropped treatments, while annually

rotated communities were very similar. There was also greater overall microbial biomass and a

higher relative abundance of arbuscular mycorrhizae fungi associated with continuous corn.

There were no differences in soil fungal communities or microbial biomass associated with foliar

fungicide treatments. Based on our findings, we recommend that farmers use integrated pest

management strategies to manage fungal diseases, which may include fungicide applications, if

they are justified by economic disease thresholds or prediction tools.

Alfalfa is unique from other crops as it requires a variety of machines to

harvest. Whether it is being harvested for silage or hay, alfalfa harvest can require up

to five different pieces of equipment per cutting. With this many machines traveling

through a field during a single harvest, a significant portion of production field can

be affected by machine traffic. Specific machines involved in alfalfa harvest include

a mower, merger or rake, tedder, forage harvester or baler and multiple different

types of transport vehicles. In the United States, over 6.7 million hectares of alfalfa

were harvested in 2019, worth over $9 billion (USDA/NASS, 2019) with some of

this area seeing multiple passes of machinery traffic. This substantial amount of

production in the US shows the impact machine traffic could have.

Over the last decade, scientists at the USDA-Agricultural Research Service, the University

of Wisconsin, Michigan State University and Penn State University have been developing

reliable methods for establishing alfalfa in high yielding silage corn. Based on this work,

the following represents our current recommendations for implementing this practice

on farms.

The goal of this presentation is to share published and preliminary results from

studies where “Next Generation” cover crop and N fertilizer management were employed for

corn production.

The abundance of late summer-harvested corn silage in Wisconsin means that there are many

acres where manure can be applied between late summer and later fall. Current nutrient

management guidelines estimate manure N availability based on animal source, solids content,

and application method, but no adjustments are made regarding application timing. A Wisconsin

Fertilizer Research program-funded research project evaluated how fall grass cover crops affect

the amount of N in the fall applied manure will be available to a subsequent corn crop. Results of

this research have shown that cover crop biomass influences the amount of N in the manure that

will remain for the next corn crop. If there is greater than 2,000 lb/ac of dry matter biomass, the

cover crop will have used all the N from the manure, while if there is less than 1,000 lb/ac of dry

matter biomass, the effect on the manure N credit is minimal.

Management of agricultural crops relies on integrated pest management strategies to mitigate

production losses due to insect infestation. Producers of field and vegetable crops depend on local and

regional guidelines for pesticide applications to limit insect infestation and minimize associated damage

(1). Within an agroecosystem, a producer may need to manage multiple insect, pathogen and plant species

resulting in the application of several insecticide, fungicide and herbicide mode of action groups,

respectively (2). Pesticide applications used for the same cropping system can vary among producers and

can vary between different geographic regions. One pest of solanaceous crops which is often controlled

using a diverse set of cultural and chemical management practices, is the Colorado potato beetle

(Leptinotarsa decemlineata Say). If not properly managed, this specialist herbivore can cause significant

defoliation of the potato canopy that can result in yield loss and economic injury for the producer. In

addition to its ability to rapidly defoliate plants, L. decemlineata is considered a major pest species

because of its ability to develop resistance to insecticides at a rapid rate (3).

Despite   significant  pandemic  related   restrictions  on   research  and   our   ability   to  do   things

like  travel  or  hire  student  workers,  2020  was  an  extremely  productive  research  season.    We

adjusted  to  the  times,  but  thanks  to  hard  work  by  the  team  we  were  able  to  accomplish  all  of

our   objectives.

Cucurbit downy mildew caused by the oomycete pathogen Pseudoperonospora cubensis

has been a sporadic disease concern in Wisconsin for many years. Since 2004, the United States

has seen a novel introduction of a variant of the pathogen which overcomes the dm1 cucumber

host resistance to downy mildew. The work of Drs. Lina Quesada Ocampo of North Carolina

State University, and Mary Hausbeck of Michigan State University has greatly elevated our

knowledge of cucurbit downy mildew in the US since 2005. The information that I provide in

this piece comes from their work. Because Wisconsin sees sporadic and infrequent cases of

cucurbit downy mildew, my fungicide recommendations typically reference the trial outcomes of

Dr. Mary Hausbeck at Michigan State Univ. due to proximity to our production region.

Currently, we have two groups of cucurbit downy mildew pathogens. One group, termed Clade

1 infects acorn squash, pumpkin, butternut squash, watermelon, bittermelon, and balsam apple.

The second group, termed Clade 2 is the newly introduced strain and it infects cucumber,

cantaloupe and Buffalo gourd. An additional notable difference between the clades is that Clade

2 very quickly becomes resistant to single site mode of action fungicides, rendering them useless.

Monitoring of these clades has become critical in the southeastern US where both clades

routinely are present. Clade 1 tends to arrive in NC fields later than Clade 2. Most cucumber

varieties commercially available are resistant to Clade 1 (old strain), but there is no complete

resistance available for Clade 2. For pickling cucumber, ‘Citadel’ and ‘Peacemaker’ from

Seminis are tolerant to Clade 2. For slicing cucumber, SV3462CS and SV4142CL are tolerant to

Clade 2. Greenhouse growers should use tolerant varieties since chemical options in a

greenhouse are very limited and the risk of fungicide resistance is very high.

The Central Sands region is the heart of Wisconsin’s premier vegetable production with its coarsetextured

soils and abundant groundwater. However, this region is also the epicenter of controversies over

groundwater reduction during the summertime when water is being pumped for agricultural irrigation, and

groundwater contamination by nitrate leached from highly cultivated fields. There is urgent need for research

exploring alternative vegetable crops and new farming strategies to mitigate the groundwater quantity

and quality issues, and improve vegetable production sustainability.

Larval populations increased from historically low levels in 2018 to 2019 but

remained extremely low overall. The state average count in 229 cornfields sampled this fall

was 0.03 borer per plant, which is only marginally higher than the all-time low average of

0.01 per plant recorded during the two preceding seasons. All three of the state’s southern

agricultural districts showed averages less than or equal to 2019 levels, while negligible

increases were noted in the central and northern areas. Larvae were absent from 90% of the

fields sampled in September and October.

Soybean aphid remains a significant pest of soybean, especially in Minnesota and parts of

neighboring states. For about two decades, this pest has been managed primarily with

insecticides. Multistate research was used to develop guidance for scouting and decision

making for insecticide applications against soybean aphid. However, the continued reliance

on insecticides for management of this pest has resulted in the development of insecticide

resistance in soybean aphid and concerns about environmental contamination from these

insecticides.

Use of Bt toxins to manage corn rootworms has been a primary, if not singular, control tactic. However, field resistance has been a concern for several years, which has resulted in fields with unacceptable losses.

The fungal pathogen Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, causes the disease Sclerotinia stem rot (SSR; a.k.a.

white mold) of soybean. This disease can cause severe losses under highly conducive conditions

throughout the Upper Midwest (Roth et al., 2020). As a result, there is large interest in understanding the

most effective methods of controlling SSR. This includes the use of cultural and chemical control

methods in an integrated approach. In previous research, the use of wider row spacing (30 inches) resulted

in decreased levels of disease while narrow row spacing (10 and 15 inches) increased disease (Grau and

Radke, 1984). Additionally, research showed the use of planting populations above 175,000 seeds/acre

resulted in increased disease incidence compared to lower populations (Lee et al., 2005).

Soybean gall midge (SGM) was identified as a new species in 2018 in the Midwestern United States

causing extensive injury to soybean in eastern Nebraska, western Iowa, southwestern Minnesota, and

eastern South Dakota.

Since it’s discovery, soybean gall midge adult emergence has been tracked each year from soybean fields

that were infested the previous year. In east central Nebraska, the duration of adult emergence from these

overwintering sites averaged 15 days in 2019 to 25 in 2020 with emergence beginning in mid-June each

year. This long duration of emergence from overwintering sites poses a significant challenge for

management tactics to mitigate soybean injury in adjacent soybean fields.

Fungicide use on corn and soybeans has increased dramatically since the turn of the 21st century.

This is partially due to the increased labeling of fungicides for use on those crops, along with

significant epidemics of yield-reducing diseases in recent years, combined with physiological

influences that some of these products have on agronomic crops in the absence of disease. The

decision to apply a fungicide to corn and soybeans can be a complicated one. Farmers and

practitioners must balance the impending risk a disease might pose to a crop, the possibility of

fungicide resistance development in a particular pathogen if using a fungicide, the efficacy of a

particular product on a particular pathogen, and the return on investment (ROI) potential for a

particular program.

Gibberella ear rot is the most common ear rot in Ontario and unfortunately has resulted in not

only significant yield losses to farmers but reduction in corn grain and feed quality due to

mycotoxin accumulation. Although the pathogen Gibberella zeae (Fusarium graminearum)

produces several mycotoxins including Zearalenone (ZEN) and T-2 toxin, the most economically

important in Ontario is Deoxynivalenol (vomitoxin or DON).

Recently developed herbicide trait platforms have provided soybean growers with

additional tools for POST-emergent pigweed management including 2,4-D choline (Enlist E3TM

soybean), dicamba (Xtend, Xtendflex), and glufosinate (Liberty Link, LLGT27, and Xtendflex).

Pigweed (waterhemp and Palmer amaranth) management in soybeans can prove rather difficult

as previously there were limited POST herbicide options available. Recent research from the

UW-Madison Cropping Systems Weed Science program has shown that resistance to glyphosate

(Group 9), imazethapyr (Group 2), and PPO-inhibitor (Group 14) is widespread in waterhemp

populations across Wisconsin. With limited POST options and widespread herbicide-resistance,

we anticipate a heavy reliance on 2,4-D choline, dicamba, and glufosinate in the coming growing

seasons. Alone, these POST herbicides will not be enough to provide season long waterhemp

control in soybeans and growers will need to adopt more effective integrated weed management

strategies. It is imperative that herbicide stewardship is used when relying on these herbicides so

that their effectiveness is preserved, and the onset of herbicide resistance is delayed. Moreover,

previous research from our lab indicates that season long waterhemp control is more likely when

effective PRE-emergence residual herbicides are adopted.

Giant ragweed (Ambrosia trifida) has become one the most difficult weeds to manage in row crops

in the U.S. Corn Belt. Due to giant ragweed’s early emergence, rapid growth and biomass accumulation,

high photosynthetic rate, and ability to adapt to diverse environments, when no properly managed it can

quickly outgrow and outcompete the crop and other weeds for resources such as water, nutrients and light.

The extended emergence window of some giant ragweed biotypes makes it difficult to control this weed

with POST-emergence herbicides alone. Moreover, ALS- and EPSPS-inhibitor resistant giant ragweed

have been confirmed in 7 and 12 U.S. states, respectively, including Wisconsin. These characteristics and

current state of herbicide resistance indicates a need for effective integrated management strategies to

control giant ragweed season long.

Cover crops are a promising integrated management strategy for Palmer amaranth

and other troublesome weed species. Multiple factors contribute to weed control

associated with cover crops. This presentation will review data describing the impact of

cover crops on weed suppression in field crop production systems with an emphasis on

Palmer amaranth and other troublesome species that occur in Kansas. Studies conducted

between 2017 and 2020 in corn, soybean, and grain sorghum at various locations in

Kansas will be discussed, as well as supporting data from other locations. When

considered collectively, the data suggest that the primary factors influencing weed

control by cover crops in Kansas are timing of weed emergence and cover crop biomass

production.

Integrated weed management involves combining multiple weed management tactics into a

program that allows a farmer to achieve sustainable weed control. Simplification of production systems

with reliance on herbicides for post-emergence weed control has led to the development of herbicide

resistant weed populations and potential for the loss of herbicides as effective weed management tools

(Young, 2006). Systems which integrate CCs and herbicides for weed control reduce the selection

pressure for the development of herbicide resistance and can improve cropping system resiliency by

reducing soil erosion (Blanco Canqui et al., 2015), improving nutrient retention (Brandi Dohrn et al.,

1997), and improving soil physical quality (Steele et al., 2012). Field research was conducted in the 2019-

2020 growing seasons to study the use of integrated weed management with a fall established cereal rye

(Secale cereale) CC and Pre-emergence herbicides (PRE) in Wisconsin corn-soybean systems. Data

collected included early season weed biomass/density, visual weed control prior to post-emergence

herbicide application, crop yield, and soil persistence of PRE herbicides. Treatment combinations of PRE

herbicide (yes or no) and six soil management strategies including tillage, no-till, and four CC termination

timings/strategies (early, at plant, forage harvest at plant, and late) were included to collect 4 site-years of

data for each crop.

SnapPlus is nutrient management (NM) planning software designed for Wisconsin farming

systems and landscapes. This software usually has annual updates to add features and accommodate

changes to nutrient management guidelines. Every year following the first release in 2005,

the SnapPlus development team from the Univ. of Wisconsin Department of Soil Science has

teamed with Wis. Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) Nutrient

Management staff to do training and discuss new features in the software at this conference.

This year will be different. We will be virtual, and we will be discussing options for a major

redesign of SnapPlus. The SnapPlus code is due for an update, and while we are at it, we are

updating the way information is displayed in the program to better suit the needs of the type of

planner. We know that agronomists who write many plans do not have the same needs as

farmers writing their own plans. In this session, we will review ideas on how SnapPlus can

better assist professional NM planners. These include:

 - Planning for field areas with seasonal manure prohibitions

 - Selecting fields for manure application

 - Post-harvest updates of crops, tillage, and applications

 - Providing farmers with information help them understand the benefits of their

management.

Nutrient management planning for livestock operations that are large enough to be required to

obtain a water quality discharge permit (aka CAFOs) is more complicated than for other farms.

This is both because of additional NM requirements and restrictions and the large number of

fields that are part of these operations. We will propose options for simplifying CAFO NM

planning, with a focus on the following areas:

 - Planning for SWQMA buffers and other no-manure areas,

 - Record-keeping for manure applications, manure analysis, and yields,

 - Providing farms with clear management direction through custom reports.

Comprehensive nutrient management planning has become an increasingly important aspect for

agricultural land management throughout Wisconsin. Phosphorus (P) loss from agricultural lands can

adversely impact the quality of receiving water bodies. For dairy and beef farms, P loss originates from

cropland, grazed pastures, and open-air cattle lots, such as feedlots, barnyards, exercise lots, or overwintering

lots. From a whole-farm perspective, P loss from all sources should be evaluated to effectively

identify the major P sources to target remediation practices. Research shows cattle lots can be significant

sources of P loss for two reasons. First, the high concentration of cattle leads to high rates of manure

deposition and P accumulation relative to pastures and cropland. Second, cattle holding areas can be partially

or completely devoid of vegetation and have a compacted or impermeable (e.g., concrete) surface, which can

lead to high rates of runoff and erosion. This combination of a concentrated P source and active transport

pathways creates the potential for high rates of P loss. In areas with both non-point source P pollution issues

and a high prevalence of cattle farms with outdoor lots, there is a need to assess the P loss impact of lots

relative to other agricultural land uses to see if alternative lot management is needed. Computer models can

be cost- and time-effective tools to help quantify P loss from farms and identify alternative management

practices that reduce the impact of agriculture on water quality.

Soil health is important for productivity and ecosystem services of agricultural systems. However,

research continues to try to identify which soil properties are the appropriate ones to measure. Soil

properties that relate to soil health and function likely vary between regions. The objective of this work is

to investigate which soil methods are relevant for soil health assessment in Wisconsin.

Subsurface tile drainage from agricultural fields removes gravitational water from the soil profile which

creates benefits for agricultural production including better plant establishment, growth, and yield and can

reduce the risk of surface runoff and associated soil and nutrient losses. However, tile drainage also

presents additional pathways for potential nutrient movement and it is important to understand the

agricultural management practices that can limit this risk. Discovery Farms programs in Wisconsin and

Minnesota have conducted edge-of-field tile water quality monitoring since 2004. This includes work on

49 farms and 187 site years of data. This comprehensive dataset has assessed differences in surface runoff

and tile drainage and identified management practices to enhance agricultural production and reduce

water quality risks.

The goals of a Sustainably Intensified Agriculture (SIA) system are to

maximize agronomic production, while minimizing environmental degradation. Thus,

fulfilling and aligning with all four pillars of sustainability, human, social, economic, and

environmental. The demand for increased agriculture production due a growing human

population is a reality within the state and globally. On the same scale, there is a need to

develop row crop sustainable agricultural systems that can meet the production demand,

while not violating the social, economic, and environmental pillars of sustainability is also

pressing and critical. Tile-drained row crop agriculture has been identified as a major

contributor of nitrogen (N) from the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB) to the

hypoxic zone of the Gulf of Mexico. Cover cropping has been identified as the most

effective in-field conservation strategy that can be adopted on a large scale to achieve the

non-point nutrient loss reduction goals.

Continued improvements in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) grain yield have generated

interest towards more focused input applications within enhanced managed systems. However,

maintaining or improving profitability has become increasingly important as broad implementation

of enhanced management has not produced consistent yield gains. Several field studies

conducted over the last several years evaluated multiple inputs including autumn starter

fertilizer, plant growth regulator, greater rates of N, sulfur, fungicide, and seeding rates. Autumn

applied starter fertilizer was the only individual input to consistently produce a grain yield

response and accounted for 71% of the grain yield difference between enhanced (i.e., multiple

input) and traditional (i.e., base N only) management systems. In each scenario where autumn

starter positively affected grain yield, pre-plant soil nitrate concentrations have been < 10 ppm

and wheat planted prior to October 1. Autumn starter fertilizer increased straw yield 30-50% on

average compared to no starter fertilizer with responses varying by cultivar mean height. Plant

growth regulator used solely in combination with greater rates of N has not significantly

increased grain yield. Despite some grain yield increases to specific inputs, producers need to

consider site-, soil-, and plant-specific characteristics in combination with realistic yield

potentials and economics prior to implementing enhanced wheat management.

Biochar is a carbon rich product resulting from the pyrolysis of organic materials. Biochar produced

through this process is generally used as a soil amendment or incorporated into other agricultural nitrogen

management systems and is thought to reduce nitrogen leaching and improve available nitrogen for crop

production. However, biochar characteristics vary significantly based on the feedstock and production

characteristics. The varying production characteristics and feedstocks can significantly alter the surface

chemistry which leads to varying impacts when integrated into the soil or other agricultural nitrogen

management systems. When biochar was applied to soil systems in agricultural filter strips, it was able to

significantly reduce cumulative nitrate leaching by 40% in a field trial (Sanford and Larson, 2020a). Most

of this nitrate leaching reduction was attributed to the retention of nitrogen within the soil matrix. When

biochar soil amendments were further investigated in laboratory soil column studies, nitrate reductions

were attributed primarily to retention of organic nitrogen and nitrate within the soil (Sanford and Larson,

2020b). In addition, the integration of biochar within these soils resulted in reductions of nitrous oxide

emissions, a potent greenhouse gas. Biochar has potential to reduce losses of nitrogen to the environment

and retain this nitrogen within the soil matrix for crop needs.

Increases in soybean (Glycine max L. Merr.) biomass production have some practitioners questioning

whether reduced interplant competition from below recommended seeding rates may provide opportunities

for greater response to early and mid-season nutrient applications. Additionally when soil test

nutrient concentrations are above critical, soybean producers often question whether alternative in-season

nutrient management strategies may improve yield and profitability. Below recommended seeding rates

can reduce input costs without decreasing soybean grain yield while simultaneously increasing biomass

production, nutrient uptake, and yield per plant. However, non-irrigated nutrient management strategies

may not directly transfer to irrigated production and vice versa. Multiple field studies conducted over the

last several years evaluated soybean grain yield, dry matter accumulation, nutrient uptake and partitioning,

and net economic return as affected by seeding rate and in-season nutrient applications under both

irrigated and non-irrigated environments. Seeding rates included 60,000, 120,000, and 180,000 seeds A-1.

Fertilizer strategies consisted of: no fertilizer, 150 lb. MESZ (12-40-0-10S-1Zn) A-1 applied two inches to

the side and two inches below the seed (2×2) at planting, 15 gal. liquid K2O (0-0-28) A-1 applied using a

Y-drop applicator at growth stage V6, 16 gal. 10-34-0 A-1 applied using a Y-drop applicator at growth

stage R1, and a combination of the MESZ, liquid K2O, and 10-34-0 fertilizer applications. Results from

the 2020 growing season indicate fertilizer applications should not accommodate for alterations in

seeding rate, and that nutrient application beyond what is recommended in accordance with soil test

concentrations may not increase grain yield or profitability regardless of environment (i.e. irrigated or

non-irrigated). Although fertilizer application (especially starter fertilizer in a 2×2) may increase early

season biomass production and likely nutrient uptake, accelerated crop growth rate and the ability of

soybean to compensate for inter-plant competition could diminish early season differences. Among the

tested seeding rates,   120,000 seeds A-1 increased grain yield at the non-irrigated site. However under

irrigated conditions, seeding rate did not impact grain yield. Economic return was not impacted at the

irrigated or non-irrigated site due to high seed cost offsetting greater grain yield.

Farmers across a wide range of US soybean growing environments are interested in using foliar nutrient

products to increase yield and profitability. But, applying foliar fertilizers increases on-farm expenses

and could decrease profitability where these fertilizers are not associated with a yield increase. In 2019,

we established field trials to better understand which growing environments may see a yield increase

when foliar nutrient products are applied. Trials were placed in 20 locations across 13 states in fields

with different environmental conditions and yield potentials. Yield averages for each location can be

found across the 20 environments in Figure 1.

Nitrate is the most widespread groundwater contaminant in Wisconsin, and it is especially

prevalent in areas with highly permeable soils. The majority of the state relies on groundwater

as their source of drinking water, and numerical groundwater standards for nitrate are in place to

protect public health. While Wisconsin adopted statewide performance standards and

prohibitions for agricultural and nonagricultural facilities in 2002 to achieve surface water and

groundwater quality standards, evidence suggests that the statewide standards and prohibitions

are insufficient to achieve groundwater standards for nitrate. The Department of Natural

Resources is developing targeted performance standards and prohibitions to achieve the

groundwater standard for nitrate in areas of the state that are susceptible to groundwater

contamination. The DNR convened a Technical Advisory Committee during 2020 to provide

input on rule development, and in 2021, the department will seek public comment on a draft

rule.

Summary of recommendations for Wisconsin farmers for the 2021 crop year:

1. Corn: Signup for PLC

2. Soybeans: Signup for County ARC (ARC-CO)*

3. Wheat: Signup for PLC

4. Oats: Signup for County ARC (ARC-CO)

5. Sorghum, Barley, Sunflower Seeds: Signup for PLC

*Note, if you want to buy SCO (Supplemental Coverage Option) with your crop insurance, you

will need to choose PLC for all of your soybean acres.

Additional Resources (https://aae.wisc.edu/pdmitchell/extension/arc-plc-signup/)

 - Video: Signup Recommendations for 2021 (https://youtu.be/z8OBrPXzdlk)

 - FarmDOC ARC/PLC Payment Simulator (https://fd-tools.ncsa.illinois.edu/)

 - Video: How ARC and PLC work (https://youtu.be/piyOLFnPMnI)

 - Video: How ARC-IC (Individual Coverage) works (https://youtu.be/fQeDQSC-d0s)

 - Video: Who Should Consider ARC-IC in 2021 (https://youtu.be/Kfz0A2beQGk)

This past year has been a rollercoaster ride. The corn market has seen a roughly 30% increase in

price since last January. Depending on your cash market the low price of the year was either the

end of May or the end of August. Since the low of the year, and depending on your cash market,

prices have increased between 61% and 66%. Soybean price has seen a similar pattern. Since

January 2020, soybean price has increased 44%. The low soybean price occurred the end of May

and since that time price has increased 66%.

Nitrogen management on sandy soils is challenging by limited nutrient capacity couples with rain events exceeding the water storage capacity of the crop root zone, which can quickly change plan available nitrogen. The findings presented here are from the first two years of a three-year study with two objectives: firstly, to compare in-season plant tissue samples, petiole, whole leaf and whole vine and total nitrogen for determining plant nitrogen status and correlation with final yield; secondly to compare optimum applied nitrogen rates of developing varieties to varieties widely grown in Wisconsin.

Fall applications of manure have the potential for high nitrogen (N) losses. Cereal/grass cover crops have been shown to take up fall applied N. Similary, using nitrapyrin (Instinct) has been shown to prevent loss of fall applied N. No studies have been conducted to evaluate combining these tools to prevent N loss. This experiment was performed in 2016 and 2017 on a well-drained and somewhat poorly drained silt loam soils. This study was conducted to determine if using Instinct and spring wheat (Triticum aestivum) with fall applied manure could improve nitrogen availability to corn (Zea mays) due to a synergistic effect.

In Ohio, phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) recommendations for corn and soybean were last updated in 1995 with the Tri-State Fertilizer Recommendations. Water quality and nutrient management issues in the state have stimulated interest in re-evaluating these recommendations after more than two decades. From 2014-2018, we conducted 102 on-farm trials in P in corn and soybean and 84 trials in K for corn and soybean in Ohio.

At the risk of gloom-and-doom, let’s cut to the chase: traditional weed management as we’ve known it has been significantly challenged in recent years and the future isn’t looking much brighter.

Implementing a nutrient management (NM) plan is one of the best practices farmers can use to protect their soil and water resources and farm profitability. The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) annually tracks NM plans on farms through NM plan checklists submitted from farmers, agronomists, and agency staff. A NM plan follows the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service’s (NRCS) WI 2015-590 NM Standard. A NM plan is prepared by a qualified planner. The planner is the farm’s owner, operator, or a certified crop advisor.

Neonicotinoids are the most widely used insecticides worldwide and are typically deployed as seed treatments (hereafter NST) in many grain and oilseed crops, including soybeans. However, there is a surprising lack of information regarding NST effectiveness in increasing soybean yield, and most published data suggested weak, or inconsistent yield benefit.

Soybean gall midge, Resseliella maxima, is a relatively new insect pest of soybean found in Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Missouri. To date, it has not been found in Wisconsin.

Honey bees and other pollinators often forage within and near agricultural environments. A recent research focus has been investigated how and where bees may encounter agricultural pesticides, in order to minimize their exposure by moving bees out of harm’s way, changing practices, or a combination of the two approaches.

In the early 1900s, Wisconsin emerged as a leading producer of industrial hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) as a fiber crop. There were several pushes to regulate hemp production and Wisconsin harvested its last hemp crop in 1957. Cannabis was banned under the Controlled Substances Act in the 1970s.

Soybean is the most widely cultivated crop legume in the world and was introduced into the United States in the mid-eighteenth century. Most legumes develop a symbiotic association with soil bacteria collectively called rhizobia, which leads to the development of root nodules that host nitrogen-fixing rhizobia. Soybean, in particular, associates with certain species of Bradyrhizobium and Sinorhizobium. These rhizobia are not native to the United States, so inoculation of soybeans was initially essential to establish the use of soybeans into our cropping systems. However, more than a hundred years later, the necessity to inoculate soybeans needs to be reevaluated.

In Wisconsin, dairy cows eat on average 100 pounds of feed a day, about half of which typically is corn silage. Corn silage is an extremely important part of a dairy cow’s diet and provides much of the needed calorie and nutrition input. When making corn silage, the whole plant, including the stalk and ear is chopped and put into bunkers. In these large, cement bunkers the chopped corn is packed down tightly and covered in order to begin fermentation as quickly as possible. Ensiling through fermentation is the best way to preserve the quality and nutrition of feed and prevent degradation.

The objectives of our study were:

1. Understand the impacts of fungicide treatments on deoxynivalenol production by Fusarium graminearum in silage corn.
2. Understand the location of deoxynivalenol accumulation within the ear and stalk portions of the corn plant.

White mold of soybean is caused by the fungal pathogen, Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, and is a devastating disease in the Great Lakes growing region of the United States. The integrated management techniques used to control this disease are multi-level including the manipulation of row spacing, adjusting planting population, and using fungicides along with genetically resistant cultivars.

There is a significant need to test all combinations of control strategies together to measure the full effect on white mold control. Thus, the objective of our current work are as follows:

1. Improve management of white mold by determining the greatest methods for reducing disease pressure.
2. Develop soybean lines with high white mold resistance while also retaining favorable agronomic traits.

Weather patterns not only affect crop growth and development, but also the plant pathogens, beneficial and harmful insects, and weed species present in the agro-ecosystem. In recent years, there have been disease outbreaks directly related to extreme weather events including white mold and sudden death. Researchers predict that leaf and root pathogens will be more problematic because of an overall increase in humidity and frequency of heavy rainfall events projected for many parts of the United States. However, other extreme weather events such as drought, hail events, and high winds also will affect diseases from year-to-year and region to region.

Viral infections in soybean can affect the health and quality of the seed in a number of ways, but especially when they are transmitted to the plant’s progeny. Alfalfa mosaic virus, Soybean mosaic virus, Tobacco streak virus, and Tobacco ringspot virus are viruses that infect soybean and transmitted by seed. Soybean vein necrosis is an emerging virus that causes soybean vein necrosis.

The study objectives are:

1. Survey of variety trials in Wisconsin to assess the occurrence of soybean vein necrosis virus and tobacco streak virus infections.
2. Monitor populations of thrips that transmit sobean vein necrosis virus, using sentinel crops to determine the timing of arrival of viruliferous thrips.

Fungicide-resistant strains of the pathogen that causes frogeye leaf spot was first found in Iowa in 2017 and Septoria brown spot in 2018. These findings have changed the efficacy of fungicide products used in the Midwest. We conducted a state-wide survey of strains of the fungus in 2019 and found that EVERY isolate of the pathogen was resistant to the QoI (sometimes called strobilurins) fungicides. Similar findings have been reported in several other Midwestern states. This confirms that the resistant strain of the pathogen is widespread and this should affect our decision on which fungicides to use moving forward. One place to gather information on fungicide efficacy is the Crop Protection Network webpage.

Understanding how plants can talk provides us with an opportunity to eavesdrop into their conversation and explore how this exchange of information is affecting plant health. I will illustrate using research examples, how quickly crop plants are able to detect and respond to the presence of neighboring weeds. I will attempt to prove the crop plants such as corn and soybeans growing in the presence of weeds are in a state of constant communication. This communication results in molecular, physiological and morphological changes that help explain crop yield loss caused by weeds. These results also provide a scientific basis for the importance of early season week control.

Alfalfa has often been replaced in rotations by corn silage, in part because corn produces greater forage dry matter yield than alfalfa. First year yields of spring-seeded alfalfa are particularly low, often being one-half that of subsequent full production years. Planting small grain, grass, or legume companion crops with alfalfa can modestly improve forage yields in the establishment year, but seeding companion crops with alfalfa often reduces forage quality. Thus new approaches are needed to increase the yield of alfalfa, especially during its first year of production.

Harvesting alfalfa for hay production requires mowing, raking and baling; while silage harvest requires mowing, merging, and chopping passes. Each harvest practice impacts the plants on re-growth as well as the soil due to ground pressure applied by the tires of harvest machines. A research project at the Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison is aiming to stimulate these traffic patterns to assess the impact of wheel traffic on alfalfa yield and quality while monitoring impacts on the compaction incurred by the soil.

With the rise of herbicide-resistant weeds in row crop production throughout the US, there is need for new tools to be incorporated into POST-emergence weed management programs. Novel soybean herbicide-tolerant traits have been emerging in recent years allowing POST applications of glufosinate.

Soil health has enjoyed a meteoric rise over the past decade, and it appears that interest is only continuing to increase. But despite all of the attention, how much progress has actually been made?

Palmer amaranth is ranked as the most troublesome weed species in the southern US. In recent years, Palmer amaranth has become more predominant in the southern part of the Midwest, further increasing the complexity of weed management in corn and soybean production systems in the region.

Summer annual forages are chosen by many farmers to fill the summer slump experienced by cool-season perennial forages or when needing an emergency forage if facing a challenging year with winterkilled fields. Whichever the case, the need is for the combination of high yield and nutritive value in addition to rapid growth, drought tolerance and quick response to fertilizer because of the short window for summer production.

Cover crops can provide important ecosystem services in agricultural systems by reducing the risks of nutrient losses to the environment. Reducing nutrient losses from farmland should also help improve agricultural viability by reducing the amount of nutrients that need to be imported back to the farm.

Alfalfa is one of the most important perennial forages in Northern regions of the USA. It provides a high yielding and quality forage as well as key ecosystems services as part of a rotation with annual crops.

The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) crop production forecast have two components-acres to be harvested and expected yield per acre. Preliminary corn and soybean acreage estimates are made using data obtained from a survey of farmers conducted during the first two weeks in June. Expected corn and soybean yields are obtained monthly, August through Novemer, from two different types of yield surveys.

Adding legumes to grass pastures can result in multiple benefits including increased forage nutritive, extended grazing season and increased grass yield due to N fixation. White clover, a short lived perennial with prostrate growth habit, is one of the most important and widely adopted legume in grass-legume mixtures worldwide. In addition, red clover, another short-lived perennial, is widely grown in grass-clover mixtures in Wisconsin.

Rearing dairy heifers for optimal body weight gains (1.8-2.2 lb/day for Holstein breed) is needed to allow for breeding at 13 months of age and reaching an ideal weight by calving. Heifer rearing costs are significant for a dairy farm ($2.50-3.00/day) with feed costs being about 50% of these costs. With the increased interest in meadow fescue for grazing due to its improved quality, this project’s objective was to evaluate heifer growth, forage yield, and forage quality when grazing either meadow fescue or orchardgrass.

Alfalfa has often been replaced in rotations by corn silage, in part because corn produces greater forage dry matter yield than alfalfa. First year yields of spring-seeded alfalfa are particularly low, often being one-half that of subsequent full production years. Planting small grain, grass, or legume companion crops with alfalfa can modestly improve forage yields in the establishment year, but seeding companion crops with alfalfa often reduces forage quality. Thus, new approaches are needed to increase the yield of alfalfa especially during its first year of production

In-season application of N on sandy soils has been well established as a best management practice to reduce N leaching and increase profitability. Over the past few years, interest in in-season or split N applications has risen because of a desire to increase N use efficiency and profitability of corn production.

Red clover, when interseeded (or frost-seeded) with winter wheat offers the potential for economic return in the form of N credits, rotational yield bump and the potential for harvest as forage, all without idling cropland for the sake of cover cropping. This study was conducted during the 2017-2018 and the 2018-2019 growing seasons, with red clover being frost-seeded into water wheat for the first year and corn yields being evaluated in the second year.

During this talk links between soil health and water quality as they relate to agricultural production will be reviewed.

This study was conducted to determine the impact of cereal rye and dairy liquid manure application method (surface, low-disturbance, and deep injection) on phosphate losses from soil under corn silage production.

Soil health has enjoyed a meteoric rise over the past decade, and it appears that interest is only continuing to increase. But despite all of the attention, how much progress has actually been made?

There is no one size fits all solution to improve groundwater quality with respect to nitrate. A combination of strategies and techniques that considers a year-round approach to managing nitrate will be required. Meaningful progress requires creativity, experimentation, and collaboration from both the agricultural community and water quality researchers to develop a range of solutions to a complicated problem.

Phosphorus export from agricultural fields continues to create water quality concerns in Wisconsin. The UW Discovery Farms program, along with Discovery Farms Minnesota have collected 125 site-years of edge-of-field monitoring data which can be used to better understand the relative effects of inherent soil properties (slope, drainage class, texture), management practices (manure application, tillage, crop rotation, cover cropping), and soil test P values on seasonal (frozen and non-frozen conditions) losses of dissolved P(DP) and total P (TP).

There is a considerable amount of excitement surrounding the idea of “soil biology” and its role in agriculture today. Maintaining healthy soil is important, and certainly involves paying attention to the living organisms in the soil. However, studying soil microbiology is complex, there are limitations to the current methods of research, and there is a lot of information and claims out there that can be hard to sift through. This session will cover how a microbiome study is typically conducted, outline some limitations of this type of study, and present results regarding crop rotation and soil bacterial communities.

2020 Fertilizer Market Update and 4R Case Studies

In Wisconsin, soybean yield potential is decreased by 0.4 to 0.5 bushels per acre for every day planting is delayed after April 20. But, planting date is limited by weather and equipment availability. This research focused on in-season management decisions that can help maximize yield within early or late planting scenarios.

Wisconsin has a very broad industrial hemp law that encourages participation
and innovation. No limits on the number of licenses or acreage provides great
opportunities for farmers, citizens, and businesses of any size, in any location in
Wisconsin, to participate in and grow a new industry.

Water is an invaluable resource for the Wisconsin vegetable industry. In recent
years, agricultural irrigation has been linked to reduced ground and surface water
levels in the Central Sands region, where the majority of the Wisconsin vegetable
production is located. Therefore, new technologies and strategies that can improve
the irrigation efficiency of vegetable cropping systems have become a top priority
for the industry. About 99% of Wisconsin vegetable growers are using center pivot
irrigation systems, and Variable Rate Irrigation (VRI) has been adopted by some
pioneers in recent years.

The Colorado potato beetle (CPB), Leptinotarsa decemlineata (Say), is an agricultural pest of solanaceous crops which has developed insecticide resistance at an alarming rate. Up to this point, little consideration has been given to unintended, or inadvertent effects that noninsecticide xenobiotics may have on insecticide susceptibility in L. decemlineata. Fungicides, such as chlorothalonil and boscalid, are often used to control fungal pathogens in potato fields
and are applied at regular intervals when L. decemlineata populations are present in the crop. In order to determine whether fungicide use may be associated with elevated levels of insecticide resistance in L. decemlineata, we examined phenotypic responses in L. decemlineata to the fungicides chlorothalonil and boscalid. Using enzymatic and transcript abundance investigations, we also examined modes of molecular detoxification in response to both insecticide (imidacloprid) and fungicide (boscalid and chlorothalonil) application to more specifically determine if fungicides and insecticides induce similar metabolic detoxification mechanisms. Both chlorothalonil and boscalid exposure induced a phenotypic, enzymatic and transcript response in L. decemlineata which correlates with known mechanisms of insecticide resistance [Clements, 2018].

Interest in improving nitrogen (N) use efficiency of corn production to increase farm profitability and reduce the deleterious effects of N on water quality has resulted in a greater focus on N application timing. A Midwestern study conducted in Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wisconsin from 2014 to 2016 was designed to evaluate the profitability, potential N loss, and N use efficiency associated with at plant and split N application timing. In each year, two
sites were selected in each state representing a high and medium/low productivity
soil. Missouri had three sites in 2016. Selected sites had no manure history in at
least the three previous growing seasons. The previous crop was soybean at 43 sites,
corn at 5 sites, and sunflower at 1 site. The tillage system was either reduced tillage or no-till. All sites followed a standardized research protocol with regard to N treatments as well as soil and plant sampling. Nitrogen was applied at either planting or in a split application (40 lb N/a at plant plus sidedress), with N applications ranging from 0 to 280 lb N/a in 40 lb N/a increments. The economic optimum N rate (EONR) was calculated for each N application timing at each site.

Variable-rate nitrogen management (VRN) is a fairly hot topic right now. The outcome
of VRN promises improved efficiencies, economics, yields, and environmental
sustainability. As the scientific community learns more about the crop’s response to
fertilizer nitrogen and the soil’s ability to provide nitrogen, the complexity of providing VRN recommendations, which both maximize profitability and minimize
environmental risk, becomes more evident.

The effectiveness of a herbicide application relies on two factors, (i) maximizing the
biological effect, and (ii) minimizing environmental contamination through off-target spray movement. These two factors are often in competition with one another, like being on opposite sides of a seesaw. As a result, herbicide applications have become more challenging and reductions in weed control have been observed due to the current emphasis on reducing spray drift through more restrictive herbicide labels and increasing spray droplet size.

Waterhemp and giant ragweed, respectively, are currently ranked by stakeholders
as the most troublesome weed species in corn and soybean production in
Wisconsin (Zimbric et al., 2018; Werle and Oliveira, 2018). Due to widespread
occurrence of resistance to glyphosate, PPO- and ALS-inhibitors in waterhemp
populations across the state accompanied by the shortage of effective POSTemergence
herbicide options in conventional and RR2Yield soybean systems, the use
of effective PRE-emergence herbicide programs becomes imperative and the
adoption of novel herbicide tolerance traits, such as Xtend (dicamba tolerance) or
Liberty Link (glufosinate tolerance), appealing for providing additional effective
POST-emergence weed control options.

Amaranthus species are among the most troublesome weed species in agronomic production systems because of their innate ability to cause crop yield loss and their propensity to develop resistance to various herbicide site-of-action families. Several Amaranthus species are regarded as weedy pests across the Great Plains region, including the monoecious (male and female flowers on the same plant) species redroot pigweed (A. retroflexus), smooth pigweed (A. hybridus), Powell amaranth (A. powellii), tumble pigweed (A. albus), prostrate pigweed (A. blitoides), and spiny amaranth (A. pinosus), and the dioecious (separate male and female plants) species common waterhemp (A. rudis) and Palmer amaranth (A. palmeri). Among these species, smooth pigweed, redroot pigweed, Powell amaranth, Palmer amaranth, and the waterhemps are most common in Illinois corn and soybean fields. Historically, Palmer amaranth’s range was limited in Illinois but the species appears to be expanding its range in the state.

Pesticide applications are complex processes with many variables potentially
impacting the biological outcome of the application. Additionally, greater regulatory
demands have increased the need for more precise application methods.
Pulse-width modulation (PWM) sprayers provide an opportunity to increase precision
through variable rate flow control by pulsing electronically actuated solenoid valves at each nozzle. The solenoid valves are pulsed a designated amount of times per second (standard = 10). The percentage of time each valve is open (duty cycle) determines the flow rate.

This presentation will provide a first look at the major policy changes in the newly
passed Farm Bill. The presentation will focus mostly on commodity support
programs such as ARC, PLC and crop insurance, as well as conservation programs
(CRP and EQIP). The goal will be to help farmers, crop consultants, and other
agricultural professionals become aware of the available options under the new Farm
Bill, what to expect in terms of income support, and recommendations of how to
evaluate and use these options.

In order to be agriculturally productive tile drain systems are often installed in areas with low permeability soils or high water tables, to lower the water table depth. Some benefits of tile drainage include providing an aerobic root zone for crop growth, improved field trafficability and creating conditions where soils can warm more quickly in the spring. Tile systems also pose environmental risks such as the increased potential for loss of soluble nutrients (nitrate and phosphorus) along with pesticides and pathogens. In addition, soil macro-pores such as shrinkage cracks and earth worm holes can deliver low solids content injected manure directly into tile lines. Keeping injected manure solids content greater than 5%, tilling prior to injection to break up macro-pores or avoiding tiled areas can reduce the risk of manure loss through tiles. Tile systems are gravity-flow systems and in order to function properly must have a free-flowing outlet. In cases where field elevation and grades don’t allow for a gravity flow, a pump lift station will be required, which will increase installation and maintenance cost. A relationship exists between depth and spacing of tile laterals. For uniform permeability soils deeper drains can have wider spacing (within reason). Tile system design performance is specified by the drainage coefficient (Dc), which is equal to the depth in inches of water removed from a field in 24 hours. Typical Dc values range from 0.5 to 1.0 inch per day. A higher Dc equals a higher system flow rate, larger pipes and higher cost. Field- and crop-specific conditions will dictate the appropriate design Dc to use.
________________________________

Plants are associated with a complex microbiota that contributes to nutrient
acquisition, plant growth, and plant defense. Nitrogen-fixing microbial associations
are well characterized in legumes but are largely absent from cereals, including
maize. We studied an indigenous landrace of maize grown in nitrogen depleted soils
in the Sierra Mixe region of Oaxaca, Mexico. This landrace is characterized by
extensive development of aerial roots that secrete a carbohydrate-rich mucilage.
Analysis of the mucilage microbiota indicated that it was enriched in taxa for which
many known species are diazotrophic; was enriched for homologs of genes encoding
nitrogenase subunits; and harbored active nitrogenase activity as assessed by
acetylene reduction and 15N2 incorporation assays. Field experiments in Sierra MIxe
using 15N natural abundance or 15N-enrichment assessments over 5 years indicated
that atmospheric nitrogen fixation contributed 30 to 82% of the nitrogen nutrition of
Sierra MIxe maize.
____________________

Nematode-protectant seed treatments are available for managing the soybean cyst nematode (SCN). Information about how these products affect specific aspects of the biology o SCN is limited. Research methods were developed at Iowa State University to determine how seed treatments affect the biology of the nematode (Beeman et al., 2016; Jensen et al., 2018a), and then those methods were used in experiments with Avicta, Clariva, Ilevo, and Votivo seed treatments (Beeman and Tylka, 2018; Beeman et al., 2018; Jensen et al., 2018b). Results of experiments revealed that soybean roots grown from seeds treated with Avicta, Clariva, Ilevo, and Votivo did not attract or repel SCN juveniles. Leachates of soil in which Avicta-treated seeds were planted reduced the speed, movement, and curvature of SCN juveniles, and penetration by nematode juveniles of roots grown from Avicta-treated seeds was reduced. Movement of SCN juveniles incubated in leachates of soil planted with Clariva-treated seeds also was reduced, and development of the juveniles in roots grown from Clariva-treated seeds was slowed. Leachates of soil in which Ilevo-treated seeds were placed reduced hatching, speed, and movement of SCN juveniles, and penetration of roots from Ilevo-treated seeds by juveniles was reduced.

Alfalfa has often been replaced in rotations by corn silage, in part because corn
produces greater forage dry matter yield than alfalfa. First year yields of spring-seeded alfalfa are particularly low, often being one-half that of subsequent full production years. Planting small grain, grass, or legume companion crops with alfalfa can modestly improve forage yields in the establishment year, but seeding companion crops with alfalfa often reduces forage quality. Thus, new approaches are needed to increase the yield of alfalfa, especially during its first year of production.

The 2018 Wisconsin corn growing season was a challenging one when it comes to diseases. There were substantial disease epidemics across the entire corn belt of Wisconsin in 2018, with some fields hit by multiple diseases. Gray leaf spot started earlier than normal in the southwest portion of the corn growing region of Wisconsin. The emerging disease, tar spot, then moved in. Tar spot started in the south and southwest but moved north and east leaving many corn fields to dry down abnormally quick. Northern corn leaf blight also caused some issues in the central and northern corn production areas of the state. Then ear rots started to show up near harvest, with mycotoxin levels, like vomitoxin, being a significant issue in corn silage and some grain fields. To add insult to injury a new bacterial disease of corn was also reported for the first time in Wisconsin. Bacterial leaf streak, caused by a Xanthomonas sp., showed up in one field in Pierce Co., Wisconsin. Admittedly, the tar spot epidemic was probably the most impactful, followed by issues with ear rot and vomitoxin contamination.

Nematode-protectant seed treatments are a relatively new strategy to manage the
soybean cyst nematode (SCN). And many such products now are available (see Table 1).

True armyworms are an occasional pest in Wisconsin’s corn and wheat production systems. Typically, field damage is superficial and spotty in nature. During the summer of 2018, we had few, if any, reports of damage from the spring (migrating) generation. However, there were several significant, if not severe, damage from the summer generation throughout the state.

Neonicotinoids are a popular and widely-used class of insecticides whose water-soluble nature and 20-year usage history has led to questions about their potential to accumulate in the environment and harm local ecosystems [1–6]. When first registered in the United States in 1995, these compounds promised increased efficacy, long-lasting systemic activity, lower application rates, low vertebrate toxicity, and reduced environmental persistence, all of which contributed to the rapid adoption and widespread use of this class of insecticides, which now account for over 25% of the entire global pesticide market [7]. Over 6.7 million pounds of neonicotinoid insecticides are now applied annually on 140 different crops in the United States, with the three most popular compounds, imidacloprid (IMD), clothianidin (CLO), and thiamethoxam (TMX) making up over 90% of agricultural usage nationally [7,8].

Dairy production systems rely on alfalfa as a key component in their ration. Alfalfa provides a high yielding and quality forage as well as key ecosystems services as part of a rotation with annual crops. One of the under-valued services is weed control as it has been documented that alfalfa stands can reduce weed populations if managed correctly (e.g., Clay and Aguilar, 1998; Goplen et al., 2017). Few annual weeds can compete with alfalfa stands and do not germinate unless alfalfa stand density is below recommended levels or the alfalfa is stressed due to lack of precipitation or pest (insect disease) damage. What few annual weeds that emerge are not able to produce viable seeds due to the frequent harvest interval present in a dairy system (every 28 to 35 days). For example, giant ragweed, a highly competitive annual weed that is capable of germinating throughout the spring, had emergence reduced by 59% when grown under alfalfa compared to corn and didn’t produce any viable seeds in a research project in Minnesota (Goplen et al., 2017). Unfortunately established alfalfa systems are currently being invaded by waterhemp (Amaranthus tuberculatus (Moq.) J.D. Sauer), a weed species that has the potential to germinate and produce viable seed within this
competitive forage system.

Adjustment of the kernel processor in a Self-Propelled Forage Harvester (SPFH) is
critical to high quality feed production. Particle size reduction of the corn kernels contained within chopped and processed corn silage makes the starch more available in the rumen, increasing digestion and in-turn increasing milk production. Increased milk production is the most common train of thought when considering the economic benefit of properly setting a kernel processor, but machinery management and efficiency metrics should be considered as well. Kernel processors utilize a high percentage of the power produced by the engine during corn silage harvest. A substantial amount of material is being forced through a very small gap, causing the power requirements to process the crop to increase substantially. While maintaining the smallest gap possible will produce smaller geometric mean particle sizes of the corn kernels, opening the kernel processor gap just 0.5 mm would reduce the load on the engine. This reduced load would allow the machine to move more quickly through the field or increase the fuel efficiency of harvest. Optimization of the kernel processor gap setting could take move the industry closer to a more efficient harvest.

Potato and vegetable weed management in the 2018 season was challenged yet again by variable and extreme weather events, the spread of new and often herbicide-resistant weeds and regulatory headwinds. Despite these hurdles, the future looks relatively bright if we’re willing to take an innovate and integrated approach to weed management.

There are advantages and disadvantages to tillage. Advantages include smooth
seedbed preparation, weed control with reduced risk of herbicide resistance, and
break-up of compacted soil. Destruction of soil aggregates, creation of plow pans,
and increased production costs are often referred as disadvantages. There is
increased interest in no-tillage and its use is increasing. However, some form of
tillage is still widely used by most farmers. Are there benefits to both approaches?
Certain soils and crop rotations might be more conducive to one approach versus the
other. Soils with high soil organic matter contents, high amounts of aggregation, and
in flat fields can be quite productive when tillage is used. However, this increased
crop productivity is often at the expense of organic matter and soil health. Other
practices, such as crop rotations, manure application and cover crop use, might help
offset declines in organic matter and soil health brought by tillage. A combination of
approaches are most likely to provide benefits for a wide range of soils and conditions.
In this presentation, we will explore the advantages and disadvantages of
tillage practices on soil health, organic matter, and productivity.

Manure processing is generally incorporated into livestock systems to change the characteristics of manure in order to gain a higher value end product, reduce operational burdens, or reduce risks associated with the land application of manure. Some common manure processing systems include composting, sand separation (SS), solid liquid separation (SLS), and anaerobic digestion (AD). For many processing systems, the processed manure or at least a fraction of the processed manure is still land applied, therefore understanding the impacts to the manure characteristics is critical for increasing nutrient use efficiency following land application. Processing technologies aside from composting are rarely found at facilities with less than 1,000 animal units, or the number of animals requiring a Wisconsin Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (WPDES) permit. For those permitted facilities SS is the most common processing technology reported from those that were surveyed with AD and SLS also being incorporated by many farms.

One of the simplest and most comprehensive measurements of soil health is soil
organic matter (SOM). Soil organic matter is connected to the ability of the soil to
provide nutrients, retain water, and improve yields. As farmers seek to increase the
SOM in their fields, it is important to reflect on the management practices that will
lead to increases in SOM, the long-term nature of the gain in SOM, and inherent soil
factors that dictate the ability of farmers to increase (or decrease) their SOM rapidly.
Soil OM is measured as loss on ignition, which requires burning the soil and
measuring what remains. Soil OM is typically about 50% carbon. Most scientific
studies measure and report SOM in terms of soil organic carbon (SOC). The SOC
can be multiplied by two to estimate SOM percentage.

Plant Industry Bureau Laboratory (PIB lab) provides diagnostic services for DATCP pest and disease surveys and inspections. In 2018, the lab diagnosed 1,767 samples for plant diseases, nematodes and insect pests. These are the highlights from the 2018 season.

White mold is caused by the fungus, Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and frequently results in significant damage to soybeans in the upper Midwest. The white mold fungus has a notoriously wide host range, which can result in large reservoirs of inoculum in and near soybean fields. The primary inoculum (ascospores) are born on cup-shaped structures called apothecia. These apothecia form when the weather conditions are cool and wet, the soybean canopy is dense, and flowers are present. The presence of a susceptible host (e.g., flowering soybeans), active pathogen (e.g., sporulating), and conducive weather has to happen at the same time, in the field to result in infection. This can be difficult for farmers to anticipate for predicting if they might have white mold, or if they want to implement an in-season management strategy (Willbur et al., 2019a). To take some of the guess-work out of managing white mold, soybean farmers have been interested in learning more about resistant soybean cultivars, what fungicides might be available for controlling white mold, whether it is economical to spray fungicide under certain conditions, how to anticipate favorable weather to better time fungicide applications, and cultural practices such as row-spacing and planting population that lead to less white mold, but don’t negatively affect yield. The Wisconsin Field Crops Pathology team in conjunction with the Wisconsin Soybean Team have been conducting research to address these questions.

Resistance is defined as the inherited ability of a plant to survive and reproduce
following exposure to a herbicide dose normally lethal to the wild type (WSSA, 2017). Two
important points of this definition are that the resistance trait(s) must be heritable (passed on
to progeny) and that the resistance response is compared to that of herbicide-susceptible
plants (“the wild type”).

We currently have more tools available to help with corn nitrogen management than
we have ever had. Each of these tools has the potential to help us make better
decisions, but none of these tools on their own should be viewed as a complete
solution.

Let’s start with what happened in 2017. Lots of rain in Wisconsin April through
June. Wet all along, and especially the last half of June in southern Wisconsin.
Did this cause nitrogen loss? Yes.
Was it huge? No.

NVision Ag uses the color of your crop, measured from above (Fig. 1), to determine
the level of N stress and how much N to apply. We supply this information in the
form of a rate control file (Fig. 2). Just plug it in and drive, knowing that sound
research backs the rates that you are putting out.

Nitrogen management for corn is complicated. Timing, rate, source, and
placement can all have significant impacts on success.
My research findings on N timing have been the most surprising to me. They
include:
• In the absence of excess rain, effects of N timing on corn grain yield are
rare. Even quite late applications can give full yield. This probably is not
true for silage corn.
• In the presence of excess rain, programs with all N applied before planting
usually perform poorly. In-season N is needed to produce full yield.
• I have never seen early N stress reduce ear row number enough to worry
about. In 2017, after 11 years of continuous no-till corn, the zero-N
treatment was 135 bushels behind the best treatment but only 0.3 rows
behind.
• Pre-plant N rarely matters. In 90 experiments comparing treatments with
and without pre-plant N, there were only 2 where the treatment without
preplant N lost yield. In both of these the first N was applied when the
corn was thigh-high.
• Nitrous oxide emissions were cut by 60% by using all-sidedress N
management.

Calculating nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) on a field-by-field basis can be a valuable
tool for assessing N management on a farm. There are four key ways to evaluate
nitrogen: Partial Factor Productivity (PFP), Agronomic Efficiency (AE), Partial
Nutrient Balance (PNB), and Recovery (or Uptake) Efficiency (RE). Table 1 provides
calculations and interpretations.

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The recently signed 2017-19 state budget contained changes to the fee structure for
Wisconsin’s pesticide, fertilizer and feed licensing fees and structure. These changes
result from the RevEx project, DATCP’s Bureau of Agrichemical Management’s
outreach effort to representatives from regulated agribusinesses with the goal of
aligning the Bureau’s revenues and expenditures to be more fair, efficient and
effective. Changes include a fee holiday for the ACCP surcharge, meaning it will not
be assessed in 2018for the 2018 license year (dates vary). The surcharge holiday will
be extended if the ACCP Fund balance on May 1 exceeds $1.5 million. and probably
for several years beyond. License years have been adjusted in a few cases as well.
This is a summary of the changes. More detailed information is available online at
https://datcp.wi.gov/Pages/Programs_Services/RevEx.aspx.

This article is based directly on a recently published article that appeared in the Center for
Disease Control’s journal: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) by Shutske, et
al (2017). See full reference at the end of this document.

Original adapted article title: Notes from the Field: Death of a Farm Worker After Exposure
to Manure Gas in an Open Air Environment — Wisconsin, August 2016

On August 15, 2016, at approximately 6:30 a.m., a previously healthy male employee of a
Wisconsin beef farm was found dead near the edge of an outdoor 60,400 square foot (1.4
acre) manure storage basin. The basin was approximately 15 feet (4.6 meters) deep and
nearly full. The victim, aged 29 years, was discovered by another worker; the coroner was
notified at 6:50 a.m., and he pronounced the victim dead at the scene. Thirteen dead cattle
were discovered in an adjoining pen; three others were struggling to stand and were
euthanized. The owner of the farm reported that at 3:00 a.m., the victim had used a tractorpowered
agitator to agitate the manure,2/ which a contractor was scheduled to pump and
spread on cropland later that morning. The last contact from the victim was a social media
post at 4:10 a.m. At the time he was discovered, he was approximately 3 feet downslope
from the rear of the tractor, which was running…

“The Label is the Law,” a statement you probably have heard over and over again.
However, this is a simple as it gets. When you purchase or use a pesticide you enter
into an agreement that you will use this tool according to its label. However as
custom applicators you are being contracted out to go on other people’s property to
use this tool. Communication between you and your customer is important, in fact it
can be state law.
Having an idea from your records or from your customer of sensitive areas around
the application site is important. Arial applications require at least 24-hour notice
before the application. Although it is the landowner’s responsibility to notify any bee
keepers who have requested pre-application notification, it is your responsibility to
let the customer know that you are applying a pesticide that is “Highly Toxic to
Bees,” and in enough time for them to do this.
The Worker Protection Standard requires that your customer notify their workers
orally or by signs of fields that have been treated. They are also required to post
information about the applications that occur on their farms. For a customer to do
this, they will need to know that you are applying and what. At the time of application
any important safety information has to be provided. An example of this might
be the Restricted Entry Interval. Provide any specific safety information that might
be on the label just before or just after application.
Finally, record keeping is the responsibility of the applicator. However, there is
information that has to be given to the customer after application. You have 30 days
after application to provide after application information. Most companies provide
this in their bill of sale or invoice of service. These include: Applicator or business
phone number; applicator license number; the crop; commodity or site to which the
pesticide was applied; specific location of application; date; start and stop time;
pesticide brand name or product name or chemical name; EPA Registration Number;
amount applied; Post-application precautions (pre-harvest interval, REI, irrigation
restrictions, etc.); copy of pesticide label or notice that they can get one on request.

Soybean aphid remains a significant pest of soybean in parts of the north central U.S.
Recent development of insecticide resistance in this pest creates a new challenge for
soybean production. Multiple lines of evidence, including reports of field level
failures, and data from replicated efficacy trials and laboratory bioassays, that
indicate that some populations of soybean aphid from Minnesota, North Dakota,
South Dakota, Iowa and Manitoba have developed resistance to some pyrethroid
insecticides (bifenthrin and lambda-cyhalothrin).

The fall European corn borer population declined to 0.03 larva per plant, tying 2012 and
2014 as the second lowest state average in the survey’s 76-year history. The lowest average
of 0.02 larva per plant was recorded in 2015. Minor population reductions from 2016 were
found in six of the state’s nine agricultural districts, while an insignificant increase was
noted in the east-central area. The northeast and southeast district averages remained
unchanged at 0.0 and 0.04 larva per plant, respectively. One hundred and ninety-six of the
229 (86%) fields examined showed no evidence of corn borer infestation. Results of the
2017 survey suggest that Wisconsin corn producers are maintaining a high Bt use rate which
continues to provide overall effective suppression of the European corn borer.
Table

A secondary insect pest is an insect species that, because of a natural or man-made
disturbance, has become an economic problem. The focus of this article will be on the
below ground insect pests in corn. These insects, especially seedcorn maggot, wireworm
and white grub, are difficult to manage because only preventive treatments are effective. An
understanding of the insect biology can help target control practices when needed.

Stink bugs are emerging as a new threat to crop production in the region. An invasive
species, the brown marmorated stink bug, is spreading through the region. In addition,
reports from several states indicate that the abundance of native stink bugs may also be
increasing. Because stink bugs have historically been infrequent pests in northern states,
many growers and consultants have little experience managing these pests.

U.S. soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] production has increased by 60% from 1996 to
2016 due to a 30% increase in area planted to soybean, and due to better genetics and
improved crop management practices. While these historic seed yield increases have
been substantial, U.S. soybean producers continually search for opportunities to optimize
crop management and increase soybean seed yield, including applying fertilizer
N to soybean.
Soybean has a large nutrient requirement throughout the growing season, and has an
especially high N requirement due to its seed protein content that averages about 40%
based on seed dry weight (Bellaloui et al., 2015). Soybean N requirements peak in the
R3 to R6 growth stages (Gaspar et al. 2017; Harper, 1974). The N requirement of soybean
is generally fulfilled by biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) plus N uptake from soil
(Salvagiotti et al., 2008). However, BNF activity can be limited by a number of environmental
conditions such as low soil moisture, extremes of soil pH and temperature, and
soil compaction, any of which can result in insufficient N supply to the soybean plants
(Purcell and King, 1996).
Proceedings

Farm data has become a current topic in agriculture as well as other industries and is known
as ‘big data’. Debate regarding the ownership of the data and who should receive value from
the use of that data are hotly debated. The myths of big data in agriculture are dispelled here
and insights into best management practices with respect to using data isolated to a given farm
as well as within a larger community are offered.
The valuation of agricultural data has been elusive whether from a single field or data
aggregated in near real time across many farms. Data from a given farm has finite value to
that specific farm, but data aggregated into a community is considered to have much greater
value…

Previous research (Wang et al., 2015) on snap bean response to N provided
interesting results, but it is unclear if the results are applicable to all fields. This
previous research was conducted in Plover, WI with high yielding DelMonte varieties.
Results suggested that 100 lb-N/ac was the optimal N rate (20 lb-N/ac in starter and 80
lb-N/ac in-season) when yields are greater than 9 ton/ac. However, typical yields for
snap bean are in the 4-5 ton/ac range (personal communication with processing crop
agronomists), which may not require 100 lb-N/ac (current UW recommendations are 60
lb-N/ac for yields up to 6.5 ton/ac). In addition, the previous research also indicated that
for non-nodulating varieties (i.e. varieties that do not allow root infection of rhizobium,
and thus do not directly obtain N fixed from the atmosphere), had an N utilization
efficiency of 68% when 100 lb-N/ac was applied. For nodulating varieties (in this case
the high-yielding Del Monte varieties) additional analysis using 15N stable isotope
concentrations was necessary to determine the true removal efficiency as it is unknown
how the addition of N fertilizer will inhibit the amount of N that is fixed. Preliminary
analyses of these results indicate that the 100 lb-N/ac rate completely inhibits N fixation
in snap beans. Now, it may seem counter-intuitive, but this is actually beneficial for
water quality. It means that the applied N is replacing the N fixed by the atmosphere
and is actually well-utilized in the system. If applying N fertilizer did not completely
inhibit N fixation, then much of the N that was applied would not be used and thus
leached to groundwater. However, 100% inhibition of N fixation occurred at the 100 lb-
N/ac rate, with lower N rates inhibiting a small percentage of N fixation. Now, if more
commonly used varieties require less N inputs (in the 50 to 80 lb-N/ac range) it is
important to know what the true N use efficiency is as less N on lower yielding varieties
may be less efficient than more N on higher yielding varieties. With all of the issues
concerning nitrate concentrations in the Central Sands, we know little about the actual
fate of N (or at least the utilization of applied N) in snap bean production systems.

Irrigation management is vital for the production of processing vegetable crops in
Wisconsin. The use of water and improving the long-term sustainability of this
absolutely critical resource has become a hot topic in the Wisconsin vegetable
industry in recent years, because there has been increasing pressure to manage
irrigation more efficiently and reduce unneeded agricultural water use.

Regulatory updates:
We’re still waiting on some national regulatory reregistration decisions that may affect herbicides
used in potato and vegetables, including diquat and linuron. Stay tuned for updates on any label
changes that may result from that process. Additionally, the Wisconsin special local need labels
for a few herbicides expired in 2017, including Dual Magnum on several vegetable crops and
Tough on mint (as well as Stinger on strawberry and cranberry in the fruit world). In each of
these cases the registrant has or is submitting a new special local needs request that will be
evaluated by WI DATCP.

In a world where we can splice genes, split atoms and transplant organs it is hard to believe
that we still have not figured out a way to spray agricultural pesticides with zero spray drift.
Although newer developments in application technologies have helped to contain spray drift;
nearly all focus on increasing or stabilizing droplet size as their primary goal. Nozzles, pulse
width modulation, boom add-ons, and even drift reduction adjuvants can all be placed in this
category. As an applicator, it is critical to understand the technologies you are utilizing for proper
sprayer management in drift prone conditions.

The Food Safety Modernization Act is something that affects nearly all animal food
production facilities. The deadline for CGMP compliance for small and large
companies has come and gone.
For small facilities, September of 2018 is the compliance deadline for the
preventative control and hazard analysis part of the Food Safety Modernization Act.
We will be talking about how to identify hazards at your facility, along with how to
use your SOP’s and policies to create a prerequisite program to handle those hazards.
We will also be discussing when we may have to use preventative controls and what
that looks like.

No-till planting into high residue environment remains a challenge for Wisconsin
producers, especially when considering planting into cover crop residue. There are several
aspects to planter set-up that can have an impact on seed placement and emergence. To maintain
a reasonable scope for this study a set of differing closing wheels was selected for assessment.

To date identification of causes of yield gaps (difference between maximum yield potential
and measured yield in producer yields) has been restricted to small geographic
areas. In this study, we developed a novel approach that combines producer-reported
data and a spatial framework to identify explanatory causes of yield gap over large
geographic regions with diversity of climate, soils, and water regimes (rainfed and
irrigated). We focused on soybean in the North-Central United States region, which
accounts for approximately one third of global soybean production, as a case study
to provide a proof of concept on the proposed approach. The specific objectives of
this project were to evaluate the proposed approach for its ability to: (1) benchmark
producer soybean yields in relation to yield potential of their fields, (2) identify key
management practices that explain yield gaps, and (3) explain the drivers for some of
the observed (M)anagement × (E)nvironment interactions.

The alfalfa seed industry has introduced coated seeds over the last decade to improve
establishment of alfalfa seedlings. These coatings can be light or heavy but are still sold in
50 pound bags. As a result, farmers are getting less Pure Live Seed (PLS) in a bag; while
these coatings may enhance each individual seed’s ability to establish successfully, it does
reduce the total number of seeds in a bag when purchased by weight. Rhizobium bacteria,
fungicide, colorant and polymers that bind the material are the most common constituents of
“coated” seeds. Due to these changes, farmers have been asking UW-Extension educators
“What seeding rate should we be using to maximize our plant establishment?”

The extent of kernel processing has an effect on animal feed quality and machine fuel
usage. Current methods require laboratory equipment which results in a delay between sampling
and results. An image processing algorithm to determine the size distribution of corn kernel
particles was developed. The algorithm was verified through analyzing images of particles with
a known diameter. Kernels processes with 1, 2, 3, and 4 mm roll gap settings were analyzed and
compared with the standard sieving method. This method can accurately determine the extent of
processing in the field while adjustments to the harvest can still be made.

Objectives
1. Evaluate stripe rust-resistant cultivars and fungicide timings (integrated management) in the
wheat-growing region of Wisconsin for control of stripe rust.
2. Identify the primary chemotype of the Fusarium species complex in Wisconsin and
understand the impact chemotype has on isolate aggressiveness on winter wheat.

Foliar fungicide use in field corn has increased dramatically in some areas of the
country during the past decade. The benefits of foliar fungicides for managing
several fungal leaf diseases has been well-documented. Although, questions about
application timing, plant health benefits, and which products to choose can make
fungicide treatment decisions difficult. In this session, we will review results from
foliar fungicide trials conducted on corn in Nebraska.

Enhanced resistance in soybean germplasm and RNAi transgenic plants will
provide another set of tools to add to our “toolset” of using cultural practices,
predictive models, and fungicide application to manage white mold.
Objectives
1. Improve white mold resistance and agronomic properties of soybean through
breeding in multiple environments and through multiple generations.
2. Improve white mold resistance through RNA-interference and transgenic plants.

Bacterial leaf streak (BLS), caused by Xanthomonas vasicola pv. vasculorum, was reported
for the first time in the United States in Nebraska in 2016. Since then, the disease has been
confirmed in 60 Nebraska counties and 8 additional states, including Colorado, Kansas,
Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas. Previously, the pathogen
had only been confirmed on corn in South Africa and on sugarcane in numerous other
countries around the world. Numerous other grass and palm hosts were identified in other
countries, as well, including sorghum species. Results from additional host range testing
conducted in Nebraska also confirmed several additional crop, weed, and native perennial
grass species as hosts. Symptoms on corn can be difficult to differentiate from other
diseases, especially the gray leaf spot fungal disease. Typical symptoms of the disease on
corn and other hosts are narrow interveinal streaks that can appear bright yellow when
backlit. The pathogen overwinters in infested crop debris thus, disease develops in the same
areas repeatedly when susceptible hybrids are grown and favorable weather conditions
persist. Severity of the disease varies considerably on corn hybrids, particularly on some
popcorn hybrids that can be quite susceptible. High relative humidity and leaf wetness favor
disease development. Results from additional research trials will be shared, as well as more
information on additional emerging diseases, such as tar spot and Diplodia leaf streak.

Maintaining proper root zone soil moisture conditions optimizes yields and improves
field trafficability. When soil voids are free of drainable water, air flow can occur
that supports important chemical and biological processes needed for plant growth.
Other benefits include deeper plant rooting depth and a dry soil will warm up more
quickly in the spring than a wet soil. However, tiled soils have an increased risk of
manure, pesticide and pathogen losses to surface waters. Macropores (earth worm
burrows and shrinkage cracks) and tile surface inlets can act as direct conduits to
tiles and in turn surface waters. Replacing tile surface inlets with blind inlets can
help reduce this risk. Tile typically drain into surface drainage ditches. Maintenance
of tile outlet ditches is critical to the proper performance of the tile system. When
maintenance should occur is dictated by site specific conditions, particularly tile and
ditch grade along with what a landowner is willing to tolerate. Ditches should be
inspected annually and after major storm events to identify problems before they
become severe. Clearing of trees and debris will likely be required more frequently
than sediment removal. There are both private ditches and ditches that are part of the
public drainage system created under WI Chapter 88 of Wisconsin Statutes. This
law established the county drainage districts. Maintenance of and connecting to
private ditches are the responsibility of individual property owner(s), which can lead
to conflicts and disagreements. The public drainage system was developed to
coordinate and better address drainage ditch issues involving multiple landowners.
Any connections to or maintenance of public ditches must involve the County
Drainage Board. It is also important to keep in mind that drainage ditch maintenance
may require permits or review by government agencies such as the Wisconsin
Department of Natural Resources, Natural Resources Conservation Service, the
Army Corps. of Engineers and your local County Planning and Zoning Office.
Additional information on tile drainage can be found on the UWEX tile drainage
web site at the following URL: fyi.uwex.edu/drainage/.
__________________________

Soil health is the ability and capacity of soil to function within environments and ecosystems
to promote plant and animal health, sustain biological productivity, and maintain
environmental quality. Intensive agricultural land use has been widely shown to degrade
soil quality and health. Functional and structural integrity of the soil can be improved or
potentially return to pre-disturbance conditions with soil conservation practices. The goal
of this work was to 1.) quantify the effects of land conversion from native vegetation to
agricultural cultivation and 2.) measure the rate and degree of soil recovery from both
short-term (less than 15 years) and long-term (greater than 15 years) soil conservation
practices. Conservation measures ranged from management modifications that maintain
crop productivity including practices such as conservation tillage and cover crops to
removal of sensitive land from crop production through the Conservation Reserve Program
(CRP). A variety of soil physical, chemical, and biological parameters were investigated
including bulk density, aggregate stability, infiltration, total organic carbon, carbon dioxide
flux, and microbial biomass. Results show land conversion slightly impacted (less than
20% change from pre-disturbed condition) aggregate stability, moderately impacted (20-
50% change from pre-disturbed condition) bulk density, total organic carbon, and carbon
dioxide flux, and severely impacted (greater than 50% change from pre-disturbed condition)
infiltration and microbial biomass. Both short and long-term crop management
modifications (cover crops and conservation tillage) showed minimal recovery of soil
quality indicators. CRP enrollment showed some recovery of soil quality indicators in the
short-term with more significant recovery over longer timescales; however, even 30 years
of grassland management was not sufficient to recover all parameters to their pre-disturbed
state. Our findings reinforce the importance of investing in significant long-term conservation
initiatives.

Wintertime land-applications of manure are a common practice because of the high
cost of manure storage (Srinivasan et al., 2006). However, the presence of frozen soil and
snow creates challenges for on-farm nutrient retention, as up to 75% of annual runoff can
occur during thaws (Good et al., 2012). Therefore, we 1) tested practical management
techniques that may reduce runoff on fields receiving winter applications of liquid dairy
manure, and 2) used a soil physics approach to identify weather and soil properties that
control infiltration, runoff, and nutrient losses during thaws.

There is an ever-increasing focus on climate change and corresponding changes to rainfall
patterns. It seems like more extreme rainfall events are observed every year. Wisconsin and
Minnesota Discovery Farms Programs have monitored 127 site years of edge-of-field
surface runoff. During these site years, 2,184 surface runoff events were measured. These
runoff events and the corresponding rainfall data were analyzed to answer the following
questions:
• Are a large portion of nutrient and soil losses driven by extreme rainfall events?
• Can you control the weather (or the impact of it) on your crop fields?

Corn silage provides an economically important source of feed for dairy and beef
cattle, with nearly one-million acres harvested in Wisconsin annually. Corn silage
may present environmental challenges, however, as very little crop residue remains
in the field and manure is often applied after harvest. This creates conditions
possibly vulnerable to soil erosion and nutrient loss from runoff over the fall-tospring
fallow period.

Waterhemp has become one of the most troublesome weeds in row crop
production in the Midwest. Though not as widespread like in southern neighboring
states, glyphosate-resistant waterhemp populations have been confirmed in 25
Wisconsin counties; moreover resistance to ALS- and PPO-inhibiting herbicides in
waterhemp have also been confirmed in the state (see Stoltenberg’s paper in this
proceedings for complete information). Reduced tillage, herbicide resistance, and
less diversified herbicide programs and crop rotations are the main factors that have
contributed to waterhemp establishment in row crop production systems (Nordby et
al., 2007).

Improving nitrogen (N) use on dairy farms provides both economic and environmental benefits. The goal is to have more N recycled on the farm (from crops to cows to manure used as fertilizer), which results in fewer N inputs purchased and brought onto the farm and less N lost to the environment. But because N cycles through the whole farm system, positive changes in one part of the N cycle might create negative tradeoffs in another part of the N cycle. Two emerging dairy industry trends are used to elaborate the complexity of N use and N loss from dairy production systems (1) feeding less protein to reduce both feed costs and emissions of ammonia and nitrous oxide (the most potent agricultural greenhouse gas) from the farm, and (2) feeding more corns silage and less alfalfa silage to feed more cows and reduce feed costs.

Gypsum is a mineral whose chemical structure consists of calcium sulfate with two water molecules in its structure (CaSO4 ⸳ 2H2O). This mineral has been used in agriculture as a fertilizer for centuries, mainly as a source of calcium and sulfur. There are three main sources of gypsum available today for agricultural use: mined, recycled wallboard, and flue-gas desulfurization (FGD) gypsum. Chemically these sources are identical, with the exception of recycled wallboard gypsum, which might contain pieces of paper within the material. Currently there is considerable interest in FGD gypsum for agricultural use as it is readily available. Flue-gas desulfurization gypsum is generated in air scrubbers engineered to remove sulfur from exhaust gases in coal-burning electric power plants. This type of gypsum typically has a smaller particle size than mined sources; thus it dissolves and reacts more readily.

Application of liquid dairy manure by traveling gun or center pivot irrigation systems is becoming more common because it offers several potential benefits: reduced road impacts from hauling, optimal timing for crop nutrient uptake, and reduced risks of manure runoff and groundwater contamination.

While weed management across the Wisconsin vegetable acreage was generally quite good in the 2016 season, regulatory and resistance issues continue to loom and threaten management options in the very near future.

As the world population continues to grow, and the environmental uncertainty of a less stable climate becomes more manifest, the importance of our soil resources will only increase. The goal of this presentation is to synthesize the catalysts of soil degradation, to highlight the interconnected nature of the social and economic causes of soil degradation, and articulate why maintaining or improving Wisconsin’s soil and water resources is imperative. An expected three billion people will enter the middle class in the next 20 years; this will lead to an increased demand for meat, dairy products, and consequently grain. As populations rise so do the economic incentives to convert farmland to other purposes. With the intensity and frequency of droughts and flooding increasing, consumer confidence and the ability of crops to reach yield goals are also threatened. In a time of uncertainty, conservation measures are often the first to be sacrificed. In short, we are too often compromising our soil resources when we need them the most.

Soil erosion and water runoff drive water quality degradation and are liabilities to crop production, yet their magnitude is neither quantified nor inventoried for US agricultural areas. This project’s goals are to: (1) estimate soil erosion and surface runoff across the Upper Midwest as contributors to soil and water degradation and (2) inventory these quantities for the next several years.

The newly released Daily Erosion Project (DEP) gives daily estimates of water runoff and sheet and rill erosion for each of Iowa’s 1,647 HUC 12 agricultural watersheds (HUC 12 average area is approximately 35 square miles). For each watershed, water runoff and soil erosion is recorded over time, allowing for a spatial and temporal inventory of runoff and soil erosion for identification of soil degraded areas as well as water quality impairment source areas. These estimates are made publicly available on a daily basis from an open access interactive website.This data, as well as all input data, is publicly available through this website. We are currently in the process of expanding the use of this tool from Iowa only to other states in the Midwest. This includes all or parts of Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and Wisconsin. Results for Iowa will be exemplified as work in Wisconsin is not yet complete.

The spread of common waterhemp (Amaranthus rudis) and Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri) has become an increasing concern in Wisconsin (Hammer et al. 2016b). Both species are well-known for their competitive ability, abundant seed production, and propensity for developing herbicide resistance. Herbicide-resistant common waterhemp was first confirmed in Wisconsin in 1999, when a population was found to be resistant to ALS-inhibitors. More recently, glyphosate resistance was confirmed in two waterhemp populations in west-central Wisconsin (Butts and Davis 2015a).

The first occurrence of Palmer amaranth in Wisconsin was documented in 2013 (Davis and Recker 2014). This population was subsequently confirmed to be resistant to glyphosate (Butts and Davis 2015b). Since that time, Palmer amaranth has been found in three additional counties in Wisconsin. Responding to the increasing concern of Wisconsin growers, we have investigated several instances of suspected herbicide-resistant common waterhemp and Palmer amaranth. Our methods and findings are described.

Hackers have learned to profit from their activities. While breaches at large companies like Target, Home Depot and Sony dominate the news this threat is significant for the small business as well. Virtually every industry segment is affected, indeed, any business that stores personal financial information on the network or conducts online cash management is a potential target. Payment fraud targeting wire transfers, automatic clearing house payments, and credit cards is increasing at an alarming rate. Historically, hacking has been a high risk issue only for banks, but attackers are now targeting all businesses in an effort to access bank funds via online payment methods.

This session will describe the threat landscape, discuss regulatory efforts to address the threat, and provide insight on how business leaders can effectively address this emerging threat.

Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] nutrient uptake and partitioning models are primarily built from work conducted in the early 1960s. Since the 1960s, yields have nearly doubled to 47.5 bu acre^-1 in 2014 and soybean physiology has been altered with approximately one more week of reproductive growth and greater harvest index’s for currently cultivated varieties. These changes in soybean development along with new production practices warrant re-evaluating soybean nutrient uptake, partitioning. This study’s objective was to re-evaluate these factors across a wide yield range of 40 to 90 bu acre^-1. Trials were conducted at three locations (Arlington and Hancock, WI and St. Paul, MN) during 2014 and 2015. Plant samples were taken at the V4, R1, R4, R5.5, R6.5, and R8 growth stage and partitioned into stems, petioles, leaves, pods, seeds, fallen leaves, and fallen petioles, totaling about 7,000 samples annually. Results indicate that dry matter accumulation at R6.5 was only 84% of the total and that as yield increased the harvest index by 0.2% per bushel. Nutrient uptake for N, P₂O₅, and K₂O was 227, 55, and 153 lb a^-1, respectively and crop removal was 188, 44, and 74 lbs. a^-1, respectively at a yield level of 60 bu acre^-1. Data showed that the extended reproductive growth phase (~7 days), greater nutrient remobilization efficiencies (>70%) and higher nutrient harvest index with increasing yields helped contribute to higher yields without greatly increasing total nutrient uptake.

According to recent agricultural statistics, alfalfa was planted on 0.44 million acres and harvested from 2.2 million acres and corn silage was planted and harvested from 1.0 m million acres per year in Wisconsin. Because both crops are often grown in rotation, alfalfa could be interseeded at corn planting to serve as a dual-purpose crop for providing groundcover during corn silage production and forage during subsequent growing seasons. Unfortunately, this system has been unworkable because competition between the co-planted crops often leads to stand failure of interseeded alfalfa. Recent Wisconsin studies demonstrated that properly timed foliar applications of prohexadione-calcium on appropriate alfalfa varieties increased plant survival of interseeded alfalfa by up to 300%. When successfully established, first year dry matter yield of interseeded alfalfa was two-fold greater than conventionally spring-seeded alfalfa. Other studies revealed that interseeded alfalfa reduced fall and spring runoff of water and phosphorus by 60% and soil erosion by 80% compared to cropland containing only corn silage residues and weeds. Once established, alfalfa is also known to be highly effective for reducing nitrate leaching into groundwater. Assuming an average establishment success rate of 80%, a 5% reduction in corn silage yield, and a prohexadione application cost of $40 per acre, a preliminary economic analysis suggests alfalfa establishment by interseeding followed by full alfalfa production the following year could improve net returns of producers by about 30% ($130 per acre) compared to alfalfa conventionally spring seeded after corn silage. These improvements in crop yields and profitability and in soil and water conservation are powerful incentives for continuing work to develop reliable and workable corn-interseeded alfalfa production systems for use on farms in Wisconsin and other northern states where alfalfa cannot be successfully established in the fall after corn silage harvest.

Production and processing of specialty crops in Wisconsin are very important to both state and national agricultural industries. And key among these processing crops in Wisconsin include sweet corn, succulent snap beans, field peas and potatoes. In addition, the vast majority of these commercial, contract acres receive an at-plant in-furrow, or seed treatment of a Group 4A insecticide (neonicotinoid). Increasingly, producers rely heavily on this single class of insecticides for control of early season pests including Colorado potato beetle, seed maggots, potato leafhopper, and bean leaf beetles (NASS 2006). Reported at-plant applications of these neonicotinoid seed treatments have occurred on nearly 90% of all acres reported and reflect statewide use rates in many other grain crops. In the 2014 and 2015 growing season, the in-plant concentrations of thiamethoxam (Cruiser® 5FS) were monitored using an ultra-performance liquid chromatographic mass spectrometry procedure in both leaf and floral tissues at varying stages after emergence from the soil.

Environmental matters for any small business including grain elevators can be complex. Fortunately, the Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) Small Business Environmental Assistance Program (SBEAP) is here to help. SBEAP offers free, non-regulatory assistance to small businesses to help owners understand their state and federal environmental responsibilities. The program provides “plain language” resources, answers compliance questions and directs businesses to other appropriate assistance providers and relevant DNR staff.

An increase in conventional corn acreage due to lower commodity prices apparently favored larval populations this fall. The 75th annual survey in September and October found a state average of 0.11 borer per plant, an increase from last year’s historical low of 0.02 borer per plant. Minor population increases from 2015 were documented in seven of the nine crop districts, except in the east-central and northeast regions. Larval densities in the central area rose to 0.24 borer per plant, or 24 per 100 plants, the highest average recorded in that area since 2007. Although more sites had economic averages above 1.0 larva per plant than in recent years, and second-generation larvae were detected in 49 of the 229 fields (21%) surveyed compared to14% in 2015, the very low state average of 0.11 borer per plant indicates that Bt corn continues to suppress corn borer populations and reduce the pest status of this insect in Wisconsin.

Can effective Grain Origination be taught?

Can it be developed into a system – with every team member speaking in one voice?

Can you get your grain origination program more efficient?

Build your loyal tribe of farmers. What creates loyalty with your farmers? A consistent professional message goes a long way.

Although it happened many years ago, I remember my first experience with spray tank contamination as if it happened this past season. The year was 1991 and nearly constant rains had us moving from site to site in search of “dry” ground to drive on. Rigs buried in mud and partial loads left in tanks overnight were the norm. The rig was a Spray Coupe with a massive 40 foot boom. The culprit was a plant growth regulator based herbicide presumed to have been completely cleaned out prior to switching to soybeans. The proof that it was not completely cleaned out showed up 4-5 days later when the headlands and first pass were obviously injured – injured enough to be noticed in a windshield survey at 50 mph! Fast forward to 2016. The equipment is larger. Pesticide labels now provide very specific cleanout procedures. And yet as I drive this state traveling between research trials, it seems that herbicide injury is just as prevalent as ever. Although spray drift can be blamed for some of the incidents, tank contamination with its classic appearance of straight lines and inverted-V shaped symptoms appears to be responsible for many of the cases. Applicator understanding of pesticide chemistry, formulation and herbicide injury symptoms is critical for proper sprayer cleanout and avoidance of these costly mistakes.

Recently, there has been interest in using conventional corn hybrids (non-GMO) to cut input costs because of low commodity prices. However, using conventional corn can also be considered part of an overall IPM plan that diversifies management tactics to increase profitability and avoid resistance.

Using corn hybrids without below ground traits can fit into an IPM program because beetle monitoring is completed prior to making seed purchases. However, you are substituting the convenience of prophylactic treatments (traited corn) for increased labor costs (field scouting). Also, in the absence of below ground traits, at-plant, preventive treatments are available for corn rootworm which are efficacious and have had a history of successful use. Furthermore, field scouting will provide the added value of supportive information that you can use to select field specific management practices that can be used to diversify corn rootworm treatment. Thereby reducing the reliance on a single tactic and delay resistance to Bt hybrids.

Conversely, using corn hybrids with above ground traits does not fit into an IPM approach. Seed purchases are made well in advance of the time period you should scout to determine if control is needed. Fortunately, the insects which are targeted by the above ground Bt traits have scouting procedures, economic thresholds and rescue treatment available if you forgo hybrids with the above-ground traits.

A nitrification inhibitor temporarily delays the conversion of ammonium to nitrate. It is used to prevent nitrate losses should weather conditions conducive to N loss occur. Therefore, a nitrification inhibitor should be considering a risk management tool, not a yield enhancement tool. Several recent studies in Wisconsin have evaluated the nitrification inhibitor Instinct or Instinct II with spring or fall applied manure.

Current UWEX fertilizer recommendations and plant analysis interpretation guidelines were developed prior to the release of GMO corn. There is some concern amongst University soil fertility specialists and industry agronomists that corn and soybean response to P and K fertilizer applications may be different with modern corn hybrids and soybean varieties. In addition, in the UW recommendation system, an estimate of the amount of nutrients removed in the harvested portion of the crop is used to determine the fertilizer recommendations based on soil test levels (Laboski and Peters, 2012). If crop removal rates have changed in modern hybrids is it essential to determine current removal rates and use those numbers in fertilizer recommendations.

Proactive maintenance programs need to become a culture. What are the different types of maintenance? How can we move from a reactive program to a proactive program? What tools are available for a proactive maintenance program? Using tools like Infrared, Vibration Analysis, and Precision Alignment will provide early warning of a failure. This early warning will enable repairs to be accomplished in a planned time instead of reacting to a breakdown. Most commonly, reactive breakdowns are during our busiest times.

The Wisconsin Manure Irrigation Workgroup was convened in Spring 2013 by University of Wisconsin-Extension (UWEX) and University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the request of Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) and Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (WDATCP). The workgroup was asked to review a broad set of issues associated with manure irrigation and to develop guidance and recommendations for state agencies, local governments, and citizens seeking to understand this expanding technology. The workgroup has no formal authority and expects that any public policy action by local or state governments related to workgroup recommendations would involve appropriate public participation and input.

The 2016 corn production year was the best on record in Wisconsin. On November 10, 2016, the Wisconsin Agricultural Statistics Service projected corn to be harvested from 3.1 million acres with an average yield of 180 bushels per acre and total production of 558 million bushels. Final estimates will be released in January of 2017.

Basics of Pollinator Biology:

• Pollinators include bees, but also various other insects (wasps, beetles, moths, flies, etc.) and other animals (hummingbirds, bats, small mammals); any creature that visits a flower could be a pollinator to some extent!

-Of these creatures, bees are amongst our best and most important pollinators.

• The US is home to ~4,000 bee species; Wisconsin is home to ~400 bee species

– Honey Bee (1 sp.) social, live as colony year round

– Bumble Bees (~20 sp.) social, seasonal colonies

– Wild Bees (~400 sp. in several families) solitary, biology varies for each type

• Bees pollinate ~80% of flowering plants (~250,000 flowering plants known)

-Roughly 1 out of every 3 bites of food due to pollinators

• Bees have two main needs: food sources (i.e., flowers) and shelter (i.e., nesting habitat)

– Other than cuckoo bees, all bees collect pollen and nectar to feed their young

– Solitary bees use provisioning to stockpile food for their developing young

– Three main types of nesting sites:

A) Ground nesters [~70 % of bees]

B) Hole Nesters (use preexisting tunnels in most cases) [~30 % of bees]

C) Cavity nesters (bumble bees, feral honeybees) [<1% of bees]

Management of vehicle fleets is a complex task. Interactions between a harvesting machine, transport vehicles, and a storage site provides the opportunity for introduction of inefficiencies in the harvest process. These inefficiencies translate to an increased cost of harvest. at best. and possibly a reduction in feed quality. Even when ignoring uncontrollable aspects of machinery, such as break-downs, there still exists idle time during the harvest process that can be minimized to improve harvest efficiency. In 2015 the entire forage harvest process on a commercial dairy was recorded using low-cost GPS data loggers. Controller Area Network (CAN) data were also collected on machines that had the data available. Machine working states were defined based on the GPS and CAN data to determine the time each machine spent doing a certain task. Idle time was defined for the harvesting equipment during alfalfa and corn harvest for silage production.

The Root Lesion nematode, Pratylenchus spp., is very common in the north central United States, ranking first or second for incidence among pest nematodes in Illinois (Mekete et al., 2011), Iowa (Tylka et al. 2011), and Minnesota(Chen et al., 2012). It is the most common pest nematode recovered from samples sent to the UW Nematode Diagnostic Service in Wisconsin. The percentage of samples positive for Root Lesion ranged from 90 to 95% for 2013 to 2016 and represented the majority of the counties with corn and soybean production.

MOST COMMON VIOLATIONS OF COMMERCIAL PESTICIDE APPLICATORS

(1) Obtaining and maintaining individual certification and license.

(2) Use of a pesticide that results in significant drift or overspray.

(3) Incomplete application records.

(4) Use of a pesticide in a manner inconsistent with the pesticide label.

(5) Use of atrazine in atrazine prohibition areas

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Agricultural sustainability means different things to different people. In reality, it is only in hindsight that we can know what is actually sustainable. How can anyone really know how we should farm today to ensure that we will be able to still be farming 100 or more years from now? Differences in strategies for dealing with this uncertainty are at the root of much of the debate and disagreement surrounding agricultural sustainability. Here we are not going to overview or summarize this debate and some of the main strategies, but rather focus on results – what have we accomplished at UW and in Wisconsin for research and related activities. First, we briefly describe the conceptual framework we use for agricultural sustainability assessment. Second, we present specific results for Wisconsin potato growers and Midwestern processing green bean and sweet corn growers. Finally, we overview some research in progress.

The Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD), now in effect as of January 1st, 2017, is a major change within animal agriculture. As part of the FDA’s larger initiative against antibiotic resistance, the VFD aims to bring all feed medications containing medically important antibiotics under the oversight and supervision of a licensed veterinarian. With the growing demand for transparency of animal care and antibiotic stewardship in animal agriculture, the VFD is a necessary next step to meet the demands of consumers. “The actions the FDA has taken to date represent important steps toward a fundamental change in how antimicrobials can be legally used in food producing animals,” said Michael R. Taylor, FDA deputy commissioner for foods. “The VFD final rule takes another important step by facilitating veterinary oversight in a way that allows for the flexibility needed to accommodate the diversity of circumstances that veterinarians encounter, while ensuring such oversight is conducted in accordance with nationally consistent principles.”

Wheat stripe rust, caused by the fungal plant pathogen Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici, has been an increasing problem in the central Great Plains and areas of the upper Midwest due to milder winters (Chen, 2005). Since 2000, stripe rust has become an increasing concern on winter wheat in the Midwest. In Wisconsin over the last four seasons, we have observed consistent stripe rust pressure on some varieties throughout the wheat production area of the state. In 2016, some cultivars were hit very hard by this disease. Because of the consistent occurrence of stripe rust over the last few seasons, it is reasonable to expect continued pressure from this disease in 2017.

Performance of foliar fungicides can be evaluated in field-scale on-farm replicated strip trials and in small-plot experiments. This presentation will present analyses of two datasets from Iowa to compare yield and yield response variability to fungicide applications in on-farm trials versus small-plot experiments. An estimate number of locations, replications and years required to detect yield differences of interest will be covered. One dataset includes 123 on-farm trials evaluating Headline (BASF) foliar fungicide on soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr) in 2008 and 2009 across Iowa by farmers working with the Iowa Soybean Association On-Farm Network. The other dataset includes small-plot experiments conducted by university researches to evaluate the same fungicide during the same growing seasons at six Iowa State University Research and Demonstration Farms. On-farm trials were harvested by farmers’ combines equipped with yield monitors and GPS and small-plot experiments by small-plot combines. Variance component analysis was used to quantify the random sources of yield variation contributed by location and blocks nested within each location and conduct power analyses for multi-location trials. Disease ratings were done in all small-plot trials. While yield responses in the two types of trials were similar (about 125 kg ha-1), the residual random yield variation in on-farm trials tended to be smaller than that in small-plot trials but the random variation due to location effect was larger in on-farm trials. The presentation will show examples of power curves showing the numbers of trials, replications and years required to detect specific response, often <68 kg ha-1 . The results also suggest about the different utility of two methods for evaluating fungicides, specifically, the on-farm trials for answering the question “when, where and how likely” a given fungicide works while small-plot trials for comparing multiple chemistries at the same locations and quantifying the interactive effects of application timing.

Alfalfa has long been recognized as a forage crop with high nutritive value, digestibility, and intake potential to support high milk production. Because of this and many other  agronomic characteristics, such as tolerance to drought and nitrogen fixation, it has been quoted as the ‘queen of forages’ and ‘dairy’s most nearly perfect feed’. As close as alfalfa is to a perfect forage, there is room for progress. Decades of breeders’ experience in traditional plant breeding and advances in biotechnology have allowed for new opportunities. The achievement of reduced lignin alfalfa is certainly one of the milestones in forage quality research. Significant advances have been reached in alfalfa production and forage quality by increasing forage digestibility through reduction, not elimination, of lignin in plant tissue. Given the relatively recent presence in the market and the ongoing incorporation of this trait into commercial varieties, only time will confirm the reach of this innovation whether through biotech or traditional breeding methods. This leads to a few questions: What have been the approaches to reducing lignin in germplasm? What is the difference between genetically modified (GMO) or biotech alfalfa, and non-GMO or non-biotech? Can these technologies co-exist? The information presented highlights the distinction between these two types, their applications, and importance.

Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) is based totally on preventative practices to help lessen the likely hood of a contaminated animal food product making its way into the market place. Most of you already have adopted practices and procedures that would put you in compliance with the CGMP’s. However, in most cases it is the record keeping that needs to be updated. Recently new guidance documents for compliance with the Current good manufacturing practices (CGMP) for FSMA have been released by the FDA. These guidance documents are not in final form but are in a draft for comment. There are two main sections for compliance with the new Food Safety Modernization Act the first and foremost would be compliance with the new CGMP’s.

This rule is one of seven foundational rules proposed since January 2013 to create a modern, risk-based framework for food safety. The goal of this rule is to prevent practices during transportation that create food safety risks, such as failure to properly refrigerate food, inadequate cleaning of vehicles between loads, and failure to properly protect food. The rule builds on safeguards envisioned in the 2005 Sanitary Food Transportation Act (SFTA). Because of illness outbreaks resulting from human and animal food contaminated during transportation, and incidents and reports of unsanitary transportation practices, there have long been concerns about the need for regulations to ensure that foods are being transported in a safe manner. The rule establishes requirements for shippers, loaders, carriers by motor or rail vehicle, and receivers involved in transporting human and animal food to use sanitary practices to ensure the safety of that food. The requirements do not apply to transportation by ship or air because of limitations in the law. Specifically, the FSMA rule establishes requirements for vehicles and transportation equipment, transportation operations, records, training and waivers

This survey was conducted to detect exotic cyst nematodes in cereal and corn producing fields of Wisconsin. The targeted nematodes were Heterodera filipjevi, the cereal cyst nematode; Heterodera latipons, the Mediterranean cereal cyst nematode; and Punctodera chalcoensis, the Mexican corn cyst nematode. Any of these nematodes could potentially impact crop production, management practices and trade if they were accidentally introduced into this state. Sampling was conducted in counties that contain the majority of the wheat acreage in the state, (Brown, Calumet, Columbia, Dane, Dodge, Door, Fond du Lac, Green, Jefferson, Kewaunee, Manitowoc, Outagamie, Racine, Rock, Sheboygan and Walworth, Winnebago). Wheat is the main host for H. filipjevi and H. latipons. Corn, the host of P. chalcoensis is also grown in these counties.

Wisconsin is home to 13 species of Pigweeds (plants in the genus Amaranthus). Of these species, two (red-root pigweed and smooth pigweed) are widespread in Wisconsin and have historically plagued farmers as competitive weed species. With the rapid increase in herbicide resistance, concern exists with respect to the spread of two particular pigweeds that have historically been called uncommon: common/tall waterhemp (Amaranthus tuberculatus) and Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri). These species are of higher priority to prevent spread compared to other pigweeds as they have been found to develop resistance to multiple herbicides and be more competitive.

Over 1 million acres of corn silage is grown in Wisconsin. When harvested in late summer, there is a clear opportunity for cover crops to be planted. In addition, it is likely that manure will be applied after corn silage harvest allowing cover crops to provide both soil and nutrient conservation benefits. However, growers in Wisconsin climates may have concerns about trade-offs with management such as extra field work in the spring, competition for soil water and nutrients, and other associated costs that can only be addressed through coordinated research and extension efforts across the state. The potential for yield loss is a real concern of Wisconsin farmers and there are quantified examples of corn yield reductions following a rye cover crop (e.g., 13 bu/ac decrease reported by Stute et al.,2009). The objectives of this study were to determine the performance of fall seeded cover crops in a corn silage/fall manure application production system in different regions of Wisconsin and to quantify effects (yield and optimal N rate) on subsequent corn crop yield. Two cover crops were evaluated winter rye (which required termination in the spring) and spring barley (which winterkills).

Current University of Wisconsin-Extension guidelines recommend 60 lb-N/ac for snap bean grown on soils less than 2% organic matter, which are most soils in the Central Sands of Wisconsin. However, the typical rate that snap bean growers apply is much greater than this rate. In addition, it is possible that rates lower than 60 lb-N/ac may be economically optimal for some varieties. Snap beans are a legume and some, but not all, varieties nodulate, meaning they have the ability to fix nitrogen (N) from the atmosphere. This will result in different N response curves and perhaps different N recommendations for different snap bean varieties. It is often assumed that when we fertilize legumes with N, the added N replaces the amount of fixed N in a one-to-one manner – but this is rarely true. In fact, we know little about the tradeoffs between N application and nodulation in snap beans. The objectives of this paper are to review the state of knowledge of snap bean response to N fertilizer and evaluate the different ways nitrogen use efficiency can be determined.

Polymer-coated urea (PCU) is a fertilizer product in which each urea prill is individually coated with a polymer (or plastic) coating. All PCUs are considered a slow or controlled release fertilizer, which is defined by the Association of American Plant Food Control Officials as a fertilizer that contains plant nutrients in a form that extends its availability significantly longer than a reference fertilizer (in this case urea) (Slater, 2014). The way PCU works is that urea dissolves inside the coating and slowly diffuses into the soil over time. The mechanism for the nitrogen-release from PCU includes three phases: (1) lag phase, (2) constant release phase, and (3) release decay phase (Shaviv et al., 2003).

It’s a time of exponential change in our society and in the industries that heat and light our homes, transport us, entertain us, and feed our families. This is also true in agriculture and closely allied industries! What does exponential change and growth really mean? First, linear growth means adding a fixed amount of “something” every time period. Like a year. If I invest $10,000 in the stock market and it grows only by a fixed, linear rate of $1,000 a year, after 25 years, I will have $34,000. Not bad. But, if I invest that same $10,000 and grow the balance by 10% per year, compounding last year’s gain on top of this year’s, I will have $98,497 after 25 years. Compound interest is an example of exponential growth that we’re all familiar with.

Technology and SPECIFICALLY, computing power, has been growing in this exponential way since the 1950s. But, computing power doesn’t grow by single digits as is the case with investing money in a savings account. “Moore’s Law,” named after an early computer pioneer, tells us that computing power doubles approximately every 12 to 18 months. That means the annual growth rate is close to 100%! We will talk about what this means for all of us in the conference session.

Wisconsin growers are increasingly interested in utilizing cover crops. Prior to cover crop establishment a plan to terminate the cover crop is necessary. Proper and timely termination should prevent competition to the following grain or forage crop. Proper and timely termination is dependent on the species of cover crop and the following crop to be grown. The species of the cover crop impacts ease of control, seed production potential, and growth rate. Termination can occur through environmental conditions such as frost or through a cultural, mechanical, or chemical method, such as tillage or herbicide application. The termination plan should meet the grower’s goals for the cover crop, crop rotation, and to prevent the cover crop from becoming a future weed problem.

In 2015, an alfalfa research trial was established at the Arlington Agricultural Research Station in Arlington, WI. Two cultivars of alfalfa (DKA44-16RR – Conventional Roundup Ready®; HarvXtra – Reduced-lignin, Roundup Ready ®) were sprayed with seven fungicide treatments and compared to a non-treated control. Yield, quality, and return on investment of the treatments were evaluated under two cutting duration schemes (30-day vs. 40-day) for both cultivars. Results of the entire study can be found at: http://fyi.uwex.edu/fieldcroppathology/files/2015/11/2015-DLS-MFA-FINAL-REPORT.pdf. In the 2015 study (seeding year), both cultivars responded to fungicide in a similar way (second crop specifically). In the 30-day cutting duration, fungicide application resulted in little discernable difference in disease level, defoliation, or quality compared to not treating with fungicide. Return on investment (ROI) calculations indicated that no positive return was achieved if the hay was sold, or was kept on the farm and fed to dairy cows, for the 30-day duration of cut. For the 40-day duration, significant differences in fungicide treatments were identified for disease levels, defoliation, and quality compared to the non-treated controls. These differences resulted in positive ROI (using the Milk 2006 model) for the second crop where the fungicides Headline® and Quadris® were used, under the scenario where hay would be kept on the farm and fed to dairy cows. If hay was sold, no positive ROI was identified for either treatment for this crop.

The use of insecticidal seed treatments containing neonicotinoids has become extremely widespread in field crops. Often these products are used as a default at planting, without specific reference to an insect pest problem requiring management. This talk summarizes a two-year, checkoff-funded multistate study aimed at understanding the average value and return on investment of neonicotinoid seed treatment in soybean in the North Central Region, including a comparison to the return on investment with the classic Integrated Pest Management approach of scouting and applying a foliar product at pest threshold. In summary, IPM provides both a greater probability of a positive return on investment, and a larger average return.

Western bean cutworm, a native pest originally found in the western US, has become an increasingly common pest of corn in the North Central Region as its range spreads eastward. The Bt toxin Cry1F has been used to help manage this pest. However, there is increasing evidence that this toxin is no longer effective against western bean cutworm in many parts of its range. This talk summarizes the identification, biology, and damage from this pest, and discusses management including Bt and alternate management approaches. Scouting and insecticide are effective against western bean cutworm, but careful monitoring is necessary to get timing right.

The GM reduced lignin trait has been released commercially in conjunction with Monsanto Company under the brand name of HarvXtra alfalfa.

One study in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania evaluated the trait with and without grass. HarvXtra was seen to have higher fiber digestibility than a conventional line in both the seeding year and the first production year. There was no yield drag due to the reduced lignin trait. Further, if the HarvXtra trait harvest was delayed 10 days to have similar quality to conventional varieties, the HarvXtra trait was always significantly higher in yield.

How was the quality of alfalfa you harvested this year? Weather often has a large impact. However, harvest management can have a huge effect of drying rate and quality of the harvested forage. Now is the time to evaluate how this year went and to plan for what changes might be implemented next year.

White mold (Sclerotinia stem rot) is caused by Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and consistently ranks in the top ten diseases plaguing global soybean crops (Wrather et al., 2010). In 2009, United States soybean losses due to white mold reached almost 59 million bushels and cost growers a corresponding ~$560 million (Koenning & Wrather, 2010; Peltier et al., 2012). Furthermore, according to a United Soybean Board report from 2011, white mold epidemics in the Great Lakes region alone were responsible for 94% of nationwide losses to the disease and cost regional growers ~$138 million (USDA-NASS 2015). White mold is infamously characterized by its challenging fungal promiscuity and longevity, and by the subsequently devastating crop losses; Wisconsin growers justifiably rank white mold management third in significance and concern.

Wisconsin has the largest number of organic dairies in the United States with over 450 dairy farms that represents more than 25% of the nation’s certified organic dairy farms (USDA NASS, 2014). Despite the large amount of organic dairy operations in Wisconsin, interest in expansion of existing and new operations exist due to consumer demand for organic milk (Greene and McBride, 2015). With the challenges that expanding operations face (e.g. purchasing land), interest in maximizing pasture performance exist. Previous research has shown that pasture productivity, forage quality, soil fertility and pasture management are all critical to maximizing milk production, but these factors have been observed to vary widely across farms. We visited pastures from organic dairies throughout Wisconsin to assess productivity and determine what facets measured could be improved to maximize milk production.

In the United States, herbicide-resistant weed populations have evolved rapidly in response to the selection pressures imposed upon them in agricultural production systems. In recent years, glyphosate-resistant weeds have increased dramatically and are now estimated to occur on more than half of the corn, soybean, and cotton acreage. In Missouri, we were the first in the U.S. to discover a glyphosate-resistant waterhemp population in 2005. Since that time, waterhemp has progressively worsened in our state and has become the most troublesome species that our growers contend with each year. Multiple-resistant waterhemp populations now occur on three-quarters of the acres in the state. To date, the primary way that farmers have responded to the problem of glyphosate resistance in weeds has been to rely on alternative herbicides other than glyphosate. However, due to the increasing problem of multiple herbicide resistance, it seems clear that this practice alone will not prove successful, and that a multi-faceted approach will be required. In this session we will discuss some of these integrated approached and some of the recent successes we have had with managing this very problematic weed species in Missouri.

Palmer amaranth was initially discovered in Harrison County, Iowa in August 2013 in a fallow crop field. Following that discovery, five more infestations were discovered in Page, Fremont, Muscatine, and Lee counties in 2013 and 2014. In July 2016, two landowners, both professional agronomists, detected Palmer amaranth in fields planted this spring to native seed mixes for conservation purposes. One discovery was in a quail habitat (CP 33) conservation planting in Muscatine County and the other was in a pollinator habitat (CP 42) conservation planting in Madison County. Since those initial discoveries in conservation plantings, Palmer amaranth was confirmed in an additional 41 Iowa counties in 2016 (Fig. 1). At least 35 of those counties are on the map as a result of the unintentional seeding of Palmer amaranth with native seed for conservation purposes.

In 2016, the majority of the cotton acreage in the southeastern portion of Missouri was planted with dicamba-tolerant (DT) varieties. A limited number of DT soybean varieties were also planted throughout the state. However, during the 2016 growing season, the Environmental Protection Agency had not approved any dicamba herbicide formulations for post-emergence application to DT cotton or soybean. Although investigations are ongoing, apparently a subset of growers made illegal applications of dicamba to their DT cotton and/or soybean, which resulted in off-target movement of dicamba to a variety of sensitive crops, including large acreages of non-DT soybean. In southeastern Missouri alone, over 125 dicamba injury complaints were filed with the Missouri Department of Agriculture. These injury complaints occurred on over 40,000 acres of soybean, 1,000 acres of cotton, 700 acres of peaches, 400 acres of purple hull peas, 200 acres of peanuts, 32 acres of watermelon, 9 acres of cantaloupe, 6 acres of alfalfa, 2 acres of tomatoes, and on numerous homeowner’s gardens, trees, and ornamental bushes. Some of the primary factors that contributed to the off-site movement of dicamba will be discussed, as well as the impacts that this situation has had and will continue to have on Missouri agriculture.

The 4R concept (right source, right rate, right time and right place) provides a useful structure to achieve increased crop production, improved farm profitability, greater environmental protection and better sustainability. However, crop nutrient management should go beyond the 4Rs of fertilizer and manure stewardship. Other soil management factors that affect crop productivity, farm profitability, the environment, and sustainability should be considered when thinking about crop nutrient management. While fertilizer and manure applications affect nutrient availability to crops short-term (e.g., current growing season or following year), other soil management factors affect nutrient availability longterm. More specifically, factors that affect crop residues after harvest and soil structure/ aggregation affect the availability of nutrients in future years. One such soil property is soil organic matter content.

No abstract provided.

No abstract provided

No abstract provided.

Agricultural nutrient management continues to be an important area of research and policy due to concerns of phosphorus (P) loss in runoff and water quality impacts. For dairy and beef farms, outdoor cattle lots (feedlots, barnyards, exercise lots, over-wintering lots) can be significant sources of P loss (Koelsch et al., 2006). There is a need to assess P loss from lots, especially relative to other farm areas (cropland, pastures), to see if alternative lot management is needed and cost-effective. Computer models can be effective tools to help quantify P loss from cattle lots. Despite quite a bit of physical monitoring research on P loss from lots since the 1970’s, there has been little development of models to predict P loss from these areas. To our knowledge, the only two examples of runoff and P loss models for cattle lots are in the AGNPS model (Young et al., 1989) and the APEX model (Gassman et al., 2010; Williams et al., 2006). Barnyard runoff models such as BARNY in Wisconsin and MinnFarm in Minnesota use the same approach as AGNPS. Both AGNPS and APEX have had only minimal testing for P loss from lots (Kizil et al., 2006; Williams et al., 2006), so it is not clear if they are reliable across a range of cattle lot managements, conditions, and locations. Our objectives were to:

1.Develop a relatively simple, annual model to estimate P loss in runoff from cattle lots

2.Test the model with data available in the published literature

3.Compare the new model to BARNY and MinnFarm.

Why apply manure on alfalfa and other perennial forage crops? There are several benefits, but also some concerns or challenges to be considered.

Alfalfa and other forages have a large nutrient need – potassium, phosphorus, sulfur,micronutrients, and for grass forages, nitrogen. Manure is a good source of these nutrients and can produce yield increases if nutrients are deficient. Application of manure to forage crops increases the acreage base, which may be important to meet nutrient management plan requirements and avoid over application of P. And applying manure after harvest during the growing season opens up windows of time for manure application not available with most annual crops. While alfalfa and other legumes don’t benefit from nitrogen in manure, applied N reduces the amount of symbiotic N fixation, helping to buffer N availability and reducing the risk of nitrate leaching due to N application from manure. And the deep rooting pattern of alfalfa can capture nitrate that leached beneath the root zone other crops from excessive manure or fertilizer N application. (See Russelle and Jokela, 2013, for more detail.)

There are also some challenges or limitations associated with manure application on forages – smothering and leaf coating, soil compaction and crown damage from wheel traffic, pathogens and feed contamination, surface runoff of nutrients, and odor and ammonia emission. Most of these concerns are associated with broadcast application after harvest and will be discussed in a later section.

There are three general manure application strategies or times of application: preplant (before forage seeding), following last harvest at termination of the stand, and after harvest during the season.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how to evaluate the potential for N loss after heavy rainfall and determine corrective measures that may be taken.

Denitrification

Denitrification is the process whereby nitrate is converted to the gases dinitrogen or nitrous oxide and subsequently released to the atmosphere. This conversion is carried out by soil bacteria. Denitrification can be a significant mechanism for N loss on medium- and fine-textured soil. It is generally not an issue on coarse-textured soils because they do not remain saturated for any length of time. There are several environmental factors that determine if denitrification occurs and to what extent.

1. Nitrate. Nitrate must be present for denitrification to occur. If nitrate is not present or is in low concentrations, denitrifiaction losses will be minimal.

2. Soil water content and aeration. Denitrification occurs in wet soils with low oxygen concentrations. Denitrification increase with the length of time the soil is saturated. Standing water may result in a greater percentage of nitrate being denitrified.

3. Temperature. Denitrification proceeds faster on warmer soils, particularly when soil temperature is greater than 75°F.

4. Organic matter. Denitrification occurs because soil bacteria are breaking down organic matter under low oxygen conditions and the bacteria use nitrate in a biochemical process. Soils with low soluble organic carbon will have less potential for denitrification than soils with high soluble organic carbon. Thus, nitrate that resides deeper in the soil profile (e.g., below 12 inches) where there is less organic matter will have a greatly reduced or minimal probability of being denitrified.

5. Soil pH. Denitrification is negligible in soils with a pH < 5.0. Thus, pH likely does not limit denitrification on most of our cropland in Wisconsin.

Since the 1950s there have been three philosophies driving soil fertility recommendations throughout the U.S. concerning certain base cations (Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, K⁺). They include build and maintain, sufficiency level, and base cation saturation ratio (BCSR). The theory of an “ideal” BCSR in the soil has been extensively discussed and used to a limited extent throughout the Midwest by some soil testing labs to guide fertility recommendations. This “ideal” soil was first suggested by researchers from New Jersey in the 1940’s (Bear et al., 1945; Bear and Toth, 1948; Hunter, A.S., 1949; Prince et al., 1947) and further emphasized by William Albrecht, Professor from the University of Missouri. Their theory built upon work done by Loew and May (1901) which suggested that Ca and Mg should be in a 5:4 ratio for optimal plant growth. However, this theory has been a subject of great debate in terms of its utility for affecting crop yields and farmer profitability. Numerous studies have found flaws in the BCSR method and showed no proven yield increases, while a greater research base exists to support the sufficiency and build and maintain approaches (Eckert and McLean, 1981; McLean et al., 1983). Yet, some consultants and ag. retailers still use the BCSR method to guide fertility recommendations. All land-grant university fertility recommendations in the Midwest use a sufficiency or build and maintain approach. The University of Wisconsin recommendations employ a build and maintain approach, as do most surrounding states (IL, IA, IN, MI). This paper will discuss the theory behind the BCSR method, its applicability, if there is any value to it, and why state fertility recommendations do not endorse the BCSR method.

No Abstract was provided, please see presentation.

Growing of moderate quality forages that meet and not exceed requirements of dairy replacement heifers is not commonly done; however, it would have a positive impact on the dairy industry. It is typical for heifers to gain excessive bodyweight, especially post-puberty which negatively impacts first lactation milk production when fed diets high in energy. Replacement dairy heifers are typically fed high forage diets with a combination of corn silage and alfalfa or grass silage. Corn silage is typically high energy (70 to 75% TDN, DM basis) and exceeds dairy heifer requirements (900 to 1200 lb heifers require 62% TDN, DM) causing excess gain and overconditioning. Use of lower quality forages would reduce heifer over-conditioning. Sorghum and sorghum-sudangrass have a lower nutritive quality (higher fiber, lower starch) than corn silage and would be an alternative to reduce excess heifer weight gains.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the yield of PS forage sorghum and sorghum-sudangrass compared to non-PS sorghum, sorghum-sudangrass and corn silage. We chose to conduct the study at the Hancock and Marshfield Agricultural Research Stations due to differences in soil characteristics (silt loam soil at Marshfield and sandy soil at Hancock).

Silage is a popular feedstock for dairy cattle. Corn production for silage has grown steadily in the past years, with more than 128 million tons produced in the United States in 2014, up from 116 million tons in 2012. Growers in the state of Wisconsin produced nearly 16 million tons of corn silage and over 9 million tons of haylage during 2014. However, making it requires a large input of time and energy. Commercial dairies often employ multiple self-propelled forage harvesters (SPFH) and many transport vehicles to harvest their crops. Managing this fleet of vehicles is often a logistical challenge, leaving significant opportunities for improvements in efficiency.

A study was conducted on a commercial dairy in Wisconsin which used two self-propelled forage harvesters, 10 straight trucks and 2 tractor-trailers. Machine movement was tracked during harvest with Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers and Controller Area Network (CAN) data loggers placed in each vehicle. GPS loggers for non-CAN equipped vehicles were developed with Arduino Uno micro-controllers utilizing EM-506 GPS receivers. The Arduino loggers were installed in the cab of each truck and powered by the vehicle battery, and GPS data were collected at a frequency of 1 Hz via storage on a micro-SD card. Vector CANcaseXL two-channel data loggers collected CAN and GPS signals on SPFH’s. The Vector data loggers stored CAN signals, such as vehicle speed and cutterhead speed while simultaneously collecting GPS data at 1 Hz. These datasets were stored together as binary log files on the CANcaseXL SD card. Data from the Arduino and Vector data loggers were downloaded and copied once a week during harvest times. Hand-written notes were collected that recorded the time and order of trucks filled for verification of work status during data analysis. During the 2015 growing season, data were collected on these machines for 450 acres of rye (Secale cereale), 1600 acres of alfalfa (Medicago sativa), and over 2000 acres of corn (Zea mays).

Alfalfa is the most extensively grown perennial legume inWisconsin. In 2015, 1.3 million acres were harvested, producing 4.55 million tons of pure and mixed dry hay, an average yield of 3.5 tone per acre (USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2015). Worldwide, alfalfa has been known among forage plants as the ‘Queen’ of forages because of its productivity, and superior forage nutritive value. Alfalfa breeders and molecular biologists have been working for over a decade on improving the quality of alfalfa by targeting the reduction of lignin in leaf and stems. Sets of reduced-lignin varieties are scheduled  to be on the market in limited supplies in 2016. The information presented is an update on the advances and management considerations for these new alfalfa varieties.

As the number of cows per farm, and thus the acres needed to provide feed, have increased for Wisconsin’s dairy farms, the reliance of farm operators on agronomists and nutritionists for advice when making management decisions has also increased. An adequate supply of high quality forage is crucial to reduce purchased feed costs and increase milk production per ton of forage. The agronomist – dairy nutritionist interface includes the following areas: feed inventory and crop rotations, manure storage and application, nutrient management plans, expansion planning, yield versus quality considerations, feed testing, harvest and storage considerations, feed valuing, team meetings, and staff training. Sub-categories within those various areas will be discussed with regard to potential for interaction between agronomists, dairy nutritionists, and farm managers on management decisions.

Cover crops are a conservation management practice that can reduce soil erosion, reduce nitrate leaching to groundwater, and increase soil organic matter. However, use management of cover crops can be challenging, especially in the upper Midwest, where little growing season is left following harvest of corn or soybean. Additionally, termination of cover crops in the spring can be a challenge depending on spring growing conditions. Different organizations and researchers have conducted studies to assess if cover crops “work” in the Midwest, and results have ranged from clear decreases in corn yield to clear increases in corn yield. This presentation will be a thorough review of recent studies across the Midwest that assess the impact of cover crops on the subsequent crops yield. The presentation will also seek to address what cover crop management strategies should be implemented to reduce any short-term risk in order to achieve the long-term benefits of cover crops on soil health.

Wisconsin growers are increasingly interested in utilizing cover crops. While cover crop establishment is relatively easy following corn silage, small grains, and processing vegetables, establishing cover crops successfully following corn or soybean has been more difficult. Aerial seeding or over-the canopy seeding late in the growing season can be done with moderate success. An alternative approach is to interseed cover crops into a standing corn crop early in the growing season. This management practice requires special or at least modified equipment, but can improve cover crop establishment by drilling seed rather than broadcasting. Ideally, the cover crop will establish prior to canopy closure, but then survive to the end of the growing season without creating too much competition for resources (nutrients and water) for the corn crop. Little experimentation has occurred in Wisconsin to evaluate cover crop growth when interseeded into standing corn and the impact of interseeding cover crops on corn grain yield.

Sudden death syndrome (SDS) was severe in many fields across the Midwest the past few years, resulting in yield loss and frustration for farmers. There are a few positive things that we can learn in a years like this, though. For one, many soybean varieties were pushed to their limits, allowing farmers to get a really good evaluation of the genetic resistance for SDS in a variety. Additionally, other beneficial management strategies can be identified that complement variety resistance.

http://pestsurvey.wi.gov/

The 2015 survey of early-vegetative soybeans found 38% (19 of 50) surveyed fields tested positive for Phytophthora root rot disease caused by Phytophthora sojae. That is a lower infection level than last year’s 49%, but still very high. The state-wide survey took place from June 2 to 30. The fungus-like pathogen was detected in 16 counties: Buffalo, Calumet, Chippewa, Columbia, Dodge, Dunn, Iowa, Kenosha, Lafayette, Manitowoc, Outagamie, Polk, Rock, and Winnebago. Based on previous year’s survey results, all other counties should not expect to be free from the disease.

Herbicide resistant weeds have been in the news quite frequently lately, and rightfully so. Their existence is changing how farmers currently manage weeds in corn and soybean fields. But resistance to pesticides is not limited to weeds. Fungi that cause crop disease can also develop resistance to fungicides. This presentation will cover the basics of fungicide resistance and outline ways to avoid or delay fungicide resistance from occurring. Some of this research is funded through the soybean check off from Iowa Soybean Association and the United Soybean Board. We thank our sponsors for this support.

The 2014 field season was a bit of a challenge for corn growers in Wisconsin, to say the least. Growing conditions were poor, which made for a lot of challenges including diseases. On the top of that list in Wisconsin was Northern Corn Leaf blight (NCLB). A close second was Goss’s Wilt. In 2015, NCLB again was a considerable issue along with reports of Goss’s wilt and eyespot. NCLB hit the state hard anywhere from prior to the VT growth stage through to late reproductive growth stages. This likely resulted in some direct loss in yield, but also led to increased levels of stalk rot which caused lodging in some fields.

Hardly a day goes by without seeing an article or hearing a news report about fraud and ethics….usually involving a loss of cash or assets. Many organizations believe “it just cannot happen to them.” The fact is that surveys show most businesses experience some sort of fraud or ethics challenges each and every year. How you address fraud and ethics from a management and business perspective can make an impact not only in discouraging fraud and ethics issues from occurring but also creating a better work environment at your company.

The items this session will address include:

►What is fraud?

►Ethics discussion

►Defining the ethics at your organization

►Dealing with fraud and ethics

►Ethics and internal controls

______________________

Please see three presentations below.

Production and processing of specialty crops in Wisconsin are very important to both state and national agricultural industries. Nearly all of the commercial, contract green bean acres receive an at-plant seed treatment of a Group 4A insecticide (neonicotinoid). Increasingly, producers rely heavily on this single class of insecticides for control of early season pests including seed maggots, potato leafhopper, and bean leaf beetles. Reported at-plant applications of these neonicotinoid seed treatments have occurred on nearly 90% of all acres reported and reflect statewide use rates in many other grain crops. Concomitantly, both native and domestic pollinators are experiencing declines and even disappearance in localized regions of the US on an unprecedented level. Despite a remarkably intensive level of research effort towards understanding causes of pollinator declines and managed honeybee colony losses in the US, overall losses continue to be high and pose a serious threat to meeting the pollination service demands for several commercial crops. In addition, the US EPA has recently proposed revisions to existing insecticide label registrations for the control of key pests in green bean production. Current and future proposed options for control will be discussed in the context of revised seed treatment registrations.

Carrot growers are challenged with a broad spectrum of weed species in a relatively uncompetitive crop and currently have few management options to remedy the situation. Furthermore, linuron, one of the more effective control options in carrots, is restricted in use on coarse-textured, low organic matter soils where the crop is often grown. With this in mind, studies were conducted to: 1) identify herbicide programs that provide season-long control; 2) evaluate preemergent herbicides on cereal nurse crops interseeded among carrots for wind erosion control; and, 3) identify carrot varieties that suppress weeds with rapid emergence and establishment. All studies were conducted at the Hancock Agricultural Research Station in Hancock, WI on a loamy sand soil.

While the University of Wisconsin-Extension guidelines for nitrogen applications to sweet corn are listed at 150 lb/ac of N for soils with less than 2% SOM and 130 lb/ac of N for soils with 2 to 10% SOM, there are still many questions related to other N management practices (such as timing and source). A change in N timing relative to planting date is a key factor in improving N use efficiency for sweet corn on irrigated sandy soil. Two studies have been conducted over the past 3 years to evaluate if there are any benefits to altering the timing and rate of N applications on sweet corn.

White mold of snap beans has been a challenge to manage in processing production fields in Wisconsin. When unmanaged, white mold can cause significant yield reduction, particularly in moist, warm years. The soilborne fungus Sclerotinia sclerotiorum is responsible for white mold in snap beans, as well as disease in a broad range of dichotomous food plants including other legumes, cucurbits, crucifers, and solanaceous crops. We have routinely conducted foliar fungicide efficacy trials to determine optimum timing and selection of fungicides for white mold control on snap beans in Wisconsin. Results of 2015 fungicide research trials are detailed below.

It has been an exciting and challenging year as we worked to get conservation on the ground throughout Wisconsin. Our new “Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) provided record levels of conservation installation as we teamed up with public and private investors in the field of conservation. The Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) and Conservation Stewardship Program continue to be our base programs along with easements programs for wetlands and working lands. To find out more we encourage you to visit www.wi.nrcs.usda.gov for information regarding all of NRCS-Wisconsin’s technical tools, service and financial assistance programs.

See presentation below

See presentation below

Adaptive nutrient management is a new feature in the revised NRCS code 590. This paper will explain what adaptive nutrient management is and how to implement it.

The goal of adaptive management is to enable growers to use on-farm data to refine nutrient management strategies to adapt to conditions on their farm. Adaptive management in the context of the 590 standard can be used to 1) document the need for and amount of rescue N applications after excessive rainfall; 2) adjust P and K application rates when documented crop yield levels are greater than ranges provided in UWEX Pub. A2809; or 3) refine any nutrient application rate (primarily N) or management strategy using on-farm research data.

A great deal of resources and effort are invested in growing, harvesting, drying and transporting grain crops. Managing the dry grain in storage is important to protect that investment. The quality of grain cannot be improved during storage but if not properly managed, grain quality can deteriorate quickly. The majority of grain losses are caused by living things such as fungi, mold, insects and rodents. The grain temperature and moisture can provide a haven for living things or aid in preventing problems.

There are six main causes of grain storage problems: grain is too warm, grain is too wet, too much foreign matter and fines, uneven grain temperatures in bin, storage bins not cleaned before harvest, and grain not checked often enough during storage.

Due to its northern location and cooler climate, Wisconsin tends to have fewer problems with stored grain insects than other regions of the country. However, insects present in stored grains still pose a significant threat to grading and salability. Some good news for farmers in Wisconsin is that insect-free grain that is stored properly in clean bins, should remain insect free until the following summer, if not longer. The practices listed below can help prevent insect infestations:

1. Prior to storage, thoroughly clean storage bins and transport/handling equipment

2. Maintain functional storage bins (properly sealed, functioning aeration fans, etc.)

3. Apply preventative insecticide treatments to bin and/or grain if warranted

4. Keep grain as dry and cool as possible

5. Scout to catch infestations early

Corn rootworms (CRW) are a key insect pest and a potential economic risk to corn production in Wisconsin. Detection of field-evolved resistance of the western corn rootworm to certain plant incorporated Bt proteins (GMO hybrids) has recently focused attention on using an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach to reduce the potential for resistance and unexpected damage. Managing this risk will require use of field data (beetle scouting and root evaluations) so that a prescriptive management plans can be developed that reduces the reliance on a single management tactic.

European corn borer (ECB) is a pest of several crops including field, sweet and popcorn. Once considered a key pest of field corn, populations of ECB have declined since the widespread adoption of commercial corn hybrids that express above ground traits. However, in recent years populations of ECB have increased. Likely because of growers using more conventional corn hybrids and because of several other non-traited host crops being planted.

Useful to Usable (U2U): Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers, is a USDA-funded research and extension project designed to improve the resilience and profitability of U.S. farms in the Corn Belt amid a changing climate. The team of over 50 faculty, staff, and students from nine Midwestern universities are experts in applied climatology, crop modeling, agronomy, cyber-technology, agricultural economics, and other social sciences. We have worked together, and with members of the agricultural community, to develop decision support tools, resource materials, and training methods that lead to more effective decision making and the adoption of climate-resilient practices. The five tools listed below have been developed and are available for public use at http://www.agclimate4u.org.

No draft provided.

Soil erosion continues to be a significant issue that affects farm productivity. Impacts of soil erosion on soil productivity are short- and long-term. Short-term, plant nutrient losses lower the fertility of the land, requiring additional fertilizer inputs to correct the decreased soil fertility. As soil erodes the depth of the soil profile is reduced, effectively decreasing the volume of soil crop roots have to explore for water and nutrients, which causes long-term productivity concerns. Both of these short- and longtermconcerns are highlighted by the renewed interest in practices that promote soilhealth, such as reduced tillage, crop rotations, and cover crops.

Tile-drained agricultural land must be well-managed to reduce the loss of nutrients to surface waters. Nutrient management practices must be carefully followed to minimize the risk of nutrient loss and to maximize fertilizer use efficiency. This is of particular importance to farmers, as this water can also transport essential plant nutrients, specifically nitrogen and phosphorus, out of the root zone. Once nutrients reach the tile drain, they have a direct conduit to surface waters.

Emerging technologies in drainage water treatment can mitigate nutrient transport from tile drainage systems. Some of these technologies include drainage water management, constructed wetlands, bioreactors, and saturated buffers. The information provided will briefly assess the cost and effectiveness of nitrogen and phosphorus removal of these tile drainage treatment options.

Precipitation matters a lot for agriculture. The right amounts of rainfall at the right times work in concert with the water holding capacity of the soil to provide crop plants with the water they need to be productive. The agricultural crops and practices of a place evolve to make the most of the local precipitation. Many factors about how this precipitation arrives matter: annual amount, seasonal amounts, duration of rain-free periods, number of rain days, and the nature of the heaviest rainfall events. The heaviest rainfalls lead to flooding and the potential for great soil erosion damage.

Soil Survey interpretations predict soil behavior for specific soil uses. The soil survey is used to assist in planning of broad categories of land use and specific management practices that are applied to soils such as nutrient management. As with everything we do in conservation planning, the most critical piece of using soil survey products is making sure we are recording observable site specific criteria along with the predictive models.

Each year soil science is updated based on additional studies and efforts to make a uniform quality product. In recent years, the Soil Data Join Recorrelation (SDJR) has been instrumental in making sure there is uniformity across county and state lines. As a result of this effort, there have been changes to the T (maximum tolerable soil loss that sustains crop productivity) and K (Soil’s susceptibility to erosion).

The purpose behind updates to the Soil Survey is to provide a quality foundation for the next generation of soil survey users where discrepancies are corrected and soil properties are identified uniformly across the state.

Every few days a low pressure system rambles across the US, and if it passes close enough to us and is strong enough, we may see some clouds and precipitation, followed by blue skies and cooler temperatures. Such fluctuations are a feature of our Midwest climate. At the global scale, there are also semi-regular disruptions that change the weather, and none is better known than ENSO — the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. We expect ENSO events every 3 to 7 years. When a strong ENSO event occurs, its fingerprints can be seen many places around the globe. If you are a farmer in Australia, Indonesia, South Africa, or northern South America, plan for a dry spell. In the southern third of the US, expect more rain than usual. The global average temperature is always warmer than average during an ENSO. As with passing storm systems, there are some regular features, but also lots of unknowns about how ENSO will affect a given place.

RNA-based technologies (e.g., initiation of RNAi via the engineered production or plant surface application of double-stranded RNA, dsRNA) can be applied to a wide range of agricultural improvement objectives. These applications range from the modification of harvestable plant phenotype to crop protection scenarios. Examples are present in current agricultural production while additional applications such as plant-produced dsRNA targeting insect predators are advancing pending regulatory approvals for commercial release. Numerous considerations are taken into account as such products develop that bring forward efficacy, robustness, specificity, and safety of dsRNA as an active agent. A historical perspective, current applications, and prospects will be discussed.

The base of all soil fertility build, maintain, and drawdown programs are crop nutrient uptake and removal estimates. Unfortunately, soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] nutrient uptake and partitioning models are primarily built from work conducted in the early 1960’s with obsolete soybean genetics and production practices. Since the 1960’s, yields have nearly doubled to 47.5 bu acre-1 in 2014 and soybean physiology has been altered with approximately one more week of reproductive growth and greater harvest index’s for currently cultivated varieties. These changes in soybean development along with new production practices warrant re-evaluating soybean nutrient uptake, partitioning, and removal to better guide soybean fertility recommendations in the Upper Midwest. This study’s objective was to re-evaluate these factors across a wide yield range of 40 to 90 bu acre-1. Trials were conducted at three locations (Arlington and Hancock, WI and St. Paul, MN) during 2014. Plant samples were taken at the V4, R1, R4, R5.5, R6.5, and R8 growth stage and partitioned into stems, petioles, leaves, pods, seeds, fallen leaves, and fallen petioles, totaling about 4,000 samples annually. Preliminary 2014 results indicate that dry matter accumulation at R6.5 was only 86% of the total and that as yield increased the harvest index changed from 40% at 40 bu acre-1 to 55% at 80 bu acre-1. Nutrient uptake for N, P2O5, and K2O was 220, 52, and 141 lb acre-1, respectively and crop removal was 187, 43, and 75 lbs. a-1, respectively at a yield level of 60 bu acre-1. Preliminary 2014 data showed that the extended reproductive growth phase (~7 days), greater nutrient remobilization efficiencies (>70%), and a higher harvest index with increasing yields helped contribute to higher yields without greatly increasing total nutrient uptake. Data from 2015 are currently being analyzed.

Increased soybean commodity prices in recent years have generated interest in developing high-input systems to increase yield. However, little peer-reviewed information exists about the effects of input-intensive, high-yield management on soybean yield and profitability, as well as interactions with basic agronomic practices.

Climate change projections suggest an increased variability of extreme climate conditions, such as sustained drought or prolonged precipitation (IPCC, 2007; USDA, 2012). The early growing season for 2012 and 2013 contrasted significantly in Wisconsin, where 2012 was one of the driest seasons ever recorded while 2013 was one of the wettest. These events had a negative effect on Wisconsin crop production.

Agriculture plays a significant role in the global flux of three major greenhouse gasses (GHG – CO2, N2O and CH4), which when trapped in the atmosphere warms the surface of the Earth via infrared radiation (IPCC, 2007; USDA, 2012). A large amount of these gas fluxes are thought to be derived from soil through crop intensification (USDA, 2012).Improved management practices like reduced tillage, controlled fertilization (Snyder et al., 2009) or extended crop rotation (Drury et al., 2008) are of particular interest because they have a high potential to mitigate gas emissions. Corn rotation is a management practice of high mitigating potential, but due to recent economic influences is often neglected. The effect of crop rotation on GHG emissions is usually positive for mitigation (Drury et al., 2008; Adviento-Borbe et al., 2007; Venterea et al., 2005). Unlike nitrogen fertilizer and tillage management practices, crop rotation effects are often overlooked by farmers in gas emissions.

The first confirmed case of herbicide resistance in Wisconsin was atrazine resistant common lambsquarters in 1979 (Heap 2015). Since then, herbicide resistance has been confirmed in 12 other weed species in Wisconsin. Resistance to photosystem II inhibitors such as atrazine and other triazine herbicides has been confirmed in smooth pigweed (1985), kochia (1987), and velvetleaf (1990), in addition to common lambs quarters in 1979. Resistance to ACCase inhibitors has been confirmed in only two species: giant foxtail (1991) and large crabgrass (1992). In contrast, resistance to ALS inhibitors has been confirmed in many species including kochia (1995) and eastern black nightshade, giant foxtail, green foxtail, and common waterhemp, all in 1999. More recently, resistance to ALS inhibitors has been found in giant ragweed (Marion et al. 2013; Stoltenberg et al. 2015) and common ragweed (Butts et al. 2015).

Glyphosate resistance in Wisconsin is a relatively recent occurrence compared to the instances of photosystem II inhibitor, ACCase inhibitor, and ALS inhibitor resistance noted above. The first confirmed case of glyphosate resistance occurred in 2011 in a giant ragweed population in Rock County (Glettner et al. 2012; Stoltenberg et al. 2015). Glyphosate resistance was subsequently confirmed in horseweed populations found in Jefferson County (Recker et al. 2013) and Columbia County (Recker et al. 2014). Following confirmation of glyphosate-resistant common waterhemp populations in Eau Claire and Pierce Counties (Butts and Davis 2015a, 2015b) and Palmer amaranth in Dane County (Butts and Davis 2015b, 2015c), glyphosate resistance concerns in Wisconsin have focused mostly on pigweeds (Amaranthus spp.). In 2015, there were 18 new reports of suspected glyphosate-resistant common waterhemp populations, bringing the total to 30 counties in which glyphosate resistance has been investigated since 2012 (Figure 1). In addition to the previously confirmed glyphosate-resistant common waterhemp in Eau Claire and Pierce Counties, molecular screening indicated glyphosate resistance in seven more counties in 2015. Glyphosate resistance in these seven cases has yet to be confirmed by whole-plant dose-response analysis at UW-Madison, but preliminary research indicates that whole-plant dose-response results are consistent with findings from molecular screening.

The continual evolution of weed species and populations resistant to herbicides from one or more mechanism-of-action families represents one of the most daunting challenges faced by weed management practitioners. Currently in Illinois, biotypes of 12 weed species have been confirmed resistant to one or more herbicide mechanisms of action. Resistance to herbicides that inhibit the ALS enzyme is the most common type of resistance in Illinois. Waterhemp has evolved resistance to more herbicide mechanisms of action than any other Illinois weed species, including resistance to inhibitors of acetolactate synthase (ALS), photosystem II (PSII), protoporphyrinogen oxidase (PPO), enolpyruvyl shikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS) and hydroxyphenyl pyruvate dioxygenase (HPPD). Not every individual waterhemp plant is resistant to one or more herbicides, but the majority of field-level waterhemp populations contain one or more types of herbicide resistance. Perhaps even more daunting is the occurrence of multiple herbicide resistances within individual plants and/or fields. Waterhemp plants and populations demonstrating multiple herbicide resistance are becoming increasingly common and greatly reduce the number of herbicide options that remain effective for their control. Integrated weed management programs offer the greatest potential for long-term, sustainable solutions for weed populations demonstrating resistance to herbicides from multiple families.

Across the Midwest, weeds resistant to multiple herbicides continue to become more widespread. Not only do weeds with resistance to multiple herbicides reduce the utility of existing herbicides, but they also necessitate the use of alternative weed control strategies. From 2012-2015 in southern Minnesota, we determined the effect of six 3-year crop rotations containing corn (C), soybean (S), alfalfa (A), and wheat (W): (CCC, SCC, CSC, SWC, SAC, AAC) on herbicide-resistant giant ragweed seed bank depletion and emergence patterns. Crop rotation had no effect on the amount of seed bank depletion when a zero weed threshold was maintained, with 96% of the giant ragweed seed bank being depleted within 2 years (Table 1). However, this quantity of seed bank depletion was primarily through seedling emergence in annual crop rotation treatments. Multiple years of alfalfa exhibited less seedling emergence while maintaining a high level of seed bank depletion, possibly indicating an increase in seed predation or fatal germination of seedlings (Table 1). In comparison to rotations containing just corn or soybean, total emergence of giant ragweed was reduced by an average of 38% when wheat or alfalfa were included in the rotation (Table 1). Giant ragweed emerged early across all treatments, with 90% emergence occurring by 4 June on average. These results indicate that corn and soybean rotations are more conducive to giant ragweed emergence than rotations containing wheat and alfalfa, and that adopting a zero weed threshold is a viable approach to depleting the weed seed bank. This presentation will discuss current research focusing on how crop rotation and timing of field operations can be used as part of an integrated weed management plan to improve herbicide-resistant giant ragweed control. Specifically, alfalfa will be highlighted as being an important tool to deplete the weed seed-bank while maintaining profitability.

No abstract provided. Please see presentation.

Grain marketing from a very basic standpoint, including: the components of price, hedging tools, basis, & strategies will be discussed. Market outlook for corn, soybeans and wheat, primarily futures, will also be discussed.

Grain quality management touches every aspect of the grain industry. From elevator to seller, managing the quality of your stored grain impacts selling price, operating costs, company reputation, and more. This session will cover handling and storage best practices such as shrink, binning/blending, and ground piles and temporary storage, as well as methods for preventing and responding to either a handling or storage incident.

Experts agree that to keep up with the demands of a growing global population, we will need to grow as much food in the next 50 years as we did in the past 10,000 years combined. We will need to do so under the pressures of a changing climate which has created a more volatile environment for farming, including increased drought, insect populations and new and renewed disease threats, among other challenges.

UW Discovery Farms, part of UW-Extension, works with Wisconsin farmers to identify the water quality impacts of different farming systems around the state. Discovery Farms programs of Wisconsin and Minnesota have collected water quality information from a wide variety of farming systems. There are many management styles and landscapes represented in the monitored fields.

No abstract was provided, please see presentation below.

A common progression for farmers in the Roundup Ready crop system has been to gradually increase the rate of glyphosate as inconsistent weed control is observed. Thus, previous failed applications of glyphosate are followed with higher rates of glyphosate in subsequent applica-tions. There are multiple concerns with this approach. First, the use of a single herbicide until failure allows weeds to continue growing with the crop which can reduce crop yields. Even if a successful rescue treatment controls all the surviving weeds the span of time for the failed glyphosate application to the rescue treatment is significant enough to reduce crop yields. Second, the use of glyphosate in this manner has been implicated in the evolution of glyphosate-resistant weed biotypes throughout the U.S., which ultimately results in the loss of the most effective herbicide available for control of our primary weed species.

Since its introduction into the United States in the late 1700s, Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense) has spread dramatically, causing greater crop losses than any other perennial broadleaf weed in the north central region of the United States. In Wisconsin, it continues to be a major pest identified by growers, land managers, and consultants. In pastures studies indicate that, while highly variable, forage loss from Canada thistle can result in an average of 22% yield loss. While forage quality remains high for Canada thistle, its palatability can be extremely low due to the spiny nature of the leaves. This can result in partial-use (40%) or complete rejection by animals. In addition to these costs animals do not utilize the forage nearby effectively when Canada thistle is present. This can result in <50% utilization of desirable forage. Finally, spines present on the leaves can aggravate animals often resulting in reduced performance. Clearly Canada thistle is not a desirable plant.

Topics include: european corn borer, corn rootworm, black cutworm, corn earworm, true armyworm, soybean aphid, and western bean cutworm

Late blight is a potentially destructive disease of potatoes and tomatoes caused by the fungal-like organism, Phytophthora infestans. This pathogen is referred to as a ‘water mold’ since it thrives under wet conditions. Symptoms include leaf lesions beginning as pale green or olive green areas that quickly enlarge to become brown-black, water-soaked, and oily in appearance. Lesions on leaves can also produce pathogen sporulation which looks like white-gray fuzzy growth. Stems can also exhibit dark brown to black lesions with sporulation. Tuber infections are dark brown to purple in color and internal tissues are often reddish brown in color and firm to corky in texture. The time from first infection to lesion development and sporulation can be as fast as 7 days, depending upon the weather.

Two mating types are needed to produce sexual, persistent soil-borne oospores. The population is largely clonal outside its center of origin in the Toluca Valley of Mexico, relying on production of asexual sporangia for persistence. In the U.S., clonal lineage (also referred to as genotype or strain) US-1 (A1 mating type) was the predominant clonal lineage until the late 1980s-early 1990s, when US-8 appeared. US-8 was the opposite mating type (A2) and was insensitive to mefenoxam, a fungicide with exceptional activity against oomycetes, but with a specific mode of action that effectively selects for insensitivity. New clonal lineages have predominated epidemics in recent years with varying levels of mefenoxam resistance. Late blight pathogen populations in the U.S. have and continue to experience major genetic changes or evolution. The end result is the production of pathogen isolates with unique genotypes and epidemiological characteristics. As such, continued investigation of this pathogen is necessary to maintain best management strategies in susceptible crops.

Our objective was to monitor for late blight on a state-wide basis and characterize P. infestans in a timely manner to inform appropriate management recommendations and enhance understanding of the pathogens introduction and persistence in Wisconsin.

Multiple applications of pyrethroid insecticides are used to manage European corn borer, Ostrinia nubilalis Hübner, in snap bean, but new diamide insecticides may reduce application frequency. The objective of this study was to examine the potential for improving control of O. nubilalis in processing snap bean with diamide insecticides. Specifically, we compared O. nubilalis control with chlorantraniliprole, cyantraniliprole, and bifenthrin at three different phenological snap bean stages (i.e., bud, bloom, pod formation) to determine the duration of residual activity for each insecticide under field conditions in snap bean, and co-applied cyantraniliprole and bifenthrin insecticides with either herbicides or fungicides at each vegetative stage to determine if tank mixing cyantraniliprole and bifenthrin with common agrochemicals would reduce O. nubilalis control, and finally we confirmed the suitability of diamide insecticides for O. nubilalis control using commercial snap bean fields and processing plant contamination data, over two consecutive field seasons. Cyantraniliprole applications timed either during bloom or pod formation controlled O. nubilalis better than similar timings of bifenthrin. Co-applications of insecticides with fungicides controlled O. nubilalis as well as insecticide applications alone. Insecticides applied either alone or with herbicides during bud stage did not control this pest. In commercial snap bean fields, yield and quality were equivalent in fields treated once with chlorantraniliprole and twice with pyrethroids. Diamides are an excellent alternative to pyrethroids for manage O. nubilalis in snap bean. Adoption of diamides by snap bean growers could improve the efficiency of production by reducing the number of sprays required each season.

Alternaria leaf blight, caused by the fungus Alternaria dauci, andCercospora leaf spot, caused by the fungus Cercospora carotae, infect leaves and petioles of carrot and are the most prevalent foliar diseases of carrot worldwide. These foliar blight pathogens reduce yield by limiting the plant’s photosynthetic capacity and by weakening the petioles needed for mechanical harvest. Typically, carrots are harvested by implements that loosen the soil and simultaneously grasp the foliage while lifting the roots out of the soil; blighted petioles break when gripped by the mechanical harvester and carrots are left in the soil. Environmental conditions greatly influence the occurrence and progression of these foliar diseases of carrot and the anticipation of heightened disease risk through the identification and monitoring of critical environmental factors, such as, relative humidity and temperature, can enhance disease management by optimizing the timing of fungicide applications. However, implementation of the weather-based models is difficult because, typically, each field requires a customized forecast that is dependent on disease severity, weather conditions, and fungicide program, factors that are field-specific. A goal of this research is to provide a set of generalized recommendations for managing foliar diseases of carrot that can be used for the majority of WI fields without the need for grower investment in weather stations.

The introduction of new agronomic crop herbicides in recent years that are active at low doses, as well as the pending introduction of crop traits conferring resistance to additional herbicides, have spurred an interest among specialty crop producers in knowing more about the potential off target implications of these tools. While pesticide drift remains a concern, our recent work has focused more on implications of potential spray tank contamination when specialty crops are sprayed after agronomic crops, such as corn, soybean or small grains. We recently completed a replicated study in snap bean and potato in this subject area and have also completed the first repetition of a 2-year study looking at the implications of potato seed crop exposure to herbicides on daughter tuber germination and growth.

Cover crops are increasingly recognized for their multiple agronomic benefits, including improving soil quality and health, enhancing soil fertility, and preventing erosion. Choosing cover crops for a particular farming system requires consideration of several factors, including planting window, termination time and strategy, desired functionality (weed suppression, erosion prevention, nitrogen credits), and potential disease and insect interactions. Resources exist to assist farmers in the selection of appropriate cover crops for their specific system and crop rotations. The Midwest Cover Crop Council has created one of the most extensive sources of information regarding cover crops for the upper Midwest; comprised of a diverse group of academia, farmers, non-governmental organizations, and state and federal agency representatives, this group works to provide materials on cover crop practices and opportunities, including farmer profiles, webinars, and field days. The information is housed on their website, www.mccc.msu.edu.

No abstract provided.

No abstract provided.

In response to increasing levels of nitrate-N in groundwater in the Central Platte River Valley of Nebraska, intensive education and then regulatory efforts were implemented starting in the 1980s, to encourage adoption of nitrogen fertilizer and irrigation management practices which can reduce nitrate leaching to groundwater. Since 1988, there have been steady declines in average NO3-N concentrations in groundwater in the Central Platte River Valley, resulting from adoption of recommended practices – in particular conversion from furrow to center-pivot irrigation. However, fertilizer nitrogen use efficiency has remained fairly static over the past 25 years. Trends suggest that further improvement in nitrogen use efficiency may require development and adoption of next generation nutrient management tools, such as increased use of fertigation, controlled release formulations, or crop canopy sensors for in-season fertilization.

Seedling diseases of soybean and corn can cause significant losses through poor stand establishment and reduced plant vigor. Identifying the causal agent of seedling disease is not a simple process as the soil environment is complex and contains many thousands of microbe species but only a small portion of these actually cause disease. The primary causes of soybean seedling disease are Pythium spp., Phytophthora sojae, Rhizoctonia solani and Fusarium spp. In this study it was our objective to identify the predominant oomycete (Pythium and Phytophthora) species that cause soybean seedling disease. Only by understanding which pathogens cause disease are we are ultimately able to improve disease management.

Over the past several years, interest in using foliar-applied fungicides on alfalfa for dairy production has increased. This has subsequently led to new labeling for foliar fungicide products for use on alfalfa. Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison began in 2011 to evaluate some of the products labeled for use in alfalfa. From 2011 to 2014 replicated on-farm and research station trials were conducted to evaluate the utility of using fungicide on alfalfa for dairy production.

DATCP’s 2014 early soybean disease survey found the highest level of Phytophthora root rot since the beginning of this survey in 2008 and identified four different species of Phytophthora on Wisconsin soybean. Besides the well-known cause of seedling root rot Phytophthora sojae, DNA based testing also determined P. sansomeana that was first detected in Wisconsin soybeans in 2012, and two additional new species P. pini and P. sp. “personii”.

Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, the causal agent for white mold disease, is a devastating soybean fungal pathogen. In 2006, white mold ranked in the top 10 yield reducing diseases of soybean and was estimated to account for over 2 billion metric tonnes of yield loss world-wide (1). In the United States, soybean losses in 2009 reached an estimated 59 million bushels due to white mold, which cost producers ~$560 million (2, 3). Disease control is limited due to the lack of complete resistance in commercial cultivars and an incomplete understanding of resistance mechanisms (3). Further investigation of white mold resistance mechanisms in soybean and subsequent resistance evaluations of soybean germplasm would improve commercially available resistance.

Soybean sudden death syndrome (SDS), caused by Fusarium virguliforme, is one of the most yield limiting diseases in the US, and effective disease management options are limited. We developed a realtime quantitative PCR assay for the diagnosis and quantification of F. virguliforme. Using this assay we investigated the F. virguliforme infection process of four soybean cultivars with differing resistance to the foliar SDS leaf scorch symptoms. We found that the quantity of F. virguliforme did not differ between the varieties as expected, indicating that leaf scorch resistance is separate to root infection resistance. Interestingly the ratio of F. virguliforme to soybean increased sharply just before the R5 growth stage, around the time of foliar disease onset. The findings also demonstrate that use of a soybean variety with resistance to the SDS foliar scorch will not necessarily reduce the subsequent amount of F. virguliforme in the soil.

Baleage is a practical method to harvest and store either wet hay or to make haylage. If the harvested forage is less than 50% moisture, preservation is primarily by maintenance of anaerobic (oxygen limiting) conditions and, if harvested forage is 50 to 70% moisture, preservation is due both to anaerobic conditions and acids produced in the fermentation.

Forage legumes such as alfalfa and red clover have greater nutritive value than grasses, reduce the need for applied N, and may be more productive during drought. Producers often wish to apply manure to grass-legume or pure legume stands, however, to increase yield, amend soil nutrient deficiencies, or address manure storage challenges. This practice may reduce legume persistence and result in poor hay or silage preservation. In two separate studies, dairy manure was applied to red clover – orchardgrass mixtures or to alfalfa to determine its effect on productivity, persistence, and feed quality. Applying liquid or solid manure (60 lb N/acre) to a grazed red clover-orchardgrass mix increased annual yield 500 lb DM/acre above that of the non-fertilized control (7100 lb DM/acre/year), but reduced annual yield when applied in July or September. Applying manure in any form at any time of the year reduced red clover persistence, but the effect was generally greatest when application occurred in July. Applying liquid manure to alfalfa did not improve annual yield. Based on counts of Clostridium tyrobutyricum, the greatest risk of undesirable fermentation after harvesting for balage occurred when slurry was applied 7 and 14 days after cutting compared to application directly onto stubble. Results from these studies suggest that 1) spring manure application to grass-legume pastures will improve annual yield but will likely reduce legume persistence, which may ultimately reduce pasture nutritive value; and 2) manure application to alfalfa stubble is preferred, but if application to growing alfalfa is necessary, choose old alfalfa stands and consider additional field wilting to reduce clostridial fermentation.

Unlike corn and soybeans, obtaining accurate yield information for forage crops involves considerable planning, time, and effort on behalf of the person collecting the yield data and the farmer. Historically, few producers had the capacity or patience during harvest to undertake such a task. Most efforts to measure alfalfa yield in the past were usually limited to the best small area of the best field. Currently, many larger dairies have installed on-farm scales for measuring purchased production of forages and/or feed commodities. These scales now make it relatively easy to weigh production not just from small areas of fields, but entire fields over the course of several years.

Weeds can affect alfalfa establishment, productivity and forage quality but the magnitude of the impact has not been thoroughly studied. Over the past three years we have established studies to evaluate the impact of all of these factors during the establishment year as previous research has shown this to be the most sensitive to weed populations. While previous experiments have been conducted throughout the state, research in 2014 was focused at the Arlington research station to determine the impacts of annual grasses on alfalfa establishment.

No abstract provided.

No abstract provided.

Interseeding cool-season grasses: annual ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum); barley (Hordeum vulgare) or winter rye (Secale cereal) alone or in combination forage legumes or radish (Raphanus sativus) into standing row crops is an increasingly common practice in the upper midwest for corn and soybean producers who otherwise could not grow cover crops because of insufficient time for growth if planted after harvest. Perceived soil quality benefits: species diversity and impact on the soil biological community; return of vegetative (green) biomass to soil (including roots) and enhanced over-winter soil cover are all responsible for this interest and the belief that it will result in long-term improvement of crop yield and economic return (CTIC, 2013). Additional ecosystem services in this intensified system include the potential to increase infiltration and the retention of residual applied nitrogen when growing season conditions prevent corn from achieving its full yield potential. Increased infiltration is important for soil and nutrient retention as well as water capture and storage to mitigate increasing precipitation variability induced by climate change.

Flue gas desulfurization (FGD) gypsum is a by-product of the process that removes sulfur from the gas emissions stream of coal fired electric power plants. FGD gypsum is currently being soil in Wisconsin to producers as a soil amendment and sulfur source. Most of the current work on FGD gypsum for row crop production in the Midwest is taking place in Ohio on soils that are very different from those in Wisconsin (Chen et al., 2008). The goal of this study was to better understand the effect of gypsum on corn production and soils under no tillage and conventional tillage cropping systems with six different rates of nitrogen fertilizer in Wisconsin.

Spray drift has been a part of the agricultural landscape since the very beginning of pesticide application through sprayers. Although our ability to contain drift has improved, current application technologies are never fully able to eliminate drift. Applicator understanding of the forces involved in delivering pesticides through a sprayer is critical for proper sprayer management in drift prone conditions.

Spatial variation in soil properties exists within fields, farms and across landscapes. Although spatial variation in agricultural fields has received considerable attention recently, its importance and impact on crop management has been discussed for over a century. Many approaches have been proposed over the last two decades for quantifying and managing spatial variation in crop production fields to implement site specific crop management. However, most or all of these approaches utilize complex geo-statistical techniques which often prove to be challenging for practicing crop advisors to implement such techniques in field conditions. This is primarily because of lack of understanding and accessibility to “simple to understand” educational materials on such complex techniques and topics. This presentation will simplify the concept of spatial variability and how to understand the science of managing spatial variability in an easy to comprehend educational material.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) have recently been a hot topic of discussion. Several industries, including agriculture, have expressed interest in implementing these devices to aid in performing various tasks. Implementation of UAV’s in our current infrastructure poses several potential problems which are currently being addressed by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulators. Integration of UAV’s in agriculture production will have a major impact on how information about a crop is gathered throughout the growing season. Visual crop assessment and vegetative index data currently provide indicators to the state of the crop. This data is usually collected manually or via sensors mounted on a machine based tool bar. Several benefits can be gained by gathering this data with an aerial platform. This presentation will cover the FAA’s progress on regulating the use of UAV’s in the United States, the different types of UAV’s currently available with pro’s and con’s of each, and the data collection capabilities of the UAV’s and how the data can help crop management.

More site-specific management has been adopted by farmers to increase field productivity and profitability, although successful prediction of input response within management zones remains challenging. For some inputs, like plant density, the maximum yield plant density (MYPD) and the economic optimum plant density (EOPD) changes as new genetics become available. The objective of this research is to determine whether an MYPD and EOPD could be determined for one soil type given that genetics constantly change.

Growers are collecting many forms of spatial data for their fields including yield, elevation, and soils data. Highly accurate GPS systems along with advances in variable rate technology (VRT) are allowing growers to create and use variable rate planting prescriptions to optimize yields and seed placement. Finding the key measureable parameters determining soybean seed yield in Wisconsin and using them to create VRT prescriptions are the objectives of this research.

No abstract provided.

Giant ragweed is one of the most difficult to manage weed species in Midwestern cropping systems due to its biology and competitive ability. Adaptation to a wide range of soil environments, rapid vertical growth, and high biomass production make giant ragweed particularly competitive (Abul-Fatih et al. 1979; Harrison et al. 2007; Webster et al. 1994). An extended germination period characterized by the ability to germinate early and grow rapidly, combined with embryo dormancy that allows for prolonged emergence periods, contributes to the difficulty of managing giant ragweed (Gramig and Stoltenberg 2007; Harrison et al. 2001; Schutte et al. 2012). In Wisconsin, giant ragweed is found in both corn (Fickett et al. 2013a) and soybean (Fickett et al. 2013b) production fields. As the most competitive species relative to other common weed species in corn and soybean cropping systems (Fickett et al. 2013a,b), giant ragweed represents a serious threat to crop yield potential.

Pigweeds, specifically common waterhemp (Amaranthus rudis Sauer) and Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri S. Wats.), are an increasing threat to current agricultural production systems. Common waterhemp and Palmer amaranth are dioecious, small seeded, broadleaf weed species’ known for their prolific growth characteristics and high competitive ability. Exceedingly plastic in nature, common waterhemp and Palmer amaranth can grow at rates of 0.16 and 0.21 cm per growing degree day, respectively (Horak and Loughin, 2000). Furthermore, both species can produce over 250,000 seeds per female plant (Sellers et al., 2003). This intensifies the likelihood and speed that herbicide-resistant biotypes can increase in a population and transfer from one location to another through seed dispersal. Moreover, common waterhemp and Palmer amaranth cause significant yield loss in corn (74 and 91%, respectively) and soybean (56 and 79%, respectively) when left unmanaged (Bensch et al., 2003; Massinga et al., 2001; Steckel and Sprague, 2004).

Do you want to compare new herbicides, and herbicide programs, to products and programs you are already familiar with?

In the Wisconsin Crop Weed Science program Herbicide Evaluation program, that’s what do we do. We evaluate new herbicide products, application timings, and efficacy for controlling an array of weed species of interest to Wisconsin farmers.

Cover crops are of increasing interest to producers in Wisconsin due to many potential agronomic benefits. These potential benefits include reducing soil erosion, providing and scavenging nutrients, weed suppression, improving soil health, reducing soil moisture losses, protecting water quality, reducing production costs and increasing yield. Cover crops have been utilized for many years in crop organic production. While cover crops are of increasing interest there are often challenges with their establishment. The increasing interest is shown through results from a 2013-2014 survey conducted by the North Central Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program with the Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC). This survey indicated there has been a steady increase in cover crop acres since 2009 with 415,191 acres planted in the Mississippi river basin in 2014. Of the farmers surveyed 42.5% indicated that establishing cover crops was one of the biggest challenges. (SARE/CTIC, 2014) Some of this challenge may be due to herbicide carryover issues. Herbicide persistence factors include chemical properties of the herbicide, rate of application, soil pH, organic matter content, amount of surface plant residue, temperature, rainfall, and microbial degradation (Walsh, 1993). The objective of this study was to determine if persistence of commonly used residual herbicides applied in the spring to corn and soybean crops affect the subsequent establishment of cover crops in the fall.

Invasive plants are defined by Wisconsin Legislation as “nonindigenous species whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health” (NR40). These plants can persist in our climate, reproduce, and spread. This is why Wisconsin has developed legislation to prevent the introduction and spread of these species. While much of the benefit from these regulations is focused on non-agricultural areas, this can directly (and indirectly) influence agriculture. Below are several examples of how invasive plants impact agriculture followed by a brief description of how agronomists can assist in preventing the spread of these new invaders.

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) was signed into law on January 4, 2011, and provides the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with sweeping new authorities and requirements. The law was a bi-partisan supported bill backed by the food and feed industries. It authorizes FDA to promulgate new rules for preventive controls, develop performance standards, create new administrative detention rules, provides authority for mandatory recall of adulterated products and provides authority for hiring more than 4,000 new field staff among other provisions. It remains unclear whether Congress will provide sufficient funding to fully implement the law, but FDA is proceeding with rulemaking to meet the court ordered deadlines that were established by court order. The animal food final rule must be published by August 2015.

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Crop residues provide several benefits to the soil and crop production systems. Minerals and nutrients in crop tissue are released as residue decomposes, aiding in the recycling and better utilization of nutrients by subsequent crops. During decomposition, carbon in the residue is transformed into different soil organic matter forms. These different fractions of soil organic matter play important roles in soil fertility, soil water relations, and soil biology.

Manure production is an unavoidable by-product of livestock production facilities. In the United States, there are approximately 58,000 dairy farms (USDA-NASS, 2013a) with a total of 9.2 million dairy cows (USDA-NASS, 2013b) which represent a manure production value of nearly 183 million tons of manure per year (USEPA, 2012). Manure production, collection, and land application are a part of every dairy system. When land applied, manure can provide essential nutrients for crop production and promote soil health and fertility. However, during these processes the manure constituents (including pathogens) can be lost to the environment causing negative environmental impacts and potentially human health impacts.

Water stress can adversely impact crop yield and quality making adequate root zone soil water availability essential to any crop production operation. Irrigation has become an important tool of choice by growers for drought risk management. The recommended approach to root zone soil water management includes the use of soil moisture tracking in combination with monitoring. Irrigation scheduling and rainfall forecasts can project soil moisture conditions into the near future (1-3 days) while monitoring can be used to ground truth scheduler predictions.

A project in southwestern Wisconsin has shown that producers’ changes in management can lead to improvements in stream water quality. This project began in 2006 as a pilot to test the targeting ideas of the Wisconsin Buffer Initiative (WBI, CALS, 2005). This was a project with many partners in addition to producers: Dane, Green and Iowa County Land Conservation offices, University of Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin-Extension, The Nature Conservancy, The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), US Geological Survey, and private sector agronomists.

Manure can provide valuable nutrients, especially nitrogen, to high N-requiring crops such as corn. However, a large portion of manure N, about half in typical liquid dairy manure, is in the ammonium or urea form and can potentially be lost to the air as ammonia if the manure is not incorporated into the soil promptly (Jokela and Meisinger, 2008). Tillage is the most common method of incorporation, but tillage and, to a lesser extent, standard injection reduce crop residue cover, leaving the field more susceptible to erosion. Tillage may also be incompatible with management requirements to meet criteria in nutrient management plans. Corn production for silage is particularly problematic because whole-plant removal leaves minimal residue cover after harvest. Establishment of a cover crop such as winter rye after harvest can provide adequate residue cover, but timely seeding (preferably by mid-September) is critical. Farmers need a system that incorporates manure while still maintaining crop residue cover.

Agricultural nutrient management continues to be an important area of research and policy due to concerns of phosphorus (P) loss in runoff and water quality degradation. Surface manure application to fields without incorporation can be a significant source of P loss (Daniel et al., 1998). In many northern states, winter manure application without incorporation is common (Srinivasan et al., 2006). This fact, combined with frequent snowmelt runoff, has prompted some states to restrict winter manure spreading. However, restrictions are based more on commonly held perceptions than on research. Studies of winter manure P loss are limited, and most have been observational with mixed results (Kongoli and Bland, 2002). P transport from winter‐applied manure varies due to infiltration, runoff, erosion, and nutrient cycling processes, all of which are sensitive to air and soil temperatures. Manure P loss also varies with spreading practices, especially relative to manure placement beneath or on top of snow and the effect of manure on rates of snow melt (Williams et al., 2011). Overall, good understanding of P cycling and transport associated with winter manure application is still lacking.

The use of apparent electrical conductivity to map the variation in fields has been around for several decades (Corwin and Lesch, 2003) and several studies have shown that there can be a statistically significant correlation between EC and various soil physical, chemical, and biological properties (e.g., Corwing and Lesch, 2003; Johnson et al., 2003). However, there isn’t a clear or standardized use of apparent EC to develop N management zones within a corn field. What we will describe here is a simple approach to using apparent EC data, with targeted soil sampling, to identify with soil properties are the best upon which to alter N rates within a field.

Nitrogen (N) is the most limiting nutrient for productive agriculture. The principal N inputs on dairy farms are feeds, manure, fertilizers, biologically-fixed N, soil N and atmospheric N deposition. The relative importance of each N source to the production of crops, pasture and milk depends on several factors, including a farm’s stocking rate (animals per unit land area), which influences the type and amount of feed grown on a farm, feed and fertilizer purchases, manure management, N use efficiency, whole-farm N balances and environmental N loss. Soil type also impacts N use efficiency (NUE, the amount of applied N transformed into products) and N loss as ammonia (NH3), nitrate (NO3-) and nitrous oxide (N2O). This presentation will demonstrate how stocking rate, fertilizer, feed and manure management impact NUE and N loss from dairy production systems.

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The Roundup Ready crop era and the robust activity of glyphosate has almost eliminated the need for an applicator to be knowledgeable about adjuvants. Arguably, glyphosate is the most forgiving herbicide when applied under less than optimal conditions or application methods. Glyphosate can be optimized with proper adjuvant selection, however, the lack of doing such can be offset by just applying progressively higher rates of glyphosate. Continued abuse of glyphosate in these applications eventually led to the evolution of glyphosate-resistant weed biotypes which has required the use of alternative herbicides to glyphosate.

Nitrogen is the plant nutrient required in the largest quantity, the most likely to be deficient, and the most impactful on corn yield as well as grower profit. Providing N to a corn crop in the right amount while minimizing loss is difficult because of complex biological and chemical reactions that result in the loss of N from the crop root zone via deep percolation to ground water, lateral flow, runoff and erosion to surface waters, and volatile losses to the atmosphere as ammonia, nitrogen gas, nitric oxide, nitrous oxide, etc. Increasing crop utilization of N and reducing loss of N outside the field is important to the sustainability of corn production in the Corn Belt.

Tile blowouts in Wisconsin are increasing in prevalence as older clay and concrete tile drainage systems continue to age. The gradual expansion of tile lines to an existing system, without proper resizing or venting, has only exacerbated this problem. Sinkholes caused by tile blowouts can introduce soil and nutrients into the tile drainage system and increase the potential for nutrient loss and tile blockage.

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 Using soil insecticides for control of corn rootworm larvae have been a common practice on continuous corn since the 1950s. However, the development of Bt CRW hybrids has raised concerns regarding use, efficacy and resistance. Particularly with newer crop advisors that are unaccustomed with their use.

 Methodologies to Value the Company

There are three basic approaches to value a company: 1) the Asset approach; 2) the Income approach; and 3) the Market approach.  These approaches are discussed.

 On vegetable and potato crops, the water molds, or fungus-like, oomycetous plant pathogens, which threaten the greatest crop losses include Pseudoperonospora cubensis (causal agent of downy mildew on cucumbers), and Phytophthora infestans (causal agent of late blight on potatoes and tomatoes). Downy mildew and late blight can both be aerially dispersed over long distances and genotypes identified in the region are not known to be soilborne at this time (1, 2). Initial inoculum and infection occurs as the result of movement of spores in the air from diseased fields to healthy, infected seed or transplants, or by overwintering plant tissues harboring the pathogen from the previous year (e.g. volunteers, cull piles, compost piles). In Wisconsin in 2013, both diseases were detected in vegetable crops.

 Foodborne infectious disease transmission of 31 pathogen types is estimated to account for 9.4 million illnesses, 56,000 hospitalizations, and 1,300 deaths in the United States annually (Scallan et al. 2011). The economic costs from foodborne illness in the United States are more than $50 billion per year (Scharff 2012). The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011 recognizes agricultural water is a source of pathogen contamination of fresh produce and monitoring strategies are being proposed to assess the sanitary quality of water used for food production and processing. Nonetheless, one lesson learned from foodborne outbreaks the past several years is that the events and pathogen movement routes leading to contamination are often surprising. Food producers need to be constantly vigilant for previously unanticipated contamination routes.

This presentation tells three stories about three studies, highlighting the potential for human pathogens to travel unusual routes and end up in surprising places. Insofar as these routes and places intersect with food, foodborne illness can result.

 Nitrogen (N) fertilization recommendations for corn in several states in the Midwest (including WI and IN) are based on the results of many N response trials conducted over a number of years, locations, soil types, and hybrids. The maximum return to N (MRTN) is calculated based on the yield response to applied N derived from the analysis of these trials and the price of grain and N fertilizer (Sawyer and Nafziger, 2006). The recommended fertilizer rate represents the point at which no further profit is realized by the application of additional N. All states using the MRTN approach consider crop rotation an important factor in determining the N recommendation and several include soil type, soil productivity, or region of the state as well (http://extension.agron.iastate.edu/soilfertility/nrate.aspx).