The question entomologist Sarah Zukoff gets asked most often is: what is the year going to be like for insect pests? And the simple answer is it depends on the weather.
Sorghum U
Dave Ahern, national sales manager of IntelliFarms, told Sorghum U attendees about the role management plays in helping farmers handle stored crops.
Adding value to sorghum was the focus of the 2018 Sorghum U. Topics included on-farm storage, maximizing economic yield through fertility and managing weeds and insects.
Farmers may opt to cut fertility when making crop profit decisions. But Lucas Haag, northwest area agronomist at the Northwest Research-Extension Center in Colby, Kansas, urges caution.
In a roomful of weed-weary farmers, Marshall Hay preached to the unconverted. He says the solution to herbicide resistance issues won't come from a jug.
It didn’t take Tom Willis long to learn of sorghum’s water-sipping properties—both as a businessman who needs grain for his ethanol plants and as a father who wants his son to have a future on his farm.
Weed control has been a part of agriculture ever since hunter-gatherers became farmers about 6,500 years ago. With that, Phil Stahlman, weed scientist at the Kansas State University Agricultural Research Center-Hays, offered a short history of weed control at Sorghum U, Jan. 12, at Hays, Kansas.
Corn and sorghum are in a rat race driven by input costs and prices, according to Bob Vanderloo, sorghum product line manager at Cargill.
The use of beneficial insects likely won’t help the fight against sugarcane aphids on sorghum, according to a Kansas State University Extension Entomologist Sarah Zukoff, from K-State’s Southwest Area Extension office in Garden City.
That grain sorghum is a great cropping option in water-short areas is a given. But there are strategies to maximize grain sorghum yield without breaking the bank, according to speakers at Sorghum U.
Delivering stories of the lessons they’ve learned in through years of production, eight farmers offered insights during farmer panel discussions at the 2017 Sorghum U programs in Wichita and Hays, Kansas.
Videos
Sarah Zukoff is a K-State field crop entomologist and works at the Southwest Research and Extension Center in Garden City. She spoke to producers about sugarcane aphids and Integrated Pest Management issues.
