Beth Bishop...With the start of the new year, Enviro-weather has a new look.
Last year, in response to user comments and requests, Enviro-weather staff began a redesign of the existing website. We evaluated several designs, and solicited feedback from users and work groups before selecting the final version.

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Martin Chilvers and Ray Hammerschmidt...Attention county educators and interested soybean growers. Drs. Allen Wrather, University of Missouri, and Steve Koenning, North Carolina State University are conducting a national survey of soybean yield loss for the United Soybean Board (USB). The purpose is to provide information to assist agencies like USB to decide which research projects to support and to help scientists focus and coordinate research efforts.

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Willie Kirk, Chris Long and Phill Wharton...The 2009 season has been challenging for many growers in the state. Several thousand acres will not be harvested in areas throughout Michigan. This can be whole fields or parts of fields. The appearance of a new strain of late blight has also complicated matters regarding the integrated management of late blight for next season.

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This is the final set of articles for the 2009 season of the Field Crop CAT Alert newsletter. Click here for an index of articles on topics covered this year. Educators and specialists have worked hard to inform readers about current issues and crop production throughout the last few months.

We will continue to publish timely articles to the Field Crop CAT Alert web site. Not signed up for our email notification? Send an email to catalert@msu.edu with your full name and note that you wish to subscribe to the field crop edition. You can also sign up to received RSS feeds when new articles are posted.Look for the bright orange RSS feed logo on the right side of this page.

We love to hear feedback from our readers. Do you have a comment or suggestion? Please send it to catalert@msu.edu. Indicate whether you are referring to our fruit, vegetable, field crop or landscape edition.

Thank you. - Joy Landis, editor and Andrea Buchholz, asst. editor

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Kurt Thelen...This is the eighth in a series of articles on bioenergy. The previous installment focused on the need to have a broad range of bioenergy crops available to best fit local growing conditions, markets, biorefinery needs and environmental constraints. This article will focus on the inherent variability in the energy efficiency of various bioenergy feedstock crops.

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Christy Sprague...Glyphosate-resistant weeds continue to be of growing concern for growers, particularly since several different glyphosate-resistant weeds have been identified in the states surrounding Michigan. Weeds that often escape control in Roundup Ready fields include horseweed (marestail), common ragweed, giant ragweed, and common lambsquarters. While not all weeds that escape control are resistant, it is important to identify the cause of the lack of control.

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Christy Sprague...Late-season rains and later than normal canopy closure have led to several weedy soybean fields. These weeds can lead to difficulties with harvest if stems or leaves are still green. Frost usually helps desiccate these weeds, however if soybeans are ready to be harvested before weeds have dried down, there are a few herbicide options that growers can use as harvest aids to help desiccate or dry down “green” stem and leaf tissue.

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Ned Birkey...With USDA predicting a corn yield for Michigan of 146 bushels per acre, many Michigan farmers will probably be interested in conducting preliminary yield assessments of their corn fields. Fields planted in late May and June are more likely to be affected by dry weather. In upcoming weeks, corn growers with drought stressed fields may want to predict grain yields prior to harvest in order to help with marketing and harvest plans.

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Ned Birkey...The weather has been great as we have had rain and some warmer temperatures to try to catch up on some growing degree units. We will need a warm September and early October to allow full season soybeans to reach their yield potential.

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Bruce MacKellar...Growing seasons are all unique and the 2009 growing season was no exception. What started out as an extremely wet and cool spring, ended up as a very dry and cool summer. Planting was delayed in many areas with large wet areas simply not being planted. This was especially true in southern Berrien County where the fields remained unworkable until June.

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Jeff Andresen...After an extended period of mostly sunny, dry weather across the state and region, forecast guidance is now suggesting some major upper air changes during the upcoming week. The upper air ridging pattern across the region that has led to the abnormally dry conditions (in the State Climatology Office, we=ve referred to it as our Michigan version of “California weather”) will give way to a troughing pattern by early next week, resulting in cooler and wetter weather. In the shorter term, a weak cool front will move through the state Friday, September 18, possibly setting off a few widely scattered showers or sprinkles.

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Fred Springborn and Roger Peacock...Summer weather is here today, September 3, we just need several more weeks of it to mature crops. Frost advisories were out this past Monday and Tuesday. Only trace amounts of frost were observed with no significant crop damage. Will crops mature before frost is the question on everyone’s mind?

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As you know, we have changed the CAT Alert web format this season. With the changes come many new features. We have established an informal article rating systems with stars, which allow you, the reader, to rate each article’s usefulness. By selecting a five-star rating, the highest rating possible, you are essentially saying the article provided beneficial information or it was exceptionally good. When using our search engine, these stars can help readers select articles.

Another feature available is found below the article in the “Actions” menu. Here you can email an article to a friend; use the Permalink option for saving the link; “Kick” the article (the more you click this option, the better chance the article will stay on the homepage, it is another way to rate the article); Dzone an article (another Web 2.0 social media sharing option), or bookmark the article with del.icio.us (an online version of your bookmarks that use keywords).

We will continue to update you with changes to our web. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email us at catalert@msu.edu. – Andrea Buchholz, asst. editor

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