Mississippi Crop Situation Podcast

Jeff and John Hartley North visited Stoneville for a Mississippi Agricultural Consultants’ Association meeting; afterward they were gracious enough to sit down in the Crop Doctors’ Podcast studio to share stories and experiences as independent crop consultants.    

From the Crop Doctors’ Podcast studio in Stoneville, Tom and Jason unpack the details of timing fall herbicide treatments targeting Italian ryegrass.  This episode overlaps somewhat with the one from September 28, but the information here is more focused on the current time of year.  Considering only weed control, freshly formed beds need rain adequate to settle the bed before herbicide application.  Additionally, delaying applications as long as is practical for an individual fam will improve Italian ryegrass control.

One of the issues that growers notice this time of year in soybean is green stem.  Green stem could be classified as a disorder since there are different factors that contribute to soybean stems remaining green after pods have dried.  The challenges with green stem include increased harvest moisture and reduced harvest efficiency.  Trent called into the Crop Doctors’ Podcast studio to discuss green stem with Jason and Tom. 

MSU Extension Weed Specialist Dr. Jason Bond recently joined Tom Barber from the University of Arkansas and Charlie Cahoon from North Carolina State University for an episode of the Weeds AR Wild Podcast. They covered several topics related to managing Italian ryegrass, including paraquat resistance in North Carolina, emergence patterns in the different states, and timings and product selection for fall residual herbicide treatments.

Drs. Trent Irby and Erick Larson, MSU Extension professors, visited the Crop Doctors’ Podcast studio in Stoneville to talk about corn and soybean harvest across Mississippi. They cover harvest progress, preliminary yield estimates, and observations from 2023 collected in their on-farm hybrid/variety trials.

Dr. Corey Bryant, MSU Extension Agronomist specializing in soil fertility, sat down in the Crop Doctors’ Podcast studio in Stoneville to visit with Drs. Jason Bond and Tom Allen about soil sampling.  Topics includes sampling depth, timing, strategy, soil moisture, and which nutrients could be applied in the fall.

September is National Rice Month.  MSU Extension Rice Specialist Dr. Hunter Bowman visited the Crop Doctors’ Podcast studio in Stoneville to talk with MSU Extension specialists Drs. Jason Bond and Tom Allen about late-season observations, harvest progress, and outlook for the future for rice in Mississippi.  Upcoming rice events include the Rice Festival on September 21 in Merigold (http://deltaricepromotions.org/rice-festival/) and the Delta Rice Meeting on November 15 in Cleveland.

Dr. Wes Lowe is a repeat guest and an assistant professor from the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at MSU.  He and first-time guest Dr. Mike Mulvaney, an agronomist in Plant and Soil Sciences, visited the Crop Doctors’ Podcast studio in Stoneville to talk about their work in advanced planting technologies.  This work is looking at ways to increase planting speed in soybean as well as evaluating different equipment modifications to make the increased speed a reality for farmers in Mississippi.

Brian visited the Crop Doctors’ Podcast studio in Stoneville to offer a late-season status report on the cotton crop across Mississippi.  Extreme dry weather in south Mississippi has led to the crop in that part of the state being classified as poor in many areas.  In other areas, the cotton crop is progressing at a more traditional pace with defoliation the next major input for the crop.  Defoliation information can be found in the Midsouth Cotton Defoliation Guide at   https://www.mississippi-crops.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2022_Midsouth-Cotton-Defoliation-Guide.pdf.  Look for updates to this guide soon. 

Larry Steckel from the University of Tennessee calls into the Crop Doctors’ Podcast studio in Stoneville to discuss what have become annual problems controlling annual grass in row crops.  Larry, Jason, Hunter, and Tom hit a range of topics related to grass management.  The take home messages are that grass control has been a problem across the area in recent years.  Chemical antagonism and herbicide resistance are factors in reductions in control, but there are other factors that influence the effectiveness of herbicide applications as well.

Daniel Stephenson from the LSU AgCenter called into the Crop Doctors’ Podcast studio in Stoneville to share his experiences with rhizome johnsongrass problems in Louisiana.  Multiple resistant johnsongrass has spread to different regions of Louisiana.  Most recently, populations of evolved resistance to the ACCase herbicides like clethodim. Rotating to corn or sequential treatments with glufosinate (Liberty 280, etc.) are the best options for managing this species currently. 

Angus dropped by the Crop Doctors’ Podcast studio in Stoneville to visit with Jason and Tom about his role as the Associate Director of the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Experiment Station.  His primary responsibilities are for operations, which means Angus spends his time trying to insure MAFES employees have what they need to best serve farmers and other stakeholders in Mississippi.  

From the Crop Doctors’ Podcast studio in Stoneville, Trent,  Jason, and Tom discuss the use of harvest aids on soybean in Mississippi.  Suggested products are paraquat, Sharpen, sodium chlorate or paraquat plus sodium chlorate applied no earlier than the R6.5 stage of growth.  They also discuss weather scenarios that might influence the timing of use of harvest aids in soybean. 

In this timely episode, Dr. David Buys, State Health Specialist with Mississippi State Extension, and Dr. Damon Darsey, a rural emergency medical physician and the Mississippi Highway Patrol’s medical director, are back in the Crop Doctors’ Podcast studio in Stoneville to visit with Jason and Tom about farm stress and emergency preparedness.  Harvest season is a stressful time of the year in agriculture, and many distractions occur in the field and on the road.  Drs. Darsey and Buys talk about things that can be done in advance to prepare for possible emergency situations.  This episode is longer than we usually do, but these guys are exceptional at what they do, so we didn’t want to cut the episode short.    More information on Dr. Buys’ programs related to farm stress can be found at  http://extension.msstate.edu/health/the-promise-initiative/farm-stress

Alex Thomasson is the Director and Madison Dixon is the Associate Director of the newly formed Agricultural Autonomy Institute at Mississippi State University. Alex and Madison recently spent some time with Jason and Tom in the Crop Doctors’ Podcast studio in Stoneville to visit about the present and future of autonomous vehicles and operations for agricultural systems in Mississippi.  Mississippi State is a leader in research for agricultural autonomy, and the endless possibilities in this area are already being seen at the ground level in the state.