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County fair time is just around the cornerBy Richard C. Snell Barton County Extension Agent-Agriculture The Barton County Fair is coming up July 11 to 15. It's not too early to start making your plans. There are some pre-fair activities this coming week. We also want to tell all of you that our office will be closed the week of the fair, July 11 to 13. We may be open on July 9 and 10, on a limited basis but will be moving everything to the Expo Grounds those days. If you need to find us that week, come to the County Fair, west of Great Bend on 10th Street. We will be working out there. The 4-H public style revue will be held on the evening of July 2 at the Crest Theater in Great Bend, starting at 7 p.m. This is when the entire public is invited to watch the 4-H'ers model their clothing projects. They are actually judged earlier that day at the Trinity Lutheran Church in Great Bend at 8:30 a.m. For anyone who would like to help, we will be setting up Expo III on July 7 at 8:30 a.m. Then on July 9 at 5 p.m., we will be setting up the Expo Buildings and Grounds and moving things from the old 4-H grounds north of town out to the Expo west of town. July 10, brings a new event to this year's fair. The Sunflower Showdown Open Class Goat Show will be held starting at 8 a.m. Boer and other types of meat goats will be the emphasis here. Several years ago we had a state-wide dairy goat show at our county fair. But, generally speaking, these days dairy goats are out and meat goats are in. Get your open class and 4-H exhibits ready and I will give a schedule of later activities next week. What really happened to the wheat this year? Low yields, low test weights is the general trend in central as well as eastern Kansas this year. So, a lot of people are asking what really caused this, in light of little or no hot weather during the flowering and grain filling period? Well, really it was a combination of things. First, let's make some generalizations. We had the wettest May on record. Usually, when we have wet years, the wheat does better in western Kansas and poorer as you go east. That is definitely the case this year. Those poor guys in the west have suffered from drought long enough, it was bound to be their turn. I mentioned last week all the many perils we have had. So, which ones caused what? Well, in the area from Lyons to Marion to Clay Center to Newton, the freeze, along with the wet snow, hurt them really bad. Really, it hurt the whole eastern two-thirds of Kansas and well down into Oklahoma. But the Salina, Abilene, McPherson and Hutchinson areas seemed to get it the worst. In those areas, it literally destroyed thousands of acres. In our area, the freeze was only a secondary factor. I was visiting with Jim Shroyer, K-State agronomist the other day about the extremely low test weights. As a matter of fact, in terms of our average, they may be the worst we have ever had. Before, I go on, I want to limit any confusion about my article of a couple of weeks ago. I wrote that article before harvest because almost always we get a couple of rain events in the middle of wheat harvest that reduces the test weight on the grain. Usually, we start out with mostly good test weights and then they drop below 60 pounds per bushel. This year we had 50 pound test weights from the start. So, this year even though rain still may have lowered test weights a couple of pounds after ripening, test weights were bad right off the bat this year. Why was that? Now, go back to my conversation with Dr. Shroyer. I asked him why in other years when we had bad leaf diseases that the test weight fell 2 to 3 pounds but nothing like the 6-8 pounds or more that it did this year. You see, we were seeing test weights range from 46 to 58 pounds, averaging about 52 before any harvest rain. Here was Dr. Shroyer's answer. After the freeze, maturity went from being ahead of normal growth to gradually behind. Part of this was due to injured heads but more than that it was from restricted nutrient and moisture flow from restricted stems damaged from the freeze. So the crop was behind. Normally with mild weather--ideal grain fill conditions, that would be a good thing. This year we had a lot of powdery mildew, which is not typically a big problem in Kansas. Jagalene, a popular, high yielding variety is very susceptible to this disease. It took most of the lower leaves off the plants. Then came leaf rust which killed the flag (top) leaf. Leaf rust usually hits the crop near maturity causing moderate damage to yields. This year, we were still in the flowering stage when the rust hit. The bottom line is that an epidemic of leaf diseases hit the wheat. They were enhanced by the freeze setting the crop back and affecting it at a younger growth stage. Thus, test weights and yields were poor. Leaf scorch Actively growing plants that have developed new leaves during earlier periods of cloudy or overcast weather may show symptoms of scorch when bright sunlight appears. The symptoms are large, brown areas resembling a burn or scorch on several garden plants, especially snap beans or green beans. This can also occur on certain trees and shrubs. New leaves will rapidly grow to replace damaged ones when provided with abundant soil moisture and good growing conditions. Date: 7/19/07
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