The remaining Soybean Scout School is scheduled for 9:30 AM in Robertson County (see below). Scout Schools are 2-2.5 hour, field-side programs about the nuts and bolts of soybean growth and pest management. They are sponsored in part by the Tennessee Soybean Promotion Board and the USB. Scouting notebooks and sweep nets will be provided to participants while supplies last. Continue reading
This has proven to be a very challenging year to manage Palmer amaranth. Continue reading
Tennessee cotton is finally ‘growing off’. Still, here on the 3rd day of July, it appears few farms will reach the coveted ‘bloom by the 4th’. Although the environment has played a dominate role in maturity up to this point, management decisions emphasizing earliness have been particularly useful in 2015. This marks the third consecutive year in which managing for earliness has a marked effect on crop maturity by early July. 
On the heels of last year’s delayed crop, Dr. Owen Gwathmey and I began discussing potential benefits of managing a cotton crop for earliness and the management practices which encourage timely maturity and harvest with colleagues both within and beyond the University of Tennessee. We have summarized these thoughts in the attached Guide to Earliness Management in Short-season Cotton Production (PB1830). Continue reading
Managing PPO herbicide Time of Day Effect on Palmer Amaranth with Garret Montgomery Continue reading
Managing Liberty Application Time of Day Effect in Soybean with Garret Montgomery Continue reading
Compared to the past couple of springs Palmer amaranth control is not near as good in soybean. There have been quite a few reports of PRE applied herbicides not performing well. In more recent planted soybeans, poor tillage or burndown of large Palmer before planting has allowed a large infestation of Palmer amaranth to become established in soybeans. Continue reading
The recent hot, dry spell has finally afforded many Tennessee producers the opportunity to get in the field. Unfortunately, this weather has also been very conducive to pigweed growth. In this weather, the window of opportunity for POST control of Palmer amaranth while it is < 3 inches tall is narrow. These conditions have led to an increase in the number of calls about how to control large Palmer amaranth. In soybeans there are no silver bullets, but there are still some options.