The results of the 2023 Official Variety Trials; Wheat are in. This information will be available on our variety testing site search.utcrops.com soon and can also be accessed through your local County Extension Office.
Click on the tables below to open as a PDF. You may then zoom in to better see the results.
Corn and soybeans were up; wheat and cotton were down for the week.
This week the December corn contract established a new low at $4.73 ½, before closing up the last three trading days of the week. US yield estimates remain a hot topic of debate between market analysts, as rains at the end of July through August have improved crop conditions across a large portion of the growing area. As of August 15th, corn production in drought is estimated at 42%, with 5% in extreme drought, 15% in severe drought, and 22% in moderate drought. Currently, the USDA estimates the national average corn yield at 175.1 bu acre. Most analysts have a national yield closer to 177 bu/acre. Based on USDA’s current harvested acre projection of 86.322 million acres, a 1.9 bu/acre increase in national average yield would increase US production by 164 million bushels. Continue reading at Tennessee Market Highlights.
Bollworm egg lay across West TN is rapidly increasing. Our trap catches across the survey area are steadily increasing and I’ve started receiving several calls about large numbers of eggs . Fortunately, the vast majority of our cotton is Widestrike 3 (WS3) or Bollgard 3 (BG3). To date, I’ve had no reports of slippage through any three gene cotton in Tennessee. Going forward, our threshold for foliar applications targeting bollworms occurs when a combination of square and boll sampling shows 6 percent or more injury (e.g., 3 percent square injury and 3 percent boll injury, 4 percent square injury and 2 percent boll injury, etc.) and/or 4 or more larvae are present per 100 plants. Treatments based on egg lay is not recommended in 3 gene cottons. My colleague at Mississippi State, Dr. Tyler Towles, summarized our regional data (Fig. 1) demonstrating no economic benefit to making a diamide application to 3 gene cottons. Unless you’re at threshold, save the money on the diamide spray in 3 gene cotton.
One final note, as we are nearing the end of the 2023 growing season below are insect termination timings based on DD60s.
| Location | CEW | TBW |
| Hardeman (Bolivar) | 6 | 0 |
| Fayette (Whiteville) | 29 | 0 |
| Fayette (Somerville) | 26 | 0 |
| Shelby (Millington) | 42 | 0 |
| Tipton (Covington) | 2 | 0 |
| Tipton (North) | 20 | 0 |
| Lauderdale (Golddust) | 35 | 0 |
| Haywood(West) | 8 | 1 |
| Haywood (Brownsville) | 67 | 0 |
| Madison (WTREC) | 41 | 1 |
| Madison (North) | 35 | 0 |
| Crockett (Alamo) | 1 | 1 |
| Crockett (Friendship) | 51 | 0 |
| Dyer (King Rd) | 48 | 1 |
| Dyer (Dyersburg) | 61 | 0 |
| Lake (Ridgely) | 35 | 2 |
| Gibson (Trenton) | 98 | 0 |
| Gibson (Milan Rec) | 4 | 0 |
| Carroll (Coleman Farm) | 15 | 2 |
Corn, soybeans, and wheat were down; cotton was up for the week.
On Friday, August 11, the USDA released FSA Crop Acreage Data and Crop Production and WASDE reports. Overall, the reports were neutral to bearish for corn, soybean, and wheat prices and bullish for cotton prices. Continue reading at Tennessee Market Highlights.
| Location | CEW | TBW |
| Hardeman (Bolivar) | 3 | 0 |
| Fayette (Whiteville) | 31 | 1 |
| Fayette (Somerville) | 12 | 0 |
| Shelby (Millington) | 36 | 0 |
| Tipton (Covington) | 4 | 0 |
| Tipton (North) | 15 | 0 |
| Lauderdale (Golddust) | 17 | 0 |
| Haywood(West) | 21 | 1 |
| Haywood (Brownsville) | 26 | 0 |
| Madison (WTREC) | 48 | 3 |
| Madison (North) | 18 | 0 |
| Crockett (Alamo) | 1 | 2 |
| Crockett (Friendship) | 27 | 0 |
| Dyer (King Rd) | 44 | 1 |
| Dyer (Dyersburg) | 45 | 1 |
| Lake (Ridgely) | 20 | 2 |
| Gibson (Trenton) | – | – |
| Gibson (Milan Rec) | 2 | 5 |
| Carroll (Coleman Farm) | 20 | 0 |
Due to the excess rainfall we experienced over the past week, we weren’t able to reach our Trenton location. If moth numbers are exceedingly high, I’ll update the post and send out those numbers tomorrow.
August has turned wet, and while I generally like rain through July and August, we could now tolerate a few dry, clear days. Much of our canopy has remained wet over the past week, and as you might expect, the leaf spot complex has appeared in some of our earliest planted cotton. Subsequently, foliar fungicide use in cotton has been the topic of conversation for August. Fortunately, most of our research on fungicide use in cotton is pretty straight-forward. In this blog, I share a few thoughts concerning foliar fungicide use in cotton and link to a few of Dr. Heather Kelly’s deliverables from the past few years. Continue reading
The most common refrain from crop producers and agricultural stakeholders during the current Farm Bill listening sessions is the need to increase reference prices to reflect changes in input costs for row crops over the past five years. Although an important factor in Farm Bill negotiations, Dr. Aaron Smith discusses the need to address base acres before reference price changes.
Base Acres Should Be Addressed Before Reference Prices