UNL Extension Webster County
September 2022 Edition Newsletter
Happy September!
Sincerely,
Beef
Early Pregnancy Diagnosis
Nebraska Extension Beef Educator
The long, hot days of summer are a stark contrast from the cold nights of calving season. However, now is the time to start preparing for the arrival of the 2023 calf crop. August is a prime month for ultrasound pregnancy diagnosis of your cow herd.
Operations that utilize reproductive technologies, such as artificial insemination and embryo transfer, have the advantage of knowing breeding dates. This information can be used to schedule early pregnancy diagnosis with your veterinarian. The following example follows dates for artificially inseminated heifers exposed to a clean-up bull for 60 days.
Heifers AI date: May 15
Bull exposure: May 20 – July 15
Ultrasound date: August 15
Calving dates: February 21 – April 23
Ultrasound can be used to detect pregnancy after 30 days gestation. During the ultrasound, heifers can be identified according to which cycle they were bred. AI bred heifers will be approximately 90 days gestation whereas bull bred heifers will be between 30-65 days gestation. Separating the cow herd by calving dates allows producers to create feeding groups with similar nutritional requirements. It also decreases calf health risks by segregating calves by age. This technique, known as the Sandhills Calving Method, decreases the pathogen load exposure on newborn calves. If retention is not the plan, bred heifers’ marketability increases with a known calving date and potential fetal sexing.
Another benefit of early pregnancy diagnosis is identification of open heifers. Open animals can be moved from valuable feed sources and sold in a historically higher August-September cull market.
Crops & Water Systems
Soybean Sample Bags Available at Extension Office
Scheduling the Last Few Irrigations of the Season
With pumping costs ranging from $6-15/acre-inch this year, any opportunity to save money by cutting back irrigation as early as possible sounds like a good strategy. Correctly timing the last few irrigations of the season offers an excellent opportunity to save some water and money.
Factors such as the amount of water a soil can hold, the amount of water a crop will use until it reaches maturity, and the maximum allowable soil water depletion should be considered when deciding the last few irrigations of the season. In addition to water and dollar savings, another benefit of leaving the fields as dry as possible without lowering yields is the potential to reduce issues with nutrient leaching and increase the amount of precipitation stored during the offseason.
The amount of water used by the plants during the tail end of the growing season changes from crop to crop. With different crops, it is important to know how weather conditions affect crop water use. For instance, weather conditions will affect the water use of the beans because they tend to mature based on daylength, as opposed to corn and sorghum that mature based on growing degree days. Thus, for corn and sorghum, hotter conditions will result in more water use per day but will also mature the crop sooner. On the other hand, beans may use more water during hotter weather conditions but won’t mature quicker, resulting in greater total water use.
Read more of this article here: https://cropwatch.unl.edu/2022/scheduling-last-few-irrigations-season
Bruno Lena - Extension Educator
Steve Melvin - Extension Educator Irrigated Cropping Systems
Community Environment/Horticulture
Turf Weeds
The saying, “Timing is everything,” could never be more true. Proper timing of herbicide applications can not only save you the frustration of having a lawn full of weeds, but it can also lead to better control of those pesky plants. Properly identifying the weed and knowing its life cycle is helpful in selecting the best control method for the greatest results.
Knowing the type of plant you are dealing with is crucial in its control. Annual weeds require a little different approach than perennial weeds. Annual weeds are those that sprout, grow, set seed, and die all within a year. Annual weeds fall into one of three categories. There are the spring annuals, like crabgrass; summer annuals, like knotweed or sandbur; and winter annuals, like henbit. Each one has a different set of temperatures and requirements it needs in order to germinate. Perennial weeds continue to come up year after year from the crown of the plant, like clover and ground ivy.
There are several options for control of weeds. Knowing the plants’ life cycle and when it germinates will help in the timing of herbicide applications. Preemergence herbicides keep the seeds from germinating, or sprouting, which keeps the weeds from becoming a problem. Preemergent herbicides are usually used to prevent annual weeds. Once the seeds have germinated, the preemergence herbicides are not as effective at controlling the growing weeds and a different approach might be needed. Preemergence herbicides are not effective in controlling perennial weeds because they come back from the crown every year, not from seeds.
Postemergence herbicide is a common method of control once a weed has germinated. Timing of postemergent herbicide control is just as important as the timing of preemergence herbicide. Early season control of many weeds can give you better efficacy. In some instances, applications are not as effective. Summer applications of broadleaf weed killers to perennials might just burn back the plant for a little while, only to have it regrow new leaves later in the season. The best time to get good control on perennial weeds is in the fall after a light frost. Alternatively, late season applications of herbicides to annual weeds might make you feel better, but it will only kill the plant a month earlier than it normally would have due to frost and it could still drop its seeds. Knowing the plant you are targeting will help you know when is the best time to get control.
Manually removing the weed may require a little elbow grease, but it is also an effective method of postemergence control. Hand pulling or digging will also take a little time. Manually removing the weed from the landscape not only takes out that problematic weed, but it also removes the ripening seeds. Aim to get the whole root system if possible and get the plant out of the landscape before it has a chance to drop its seeds.
If you have a large area that has too many weeds and needs complete rejuvenation, solarization might be the route for you. With solarization, clear plastic is placed over the area for several months and the ground is ‘baked’ in the hot summer sun to kill seeds or crowns. This is most effective if done for an entire growing season.
Patience is key when it comes to certain weeds. You might think you controlled the problem weed one year, only to see it again a few years down the road. Problematic weeds like Asiatic dayflower and puncturevine have seeds that can remain viable for up to 5 years or more. The seeds will sit in the soil and wait for the right conditions or opportunity to germinate. Just when you think you have the problem under control, there they are again. Stay vigilant, eventually you will get control.
Some years no matter if you do everything correctly, Mother Nature has other plans. It seems like this year the weather didn’t cooperate with preemergent herbicides. It was as if they weren’t as effective or the seed crop that sprouted was larger than normal. You may have done everything by the ‘book,’ but unfortunately plants don’t read. Stay vigilant and use multiple control measures.
Proper timing, identification, and selecting the right method are the secrets for good weed control. With a little luck, your weeds might have met their match.
Elizabeth Exstrom is the Horticulture Extension Educator with Nebraska Extension in Hall County. For more information contact Elizabeth at elizabeth.exstrom@unl.edu, her blog at http://huskerhort.com/, or HuskerHort on Facebook and Twitter.
Drought
The word that is on everyone’s mind this season is drought. While we have had a few rains this year we are still in need of some good soaking moisture. This lack of moisture along with the hot, windy conditions can play a big role in how your landscape will react to the weather.
When it comes to applying additional moisture, pick the plants that matter the most or have the highest value. Trees and shrubs will take the longest to replace if lost due to dry conditions. If a tree doesn’t receive enough moisture, the water column can be disturbed and lead to a dead top in the tree, or worse a dead tree. The replacement tree can take several years, or decades, to reach the same size as the tree that has died. Shrubs and perennials will also take a few years to reach mature size if lost to drought. While we don’t want to lose the lawn, the good news is that turf can be reseeded within a year. Selectively applying moisture in droughty situations is cheaper than replacing plant material and waiting for it to mature.
It would be a good idea to apply additional moisture to trees that aren’t located in irrigated turf. Apply enough water to these trees to get the soil moist about 12 inches deep around the tree and past its dripline. Soil type, site conditions, tree’s age and species all can play a big role in the frequency and amount of irrigation. A good rule of thumb for trees planted within the last three years is to moisten the top foot of soil about once a week. Trees planted more than five years can also benefit from additional moisture. Try to water these trees about once every few weeks or so in the absence of rain. A three-to-four-inch layer of mulch around the tree’s trunk and under its dripline will also help to conserve moisture. We want to be sure to cut back on the moisture as we get closer to fall to allow the trees to harden off for winter.
Avoid pruning trees during drought conditions. Typically, it is recommended not to prune trees during spring when they are leafing out and early fall when they are going dormant and dropping leaves. With current heat and drought stress, pruning is best avoided this summer as well. Ideally, wait until trees go dormant to prune if possible.
The type of turfgrass in the lawn will determine how it will react to lack of moisture. Some cool season grasses, like Kentucky bluegrass, can go dormant in summer months if they don’t receive timely rains. Just because it is dormant doesn’t mean that that it doesn’t need water to keep it alive. A good rule of thumb is to water 1/4 inch of water every four weeks to keep the crowns wet and to make sure they survive. When the temperatures cool down and moisture increases, either by rain or irrigation, the Kentucky bluegrass should re-green up with only a little bit of thinning. Try to limit heavy traffic on dormant turf because this can cause damage to the crown and increase the thinning when it recovers.
Tall fescue reacts a bit differently to lack of moisture than Kentucky bluegrass. Fescue has a deeper root system than bluegrass and is able to reach for water deeper in the soil profile. Contrary to what many people believe, tall fescue uses more water than Kentucky bluegrass, but because of its deeper root system it is able to get more water. One downside to tall fescue is the fact that it has poorer drought survival, and it should be irrigated more to keep it from going dormant. Just like with the Kentucky bluegrass, limit traffic, including mowing and foot traffic, on drought stressed turf to prevent damage to the crowns.
With some properly timed moisture the moisture, plant material can still be green and lush for the remainder of the year.
Elizabeth Exstrom is the Horticulture Extension Educator with Nebraska Extension in Hall County. For more information contact Elizabeth at elizabeth.exstrom@unl.edu, her blog at http://huskerhort.com/, or HuskerHort on Facebook and Twitter.
Rural Prosperity
Local Leadership
Have you ever wondered where local leaders learn how to be leaders? How do you hold a meeting? Are you a leader in a community that wonders how to do things better…or what the ‘right’ way to lead is?
All of these questions are ones that pop up in local leadership all of the time. Where do local leaders learn how to lead? Some communities or counties hold leadership programs. One format is to have once a month meeting where the morning is a training session, then the afternoon is spent visiting and touring businesses. Other programs may just have the training sessions and not do business visits.
There is a ‘right’ way to hold a meeting…right? It depends on the meeting. Rural Prosperity Nebraska does have many extension educators who have been trained in meeting facilitation. In large community meetings where you want to make community plans, or build consensus, a trained facilitator can help speed up the process, make sure everyone’s voice is heard, and bring the group to consensus. There are many different facilitation techniques and methods that can be used. So, there is no ‘right’ way for that kind of meeting, but there are many options that could work.
A public meeting such as a city council meeting or a village board meeting has a ‘right’ way. These meetings are generally run by Robert’s Rules of Order. That’s where the idea of making a motion, seconding a motion, and voting on the motion comes from. There are many other rules in there that make a meeting run more smoothly. If you ever want to see Robert’s Rules in action, find the local Parli Pro team at your local high school and watch them in action. The Nebraska Open Meetings Act prescribes the way that meetings are to be held and open to the public. At my former job, the city administrator liked to say that public meetings are meetings for the public, not meetings of the public. The city council meeting is a meeting for the public to watch, there may be certain instances where the public is asked for input or there is a time that they can speak to the council, but it is a meeting of the city council and they get to control the meeting and agenda, the public is there to watch. If you want to be involved in your local government at some point. Go sit in a public meeting, see what happens there, become familiar with the procedures. Literally one member of the public at a public meeting can sway how the meeting is going to go. It is very easy for council members to vote in their best interest every time if no one is watching, but when the public starts watching the meetings, many votes will turn out differently. It is your government…participate in it.
There is no ‘right’ way to lead, either, but with training someone can learn to lead better. Listening and communication are two of the most important skills of a leader. Other important skills are being able to relate to people that are different than themselves, perhaps in age, race, or life experience. Another skill that leaders can master is being able to work with and manage different personalities. Personality conflicts can destroy community progress. Learning how to work together with different personalities and to bring out the strengths of others can make a good leader into a great one.
Rural Prosperity Nebraska has many different training sessions pre-planned and available to help with Leadership Programs in communities throughout the state. Sometimes leaders just arise in a community, but many times, leaders have learned skills over time that make them leaders.
If your community could benefit from any of the Rural Prosperity Nebraska ideas that I’ve discussed in this column, please reach out to me. I’d love to speak to your community about these topics. You can reach me at jason.tuller@unl.edu or at the Thayer County office at 402-768-7212.
Jason Tuller is an Extension Educator for the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. He works in the Rural Prosperity Nebraska program and covers ten-county area including Kearney, Adams, Clay, Fillmore, Saline, Franklin, Webster, Nuckolls, Thayer, and Jefferson Counties.
Learning Child
Yogapalooza
Food, Nutrition, and Health
So You Want To Preserve
Preserving Wild Fruit
https://go.unl.edu/preserve-wildfruit #UNLFoodSafety
Preserving End of Season Tomatoes
#UNLFoodSafety
Canning Salsa Safely
Liquid Loss in Canning
4-H
Webster County 4-H Newsletter
Other
Herd That! Women in Ag Program
The Nebraska Women in Agriculture program along with the Nebraska Beef Quality Assurance Program are excited to announce the second annual Herd That! Conference on September 21, 2022, in Broken Bow, Nebraska. The event will be held from 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. at the One Box Convention Center and the Custer County Fairgrounds.
You can register for the conference at the following link: Event Description - 2022 Women in Agriculture Herd That! Conference (cvent.com).
For more information about the event, workshop offerings, and the animal handling demonstration, please see the press release at: Ranch transition planning, veterinary continuing education added to ‘Herd That!’ conference - KNEB-FM (ruralradio.com) or the attachment on this email.
We would love to see you at Herd That! Please share this information with your community members and others who may be interested and reach out to us with any further questions you have.
Regional Experts
Megan Burda
Engagement Zone 10 Coordinator
Megan is a Nebraska Extension Educator with a passion for fashion! She holds a Master of Arts degree in Textile and Apparel Design from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a specialization in entrepreneurship. Megan serves as an Engagement Zone Coordinator in Zone 10 with a focus on staff development, stakeholder connections, and UNL engagement. She is a maker, entrepreneur, Husker sports fan and baking enthusiast.
Photo and Bio from UNL Extension
Email: megan.burda@unl.edu
Location: 1340 G Street, Geneva, NE, USA
Phone: 402.759.3712
Lynn DeVries
Early Childhood Extension Educator
Lynn is an Extension Educator on The Learning Child Team, University of Nebraska Extension in South Central Nebraska. Lynn has a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Nebraska Kearney in Vocational Family and Consumer Science Education, and a Master’s Degree in Curriculum and Instruction from Concordia University Nebraska. Lynn works with families, child care providers, teen parents and schools to promote developmentally appropriate practices and enhance parent involvement throughout the child’s education. Lynn has 11 years of experience teaching Family and Consumer Science in the public schools, and 10 years of experience coordinating programming and curriculum with the Head Start programs.
Email: lynn.devries@unl.edu
Website: https://child.unl.edu/
Location: 2975 S Baltimore Ave, Hastings, NE, USA
Phone: 402.461.7209
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UNLExtensionthelearningchild/
Elizabeth Exstrom
Horticulture Extension Educator
I am Community Environment Extension Educator with a horticulture focus who works in the Nebraska Extension office in Hall County. I provide horticulture related programs for youth and adults, act as the Central Nebraska Master Gardener Coordinator, and answer horticulture-based related client questions. I am a Nebraska Arborist Association Certified Arborist and a member of the International Society of Arboriculture and Nebraska Nursery and Landscape Association. You might recognize me because I am regular panel member on NET's Backyard Farmer program and even filled in as host a few times. I received my Bachelor’s Degree in Horticulture with a landscape design emphasis and my Master’s Degree in Public Horticulture from the University of Nebraska—Lincoln.
Photo and Bio from UNL ExtensionEmail: elizabeth.exstrom@unl.edu
Website: https://huskerhort.com/
Location: College Park, U.S. 34, Grand Island, NE, USA
Phone: 308.385.5088
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.m.killinger/
Ron Seymour
Crops & Water Systems Educator
Ron Seymour is a cropping systems Extension Educator with emphasis on corn and soybean production. Ron also works extensively in crop pest management with specific expertise in insect issues. Ron has an interest in developing areas that border field crops as habitat that promote populations of beneficial arthropods.
Email: rseymour1@unl.edu
Location: 2975 South Baltimore Avenue, Hastings, NE, USA
Phone: 402.461.7209
Jason Tuller
Rural Prosperity Nebraska Extension Educator
Jason has been working in the economic development field in rural Nebraska for more than a decade. He has worked as a small business consultant and as a rural economic developer. His goal now is to help grow stronger communities in Southeast Nebraska and throughout the stat
Photo and Bio from UNL ExtensionEmail: jtuller2@unl.edu
Website: https://ruralprosperityne.unl.edu/
Location: 825 South Main Street, Nelson, NE, USA
Phone: 402.768.7212
Cami Wells
Food, Nutrition, and Health Extension Educator
I am a Nutrition, Food and Health Educator and Registered Dietitian located in Hall County. Part of my time is allocated to the Nutrition Education Program (NEP) that provides nutrition education to limited-resource families in central Nebraska. I teach a variety of food safety and nutrition programs to adults and youth as well as serve on the media/marketing team that develops content for our food.unl.edu website. I graduated from University of Nebraska–Lincoln with a Bachelor’s degree in Nutritional Science and Dietetics and earned a Master’s degree in Nutrition and Health Sciences from Northern Illinois University.
Email: cami.wells@unl.edu
Location: College Park At Grand Island, West U.S. Hwy 34, Grand Island, NE, USA
Phone: 308.385.5088
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UNLExtensionFoodAndFitness
Meet Our Team in Webster County!
Dr. Lindsay Waechter-Mead
Beef Systems Educator, DVM
Lindsay Waechter-Mead is the new Beef Systems Educator in Webster County and serves surrounding counties in this region. She is excited to bring her interests surrounding cow/calf health and preventative medicine to the Beef Team. Her current work involves looking at environmental effects on neonatal calf immunity and colostral transfer. She is also passionate about rural agriculture and what the veterinary profession can do to positively influence rural communities to ensure that generations can continue to enjoy the life that she loves.
Email: lindsay.waechter-mead@unl.edu
Website: https://extension.unl.edu/statewide/webster/
Location: 621 North Cedar Street, Red Cloud, NE, USA
Phone: 402-746.3417
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SCBeefExtensionUNL
Beth Janning
4-H Youth Development Extension Educator in Adams/Webster Counties
Beth Janning is a 4-H Youth Development Extension Educator. She provides programming in school enrichment, after-school, and traditional 4-H Programs. Her topic areas include but not limited to animal science, science, engineering and volunteer development.
Email: elizabeth.janning@unl.edu
Website: https://extension.unl.edu/statewide/webster/
Location: 621 North Cedar Street, Red Cloud, NE, USA
Phone: 402.746.3417
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WebsterCoExtNE
Alexa Pedersen
Office Manager
Email: alexa.pedersen@unl.edu
Website: https://extension.unl.edu/statewide/webster/
Location: 621 North Cedar Street, Red Cloud, NE, USA
Phone: 402.746.3417
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WebsterCoExtNE
Katie Bolte
4-H Programming Assistant
Email: katie.bolte@unl.edu
Website: https://extension.unl.edu/statewide/webster/
Location: 621 North Cedar Street, Red Cloud, NE, USA
Phone: 402.746.3417
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WebsterCoExtNE