Nebraska Extension - Gage County

August 2021 Newsletter

In This Issue:

Announcements
  • Office Closed - Labor Day
Upcoming Events
  • Yard & Garden- Podcast
  • Ag Land and Leasing Management Workshop
Horticulture - Nicole Stoner
  • Garden Pests
  • Yard and Garden
  • In the Garden
4-H & Youth Development - Jacie Milius
  • Gage County Fair Wrap-up
Food, Nutrition & Health - Tara Dunker

  • 2021 Beatrice Garden Produce Rescue

Water and Integrated Cropping Systems- Nathan Mueller

  • Southern Corn Rust found in Southeast Nebraska
  • Defoliating Insects in Soybeans

ANNOUNCEMENTS

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UPCOMING EVENTS

Yard and Garden with Nicole- Podcast

Don't miss another episode of Yard and Garden! You can now listen to it anywhere- on the website, Spotify, Apple Podcast, and Google Podcast. Just search Yard and Garden with Nicole! https://yardandgarden.buzzsprout.com/

Garden Pests

Summer is a great time of the year. Our plants are beautiful and we have wonderful gardens to provide us with fresh produce for months. However, when an insect comes in and damages those plants or destructs our vegetables before we can eat them, it is very disappointing.

Yard and Garden- July 16, 2021

This is the Q&A for the Yard and Garden show for July 16, 2021. Yard and Garden Live is a call-in radio show I do on KUTT 99.5 FM from 10-11:30 am and it will run through July 30, 2021. It can also be found on kutt995.com for online listening. If you missed a show or just want to read through the questions, I have written them all in my blog and will continue to do so throughout the season.

Guest Host: Kyle Broderick, Plant Pathology Extension Educator at UNL

In the Garden

This time of year our gardens are really growing well, but in some cases so are the problems. I thought I would take some time to describe some common problems we are seeing in the garden currently.

4-H & Youth Development - Jacie Milius, Extension Educator

Gage County Fair Wrap Up

Congratulations to exhibitors, families, and participants. Your many hours of hard work, sportsmanship, and teamwork throughout the week did not go unnoticed! This was a week to celebrate not only 150 years of the Gage County Fair, but what 4-H and FFA youth have learned and achieved.


4-H and FFA youth exhibited over 1000 livestock, poultry, rabbits, small animals, and horses and nearly 2,000 static exhibit entries.


Thanks to Riverview Jr. Stockmen 4-H Club for presenting Championship Row and Gerlach Inc. Commodity Futures and Options Brokerage and Gerlach Show Pigs for sponsoring. This is such a special way to showcase 4-H and FFA livestock exhibits.


The support of award donors is vital to the recognition of the success of 4-H and FFA youth. Our thanks to over 150 businesses and organizations in the county who give so generously.

Thanks for believing in the value of rewarding youth for their accomplishments.


We would also like to thank all of our club leaders, superintendents, and volunteers for helping in various capacities throughout the week of fair. This was a team effort and we sincerely appreciate all of your help!


A big thank you to the Gage County Ag Society and the Gage County 4-H Council for all of your help leading up to fair and your behind the scenes work. Your dedication to Gage County youth helped make this fair beyond successful.


See you next year at the 2022 Gage County Fair and Expo, July 27-July 30!

Food, Nutrition & Health - Tara Dunker, Extension Educator

2021 Beatrice Garden Produce Rescue

Our 2021 Garden Produce Rescue is in full swing for the summer! We have received donations from local businesses in Beatrice where they have been delivered to various organizations and neighbors in need. During July recipients of produce were the Salvation Army, Beatrice Senior Center, Beatrice Mary Family YMCA, and Beatrice Head Start. Currently, over 1,200 lbs of produce has been donated and distributed this growing season!!


Interested in donating your extra produce? Bring your whole, washed garden extras to one of our community drop locations from mid-May to mid-October any time that drop location is open for business.


Current participating drop locations (adding more every day!):

-Beatrice Public Library

-Beatrice Farmers' Market (Thursday evenings)

-Beatrice Mary Family YMCA

-Gage County Extension Office (on the fairgrounds)

-Beatrice Community Hospital System (this drop location is available to BCH employees only)


Follow along at our Facebook page- 2021 Beatrice Garden Produce Rescue

https://www.facebook.com/groups/beatricegardenproducerescue/

Water and Integrated Cropping Systems- Nathan Mueller, Extension Educator

Southern Corn Rust found in Southeast Nebraska

Nebraska Extension has been actively tracking the incidence and severity of southern rust this past month in Nebraska cornfields with the assistance of farmers, local independent crop consultants, private industry agronomists (Figure 1), cropping system Extension educators, and others. As of July 30, southern rust was lab confirmed in Saline and Gage counties, reported in Jefferson County, and confirmed or reported in 7 other counties.

Defoliating Insects in Soybeans

It is that time of year when Japanese beetles, grasshoppers, or various caterpillars start to consume the soybean leaf canopy. It is very easy to overestimate the amount of defoliation that has occurred and many do not like scouting several locations within a field. We should tolerate some low level of defoliation simply because there is a low probability of return to the application and insecticide cost. For all of these reasons, we are going to discuss economic thresholds, scouting guidelines, training, and a new scouting app to help us determine the current level of defoliation in a soybean field.