December 8, 2016
Confronting Cropping Challenges
One thing many farmers dread each winter or early spring is attending a private pesticide applicator training session when their license to purchase or apply restricted use pesticides expires. Well, if you are one of the many farmers who’s permit expires in April 2017, or if you’ve never had a license and need to get one, do I have a deal for you!
Most farmers dread having to sit through 2½ to 3 hours of talks about various aspects of pesticide laws, handling, storage and application or pesticides, and the worker protection standards. These are important topics, but I can tell you don’t like to attend them much more than I like to give them repeated times each spring. Well, this year I’d like to offer you an alternative to the traditional pesticide training classes.
Two other Extension Educators, Aaron Nygren in Colfax County and Nathan Mueller in Dodge County, and I have put together a program that will focus on crop production issues. At the end of the meeting, which all farmers are encouraged to attend, there will be one more short program covering other pesticide issues that were not addressed in earlier talks in the program.
You won’t spend much more time at this meeting than you would at a regular pesticide training meeting, but the focus of the program will be on current crops issues. If you want to attend the meeting just for the information but don’t need to be certified or recertified, you are welcome to leave at the end of the regular program.
Confronting Cropping Challenges is a new series of workshops offered by Nebraska Extension for those wanting to learn more about the crops challenges from the past growing season and management options to deal with them during the 2017 growing season.
This program has been offered at two locations already, but will be offered at four more locations. The next programs will be this Friday, December 16, at the Community Building on the Fairgrounds in Stanton at 9:00 a.m. and at the Nielsen Community Center in West Point at 1:30 p.m. The final two programs will be held on Wednesday, December 21, at the Nebraska Extension Office in Fremont at 9:00 a.m. and at the First National Bank Northeast meeting room in Tekamah at 1:30 p.m.
Topics to be covered include:
• The importance of factors to consider when selecting hybrids or varieties,
• Corn and soybean disease updates,
• Grain storage concerns for 2016-17,
• Options to control input cost when budgets are tight, and
• Controlling Palmer amaranth, waterhemp and marestail.
Pre-registration is not required. A registration fee for the meeting is $10 for everyone. Those needing to renew their current private pesticide applicator license or get a new license at this meeting will pay an additional $30, $40 total, for the training. The $30 fee is required and is the same as would be paid at the traditional pesticide training sessions in January through March. Although this training is being offered in 2016, applicators being recertified now will not lose a year on their license.
For more information on the Confronting Cropping Challenges, please visit Crop Tech Café at http://croptechcafe.org/