Hurricane Elsa has really thrown a wrench into things. We were finally getting back into the fields when she came and dumped more water.
Rain: I’ve really had to brush up on rainfastness of chemicals lately. Here are a couple of the ones that I’ve been asked about recently. If you’re curious about one not list here, call me and we can look it up.
- Basagran: 4 hours
- Bravo Weather Stik: when dry
- Clethodim: 1 hour
- Cobra: 30 mins
- Engenia: 4 hours
- Enlist: 1 hour
- Envoke: 3 hours
- Glyposhate: 30 mins – 3 hours (most say as soon as it drys)
- Liberty: 4 hours
- Paraquat: 30 mins
- Pix: 4 hours with surfactant
- Reflex: 1 hour
- Sethoxydim: 1 hour
- Stance: 2 hours with surfactant
- Ultra Blazer: 4 hours
- Xtendimax: 4 hours
Cotton: Plant bugs are on the rise but I haven’t seen a field at threshold level yet. Most cotton is blooming now or quickly approaching. Water demand is critical during this time. I know it has been training a lot but our soil water holding capacity is about 1″ per foot of soil. Now the cotton plant can only access water where it has roots and it can only access about 50% of the soil water holding capacity. So a plant with an 18″ root system can only access about .75″ of water at field capacity. Keep this in mind because during bloom the plant will need about 1.5″ per week or about 0.2″ per day. Now is not the time to stress the plant, water stress during the bloom stage can reduce growth thus reducing fruiting sites. With cotton blooming, now is the time to start scouting for target spot. If you don’t find any you can delay a fungicide spray. Usually around the 3rd week of bloom is when it starts to show up. Fungicides are not needed after the 6th week of bloom.
Peanuts: Diseases will start to become problematic. Pop-up showers and Elsa have spread fungal spores all over and the environmental conditions are ripe for the spread of disease. As the peanuts close their canopy, drop pegs, and develop pods, the plant itself becomes more vulnerable. Be aggressive with disease prevention because now is not the time to let it sneak in.