Register now for April 4 event
(Cazenovia, NY – March 2014) The Madison County Field Crops Meeting will be held Friday, April 4, with registration beginning at 9:30 a.m. at Empire Tractor, 2893 Route 20 East, Cazenovia.
Lunch is provided, courtesy of Empire Tractor and requires pre-registration. Reserve a seat by calling 315.655.8146 by Wednesday, April 2. Two-and-a-half pesticide recertification credits will be given.
Vertical tillage systems will kick off this year’s program. Jason Martin, a technical representative with Great Plains AG, Thomadale, Ontario, Canada; and Bill Verbeten, Northwest New York field crop specialist, will demonstrate how features of vertical tillage help maintain a uniform soil profile with less compaction and at the same time improve water infiltration, speed up soil warm-up, and result in more efficient nutrient uptake.
Verbeten’s presentation will highlight Western New York farmers and their experience with vertical tillage systems.
“Managing Nitrogen, Soil Health, Crop Health, Resilience and Vigor” will be presented by Dr. Bianca Moebius-Clune, extension associate at the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at Cornell University. She will discuss how to better manage nitrogen and soil health, given that weather will provide different challenges every year.
Moebius-Clune will cover the impacts of rainfall on optimum N rates for corn, how to save money ($27 per acre average) and reduce losses annually, using the Adapt-N tool (adapt-n.cals.cornell.edu). She’ll present the longer-term impacts of soil management on soil health, and how soil health influences nitrogen dynamics, as well as crop health, resilience, and vigor, as well as a brief introduction to the Cornell Soil Health Test (soilhealth.cals.cornell.edu) and how it can be used to make improvements in soil health management.
After lunch, Dr. Russell Hahn, associate professor in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at Cornell University, will address herbicides, especially acetochlor and atrazine, and their potential to affect water quality. His presentation will review and build upon the awareness of best management practices to reduce the occurrences of water contamination.
Hahn also will discuss efficacy of acetochlor and other new products compared with standard weed control programs. Finally, Hahn will give an update on the status of herbicide resistant weeds and a review on how growers can avoid or delay the development of herbicide resistant weed populations.
Finally, Don Nelson, Pesticide Control Specialist 2 with NY DEC, will provide an update on Regulatory Compliance and review the basics in reading labels.
This program is sponsored by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Madison County in cooperation with Empire Tractor.