Summer brings the heat, often amplified by higher humidity. Warmer-than-normal temperatures, especially at night, can cause heat stress to develop rapidly in livestock. The Kansas Mesonet has an Animal Comfort Tool that can help monitor conditions and aid farmers in making the best management decisions.

Cool season annual forages are approaching a maturity point when they will be harvested for hay. North Dakota State University Extension forage crops production specialist James Roger offers tips for capturing and maintaining forage quality through harvest, storage and feeding.

Xyway™ LFR® (flutriafol) is a surface band or in-furrow fungicide applied at planting. The product is advertised as offering season-long control of foliar diseases in corn. Several producers in Nebraska evaluated Xyway™ LFR® fungicide in 2021, conducting a total of eight on-farm trials.

The most common double crop options are soybean, sorghum, and sunflower. Other possibilities include summer annual forages and specialized crops such as proso millet or other short-season summer crops – even corn. Cover crops are also an option for planting after wheat.

Choosing a summer forage can be confusing because there are six different types of major summer annual forage grasses. These include: sudangrass, sorghum-sudan hybrids, forage sorghum (which we often call cane or sorgo), foxtail millet, pearl millet and teff. Each one has its own strengths and weaknesses.

On the western side of Oklahoma, early cotton acre establishment is in question, and winter wheat outcome looks devastating, according to Gary Strickland, Jackson County director and southwest regional agronomist for Oklahoma State University Extension.

In many areas of Kansas, prolonged drought has resulted in short wheat and thin stands. Harvesting wheat in these situations can be a challenge. Special attention needs to be given to cutting height, machine adjustments, and operator control.

A report by the Agricultural and Food Policy Center at Texas A&M provides insights into the economic impacts of higher crop and major input prices on the center's 64 representative crop farms. Matt Huie, a farmer and rancher from Beeville, said rising input costs have significantly impacted operational expenses.

Besides building healthy soil, living roots are the tool to fix marginal lands. Salt-affected soils are an example of a hard-to-fix marginal land situation in South Dakota. There are annual and perennial plants that can tolerate more soil salts