Solutions in Your Community
Charles County Connection
Spring 2020

AGRICULTURE
Time is Running Out!
Get Your Nutrient Management Plan NOW!

Plan development time is almost over but there are still a few late-comers. It is ideal to have your plan complete prior to any nutrients being applied, but it is possible for me to write a partial plan that shows what you have already applied and future applications you plan to apply. Our next step would be to consider the Pre-Sidedress Nitrate Test (PSNT).
 
To take advantage of a PSNT, some conditions must be met:

PSNT  is applicable  on fields where:
  • Corn for silage or grain is being grown
  • Manure or biosolids have been applied this year or in the past two (2) years
  • A forage legume was grown last year
  • Less than 50 pounds of commercial fertilizer nitrogen per acre were applied prior to sidedress

PSNT  is not applicable  on fields where:
  • More than 50 pounds of commercial fertilizer nitrogen per acre have been applied prior to sidedress
  • Commercial fertilizer has historically been the only nutrient source
  • Irrigation is used

Soil samples for the PSNT should be taken when the corn is between 6 and 12 inches tall, prior to the rapid growth stage when the plant will require adequate nitrogen to fuel its growth. The soil should be sampled to a depth of 12 inches and multiple samples (recommended 30 – 40) should be collected throughout the field/management unit. Just like traditional soil sampling, these samples should be mixed in a clean plastic bucket and a sub-sample taken for testing. Please allow 2 business days for the test results. 

This test can either potentially save you money on nitrogen fertilizer if the results show adequate nitrate-nitrogen in the soil, or it can optimize your yield by making you aware that inadequate nitrate-nitrogen exists in the soil and so a sidedress is recommended.

Please contact me early in the season to sign up for this useful test.
 
Thank you,
 
Francis Warring
Coordinator, Nutrient Management Advisor
301-934-5403
fwarring@umd.edu          
Check out our new series
on integrated weed management (IWM)
Alan Leslie
Extension Educator, Agriculture and Food Systems
aleslie@umd.edu 

It doesn’t matter what kind of crops you are growing: at some point weeds are going to be a problem. Of course the go-to strategy is to look up what herbicide to spray then figure out the rate, adjuvants, carrier water volume, timing, nozzle types, PSI, and ground speed that will take out the weeds and leave your crop to thrive. GMO crops have really streamlined this process, opening up the option to spray really broad-spectrum herbicides capable of cleaning up a field in a single pass. However, time and time again we learn that herbicides simply can’t be relied on as our sole strategy for managing weeds, and eventually we will end up with resistant weed populations that can thwart those chemical controls.

This problem is not limited to herbicides, as any single weed control tactic applied over and over again will eventually fail. Continuous tillage will eventually select for weed species with long-lived seeds, capable of being tilled under and waiting to be tilled back to the surface to germinate years later. For example, johnsongrass seeds were buried for 5.5 years in one experiment, after which 48% of the seeds were still able to germinate.

Plastic mulch is another tactic that is very effective in physically blocking many weeds from growing in vegetable crops, however yellow nutsedge can easily pierce the plastic membrane with its sharp growing tip (photo below, left), and will soon dominate fields where plastic mulch is the main weed control tactic. Even hand-weeding is not impervious to the cunning adaptations of weeds. Years of continuously hand-weeding barnyardgrass in rice eventually selected for a population of barnyardgrass that looked virtually identical to rice, and almost impossible to distinguish while weeding (photo below, right).
Every year your chemical suppliers, seed dealers, and equipment dealers will have new premixes, new traits, and new tillage implements that you can add to your arsenal against weeds, but weeds are all working 24/7/365 (366 this year) to overcome these new tactics. The only way to really make sure you are staying ahead of the weeds and not kicking the can down the road to only cause problems later is to adopt a truly integrated weed management program for your farm.

Integrated weed management (or IWM) is “the application of many kinds of technology in a mutually supportive manner” to reduce weed pressure. This is not to say that any of the primary weed control methods (herbicide, tillage, plastic, etc.) should be avoided, rather that multiple tactics should be employed simultaneously to manage weeds in multiple different ways, and to help prevent weeds from adapting to the weed control tactics you use on your farm. IWM programs should incorporate biological, chemical, cultural, and physical tactics to attack weeds from a variety of angles (figure below).
Developing an IWM program for your farm involves making many conscious decisions during the process of crop production that all help to suppress weeds. None of the tactics by themselves would fully control weeds, but together they work to prevent problems from becoming worse. To help farmers to identify strategies that they could adopt in their own IWM programs, we have published a series on IWM through the University of Maryland Extension’s Vegetable and Fruit Headline News . In this six-part series, you will learn more about the basics of IWM, and specific strategies that you can incorporate in your own IWM plan, including herbicide rotation, crop rotation, sanitation, crop competitiveness, cultural techniques, tillage, and plasticulture, among others.

This series is not meant to prescribe specific plans for farmers, but rather will highlight some weed control strategies that may not be widely used or widely considered, and will hopefully help farmers to begin thinking explicitly about additional tactics to add to help manage weeds in an integrated, long-term approach.

Follow the link below to read the entire series on IWM:
Home Gardening
Vegetable Trellising in the Home Garden
Although this month has gotten off to a cold start, before long gardeners will be out harvesting tomatoes and other summer crops. Getting vegetable plants up and off the ground is one of the best ways to both reduce diseases problems and make harvesting easier in the home garden. If you have ever had a tomato cage bend under the weight of a heavy crop or cucumbers that invaded your entire garden, then you might want to try a different type of trellising this season.  

Using steel T-posts and plastic tomato twine ($10-20 for a 6000’ roll), you can make a simple, sturdy, trellis system that is adaptable to different spaces. Plus, the posts can be reused for years to come.
At planting or shortly after, drive six foot steel T-posts into the ground about every six feet. As the plants grow, I run a series of zigzags of strings (almost horizontal) between the posts about every six vertical inches for cucumber and about every 8-10” for tomatoes.

For cucumber and other vining plants (those that actually attach their tendrils to the string), you can run the string all at once at the beginning of the season, but for tomatoes, you string them as they grow. For cucumbers, you can also buy plastic “tomato clips” and use them to help train an individual cucumber plant to a single vertical string.

Check out this video on the HGIC YouTube channel for details on tying tomatoes. Try it out this season. The rewards of more garden-fresh produce are worth it!
Take Your (Soil’s) Temperature
A simple kitchen thermometer is a handy yet inexpensive addition to any gardener’s toolkit. It can be used to help time spring pre-emergent herbicide applications in the lawn or to know when the soil has reached the ideal temperature for tomato and pepper in the vegetable garden.
For more information, contact
Luke Gustafson
CCMG Coordinator
LNG@umd.edu
301-934-5403
Looking to support local farmers during this time? Check out the regular updates on the La Plata Farmers' Market Facebook page  or  website , or check out the  Maryland Farmers' Market Association's (MDFMA) map  on where to buy local while social distancing. (Please note the MDFMA may not be regularly updated.)
Jessica Conjour, MPH
Food Supplement Nutrition Project Leader and Nutrition Educator
Jconjour@umd.edu 


4-H Builds Confidence, Self-Esteem and Leadership Skills in Kids Ages 5 to 18!

Bonnie Boyden, Program Management Specialist
bboyden@umd.edu 

4-H teaches our youth life skills that will help them as adults, such as self-esteem, decision making, record keeping, managing ones feelings and self-discipline. There are many important values that young people gain from 4-H such as work ethics and responsibility.

Over the past 117 years of 4-H existence, history has shown that they will carry these life skills with them their whole lives. 4-H truly is an educational program with practical applications, not just for the betterment of our youth but to society as a whole.

In Charles County, our goals and objectives are for youth to have a positive
4-H camping experience. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, our 2020 camping programs are cancelled for the summer, but we are working on new and exciting ways to deliver a new type of camping experience. Through distant learning, we will continue to deliver programs that will develop tomorrow’s leaders.

Working with teen leaders and volunteers, we will create a memorable but different 4-H camping experience for the youth to participate in this summer. The 4-H Motto is "Learn by Doing" and we will be doing that with new ideas to connect with our youth and volunteers. We are looking forward to 2021 to return to our traditional camping program.


Jeanne Williams
4-H Program Assistant, Shooting Sports Coordinator
jeanneh@umd.edu 
4-H empowers kids to grow into True Leaders through inspirational, hands-on learning experiences. 
Click HERE to receive hands-on, educational activity ideas for kids and teens, including the latest 4-H activity guides to help inspire even more young people to do, learn, and grow.
Resilient Rock Stars
Amy Lang, 4-H Educator
amlang@umd.edu 

4-H prides itself on developing positive life skills in the youth participating in our programs. Numerous short and long- term studies have been conducted to measure life skill growth. But this month, we had the chance to see it in action.

For many of our teens (and staff) camp is an annual rite of passage. It is the culminating event of another great year of learning and growing together. Many of our teens have not missed a session of camp since they first joined the festivities at the age of 8. As they age up, their role in the camp experience changes from campers to leaders and counselors in training, tasked with making sure that the younger campers have the same wonderful experience they did. This year, we had to inform our teen leaders that camp has been cancelled due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. This was a devastating blow to these dedicated, passionate teens. This conversation should have been the low point of our week, but it wasn’t . . .

Our teens reminded us how much they have grown in 4-H. They demonstrated resiliency in the face of adversity as they jumped right in and began brainstorming how we could work to make this year’s experience special for the younger campers despite our current situation. They showed compassion and empathy as they discussed starting a pen pal initiative to correspond with the campers in their assigned group, making videos to demonstrate campfires and classes for the younger campers, and hosting virtual tribe meetings with inclusive cheers and songs to build team spirit and camaraderie.

There is no doubt that all of us, campers and staff, were sad about the loss of our camp traditions this year, but there is also no doubt that our teens have mastered the life skills this program develops. We could not have been more proud of our camp counselors and counselors-in- training that night. They are the very model of making the best better.
Money Matters
Need advice sorting out your money issues? What's the difference between initial fraud alerts, credit freezes and credit locks?

Click HERE to download this helpful chart from Equifax and get the facts!

For more information, contact Patricia Maynard,
University of Maryland Extension, Senior Agent Educator, Family and Consumer Science, Financial Wellness
Charles County & Prince Georges County
Desk: 301-539-3053
Offices: 301-934-5403 & 301-868-9410







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