Small Grain Weeds

There has been a lot of small grains planted over the last 3 months.  It is hopeful that the needed rains will come based on all these El Nino reports and maybe we will have a good year with lots of forage.  So far the grain looks great and even some dairymen have made an early cutting based on good growth this fall.

One of the things we are seeing this fall with the rains that we have received is that the grain is growing good and so are the WEEDS!  Already henbit, shepherd’s-purse, mallow (in picture)

and mustards are doing every bit as good as the grain and are poised to be a problem.  Where you have weeds, you don’t have small grain.

We have several good weed control products available and prices are not too bad but with weeds, sooner is always better.  It is much easier to control these weeds before they get too big and already henbit is flowering.  Go check out your fields and then give us a call to spray that mess early!

Wintertime Spraying Roundup

This picture shows you a coastal bermudagrass hay field that was treated with glyphosate (Roundup) in February before the bermudagrass greened up.  The glyphosate treatment on the left killed out the winter weeds and winter grasses leaving a clean field for the coastal and a clean first hay cutting.  Cost of this treatment is minimal but the results are fantastic.  

Cattle Genomics

I recently attended an interesting program on Dairy Cattle Genomics and thought you might have an interest in what is happening in that science.  Genomics is the study of genetics combined with the study of DNA, including mapping the genome.  It is a science that is extremely technical and involves over 3 billion DNA base pairs in every cell.  Basically it takes a lot of computer power to study it.

In this meeting we learned how they are now able to take DNA samples from an individual animal and tell you how that animal will perform based on the trait you selected or want.  So, if you want to increase your herds milking ability or reproductive efficiency or even calf size, through genomics you can identify individuals that have those traits.  This saves you making crosses and waiting on the calves to see if the traits are expressed.  It also allows you to keep the right heifers at birth versus spending money and time growing them out to calving and being disappointed.  Look for this science to help our purebred breeds make rapid advancement and improvement.