From the Director: Our goal is to provide the faculty with the latest news from the Center research projects and extension activities, and other timely information items. Please feel free to use the contents of the newsletter in your county newsletters and education activities as you wish. If you'd like additional details on newsletter items, contact the faculty member author or our editor, Cheryl Vergot.
Regards, Dr. George Hochmuth, NFREC Director
 

Dates of Interest
                                                                 June 20:  Farm Safety Day Camp
                                                                                 Jackson Co. Ag Center  (Youth 8-14)
                                                                                                  8:00 to 3:00

                                                                 June 27-June 29:  Deep South Weed Tour
                                                                                               Florida, Alabama, Georgia

                                                                          July 24-28:  4-H Congress*

                                                                          August 24:  Peanut Field Day
                                                                                              Marianna, FL
 

*denotes 4-H events.  Call your county extension office for further details.
 

 Personnel Notes

        Dale Bennett, CED at Wakulla County, has been promoted to Extension Agent IV effective July 1.
Congratulations, Dale!
         Welcome to Lukasz Raida (Luke), visiting scientist from Agricultural University of Poznan in Poland,
where he studies economics of agricultural production.  Luke will be working with Dr. David Wright and
Dr. Jim Marois of NFREC-Quincy.
 

 PROGRAM UPDATES
 

DROUGHTS AND DISASTERS

       Row crops in Florida are suffering from  severe drought.  In many areas, stands of cotton and peanut are  very poor.  In some fields, half of the cotton crop is up 10 inches tall or more while the rest of the field either has no stand or spotty stands, making management decisions very difficult.  Unirrigated
corn across the state is lost.  Care should be taken in turning cows or other livestock into these fields as nitrite levels can be high.  There are field test that can be done to determine if feed is safe for livestock.
       Our studies have shown that cotton planted as late as the 3rd week of June can still make good yields if weather conditions are favorable for the remainder of the year.  Only soybean can be planted into July and expect profitable yields.  The next two to three weeks will be critical on making both cotton and peanut where it cannot be irrigated.
       There will probably be record small grain yields this year as cool, dry springs are conducive to high yields.  What is often a disaster for corn produces high yields for small grains.  Irrigated corn can make highest yields in drought years if irrigated properly because of the increased sunlight and lack of leaching rains.  In most years, rains have occurred either early or late and some crop could be made, but this may be a disaster for all crops without irrigation.  (Wright, NFREC News, 2-12)
 

CORN, HAY AND COOL SEASON FORAGE UPDATE

I have gotten a number of calls on feeding corn to cattle. I recommend that the corn be tested for nitrates. So far, most of the corn has tested low enough, but every situation will be different. The corn that I have seen has not yet tasseled and is stunted from the drought. While there are a number of commercial labs that will run the samples, Doug Mayo (Jackson Co.) and I have had some success with Waters Lab in Camilla, GA for quick turn around on nitrate testing. Testing costs will vary slightly from lab to lab, but the Nitrate tests run about $8.00. I would also consider running a quality analysis on hay, if it is being fed. Here is the contact info for Waters and some of their prices for analyses (as of 6-9-00):

Waters Agricultural Lab, Inc.
257 Newton Hwy
P.O. Box 382
Camilla, GA 31730
912-336-7216

Nitrate $8.00
Moisture & Crude Protein @ $11.00
Moisture, Crude Protein,  Crude Fiber, TDN, Net Energy  @ $18.00
Moisture, Crude Protein, Crude Fat, Crude Fiber, Ca and P @ $24.00
Moisture, Crude Protein,  Crude Fiber, TDN, Net Energy plus Ca and P @ $24.00

There are several hay producers in Gadsden and Jackson Counties with fertilized bahiagrass round bales for sale. If you need names and phone numbers, let me know.

The cool-season forage trials from NFREC should be posted at the web address for Georgia Variety Testing:
http://www.griffin.peachnet.edu/swvt/ 
We had excellent trials this year at all of the locations, including Quincy, in spite of the drought. I will send out a reminder toward the end of the summer about the trial results and have hard copies available of the final report. I will also update you on some of the new forage variety releases.

Best wishes for rain.       -Annie       (Blount, NFREC News, 2-12)

 RURAL DEVELOPMENT

In a recent study funded through the Aplachee Regional Planning Council David Zimet (IFAS) and Paul Zajicek (Florida DACS) learned that there is a strong market for live marine food fish in the Northeastern (Washington/Baltimore - Boston) corridor. The market for is best in the winter and requires good contacts with buyers, small loads of mixed species, and careful handling after harvest and during transport.  (Zimet, NFREC News, 2-12)
 

HORTICULTURE FIELD DAY

The recent Horticulture Field Day was considered a big success  judging by the enthusiastic seventy or so guests in
attendance.  One of the guest speakers was Stuart Reitz of the USDA.  Other featured speakers included Dr. Tim Momol, Dr. Pete Andersen, and Dr. Joe Funderburk, all of NFREC  Quincy.    Dr. Steve Olson, NFREC-Quincy, who hosted the program, said  he was pleased with the number of extension faculty and growers who attended.  Dr. Olson had information for the group on tomato and collard variety trials.

ASEXUAL PROPAGATION AND ESTABLISHMENT OF BEACH SUNFLOWER

James H. Aldrich and Jeffrey G. Norcini

‘Flora Sun’ beach sunflower (Helianthus debilis subsp. debilis Nutt. ‘Flora Sun’) is a native, herbaceous groundcover that was released by the U.S. Dept. of Agric., Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Plant Materials Center in Brooksville, FL (1). It is a salt tolerant ornamental that thrives under xeric conditions, can be used in poorer soils, and is relatively insect and disease free. It is best adapted to the immediate Gulf coast from Florida to Texas, and along the Atlantic coast as far north as the extreme southern coast of South Carolina. Further inland it should be treated as an annual that may reseed (especially in nonmulched situations) or as a tender perennial. This cultivar should not be used along the central peninsular Gulf coast of Florida so as to avoid crossing with the endangered species Helianthus debilis subsp. vestitus (E.E. Watts) Heiser. It should be propagated by cuttings to maintain it’s genetic and phenotypic fidelity.  However, there is no published protocol for cutting propagation of this cultivar.
In this study, we found that the use of the rooting compound K-IBA (potassium salt of indolebutyric acid) was not necessary to successfully propagate 'Flora Sun' beach sunflower by stem cuttings under summer greenhouse conditions. Treatment of stem cuttings with up to 2000 ppm K-IBA improved root formation with no negative effect on root fresh or dry weight, but K-IBA did not improve survival or growth of rooted plants during establishment in containers.

Literature Cited

1. Anonymous. 1994. ‘Flora Sun’ beach sunflower
 

LIVESTOCK NUTRITION

TDN explained.  When a feed is analyzed by a lab, a common number printed on the results sheet is TDN. What is TDN?  TDN is a figure commonly used to indicate the relative energy value of a feed to an animal.  TDN is an abbreviation for total digestible nutrients and is usually expressed as a percent or in pounds or kilograms.  TDN is an older term that is still widely used in the United States, especially in beef cattle feeding.  The TDN figure is arrived at by totaling digestible crude protein, digestible nitrogen-free extract (starch, sugars), digestible fiber and digestible fat (x 2.25).  A factor of 2.25 is used for fat as fat has more energy per unit of weight than protein or carbohydrates.  As a result of this factor, feeds high in fat could exceed 100% TDN.  Obviously, the lab did not do a digestion study to determine digestible protein, etc., but instead relied on a large data base of results of digestibility trials done in the past.  Thus the TDN figure reported is an estimate derived from composition (protein, fat, etc.) and predicted digestibility based on previous results.  Moisture and ash (total mineral matter) can in no way contribute to the TDN value of a feed, thus the more water and (or) ash present, with other things being equal, the lower the TDN.  Also, feeds high in fiber, such as roughage (i.e., hay), will generally be lower in TDN (moisture free basis) than feeds (i.e., corn) high in NFE (starch, sugars) and (or) protein as fiber is generally less digestible than starch and protein.  Even though TDN is still widely used, other predictors of energy value are commonly used and are usually more specific, these include ME (metabolizable energy) and NE (net energy).  (Myer, NFREC News, 2-12)

ENTOMOLOGY

    Next time you visit NFREC-Center you will notice the landscape dotted with yellow pyramids. The pyramids are stink bug traps which many county faculty have seen or heard me talk about. A patent has been applied for on this trap.
    At Quincy the traps are placed over the Center on a 750' grid (53 trapsin about one square mile of total area) and indexed by GIS/GPS information.  Along with the stink bug traps we will soon be adding traps to monitor the glassy-winged sharpshooter, a vector of Pierce's disease of grapes and other diseases, in a project that Peter Andersen and I have been working on jointly for 15 years.
    We check and record the contents of the traps once a week. We also are collecting sweep net counts of stink bugs on the vegetation surrounding each trap. Once per month we record video of the vegetation around each trap which is also referenced by GIS/GPS. We have similar sites in the project located at Tifton and Byron, GA. The objective of the studies is to
look at the landscape ecology or "area-wide" population dynamics of the insects.   (Mizell, NFREC News, 2-12)

NEW WHEAT VARIETY RELEASED

 A new soft red winter wheat variety has been named "AGS 2000" and seed will be available for planting in the Fall of 2000. The new variety was developed by the University of Georgia - University of Florida small grains breeding program. AGS 2000 will be marketed by AGSouth Genetics, a new marketing company created to market selected new varieties developed by both universities.
 This new cultivar originated from a cross made at Griffin, Georgia in 1989.  It has the following pedigree: Pioneer 2555/PF84301//Florida 302 and was tested experimentally as  89482-E7.  AGS 2000  is  medium maturing, awned, white chaffed, medium tall, and has good straw strength.  It is resistant to currently predominant races of powdery mildew, moderately resistant to leaf rust and resistant to the predominant biotypes of Hessian Fly in the Southeast.
 AGS 2000 is broadly adapted and is high yielding with a high test weight  with medium maturity. Based on performance in variety trials the last several years this variety is expected to be widely grown and popular with wheat producers. Yields in excess of 100 bushels were obtained in several increase fields in the crop just harvested.  Ron Barnett and Jerry Johnson
(Barnett, NFREC News, 2-12)
 

COUNTY HIGHLIGHTS

Monday, June 12 we had the 2000 North Florida Cotton Scout School in Jackson County. Over 35 producers, scouts, chemical reps, and extension faculty attended. We had a great turn out and the program went well. Myself,  Dr. Sprenkel, and Dr. Wright instructed the scouts.

Brian D. Ducar
IPM/Agronomy Agent
Jackson County

Thought for the Day: Some questions don't have answers, which is a terribly difficult lesson to learn.
                                                                                               Katherine Graham

Cheryl Vergot, Public Relations
NFREC - Quincy, U/F IFAS
E-Mail: cvergot@ifas.ufl.edu
Phone: (850) 875-7112

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