Browse Field Crops, Forage and Turfgrass Production Stories - Page 64

Almost every year in late summer, caterpillars invade turfgrass across Georgia. Damage to established turf is mostly aesthetic, but newly planted sod or sprigged areas can be severely damaged or even killed.

Georgia summers are notoriously hot. But this summer has been a record-setter, with August capping a string of months with temperatures significantly above average.

Georgia’s tobacco and pecan crop are on pace for a surprisingly good year. Not surprisingly, though, above-normal temperatures have smothered the state and taken a toll on some row crops, like peanut and cotton.

Fall is a great time to guard against spring and summer diseases on warm-season grasses.

Tall fescue is a popular cool-season grass species known to have a bunching growth habit.

Georgia has remained free of drought for more than a year. But drought conditions have returned to north-central, west-central and southwest Georgia.

Anyone who dared a toe outdoors in July knew that the heat started in June turned up in July, which was an extreme weather month. Above-normal temperatures ruled with some record highs being broken. Some record lows were set, too.

Rain has hit on target and temperatures have been reasonable. So far, Georgia row-crops like what they’ve been getting.

Most of the sorghum eaten by Americans is consumed indirectly when they eat beef or chicken that were fed the grain. In other parts of the world, though, it is eaten directly as a food staple. In some African countries, sorghum accounts for 40 percent of people’s diets. A University of Georgia plant breeder wants to increase the plant’s production by tapping into the perennial characteristics of its wild ancestors.

Several years ago, pigweed found the weakness and breached the defense that Georgia cotton growers used to control it. It now threatens to knock them out, or at least the ones who want to make money.