Category: Agriculture

“Corn is one of the biggest contributors to the dairy industry, both in corn silage crop and a corn grain crop, which is also used for foraging,” said Harkirat Kaur, a corn agronomist with UW-Madison Division of Extension Crops and Soils program. Harvesting grain differs from producing silage because it focuses on using the corn plant’s kernels for human food and animal feed, as well as the basis for ethanol biofuel.

“Tariffs, either on our part or on the part of our export market destinations, are not helpful for farmers in Wisconsin,” Chuck Nicholson, an agricultural economist at UW-Madison, said. “The longer we keep them in place, the bigger the negative impacts will be.”

During a recent training session for crops and soils specialists, plant pathologist Damon Smith with the University of Wisconsin says growers are experiencing weather that is ideal for corn tar spot infection.

“It’s too early to see symptoms now,” he told them, “but it is likely that infections are occurring and that growers need to be vigilant in their scouting of susceptible fields in coming weeks.”

Kevin Jarek, regional crops and soils educator with UW-Madison’s Division of Extension for Outagamie & Winnebago counties, noted, “If I were to go to counties like Shawano and Waupaca, especially the western parts of those counties, they get much lighter in soil. It’s a sandy loam texture, whereas here as we get closer to Lake Michigan, we tend to have a lot of clay.”

Daniel Smith with UW Extension’s integrated pest and crop management says that since February, the temperatures have warmed up and had more precipitation.