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Dry conditions bring more weeds and insects to Wisconsin farm

A Wisconsin farmer says the dry growing conditions are not only affecting crop growth, but it’s also making it a tough year to battle weeds and insects.  Shane Goplin raises corn, soybeans, and alfalfa hay on around three thousand acres near Osseo.  He tells Brownfield the insects are moving in and they’re tough to get a handle on this year. “I know some people that said they’ve had to spray a couple of times because the first pass didn’t make it. Their normal program of what they’ve used isn’t working like it used to, so then they have to come back with a different mode of action.”

Goplin says he’s had a variety of insects in the alfalfa this year. “The first crop was weevils, and now the second crop on the established hay, we were seeing more aphids, but in the new seeding, we had more leaf hoppers.”

And he says the lack of rain meant herbicides didn’t activate as well as they should have. “We saw some of our soybeans where we sprayed our initial pre-down where we didn’t get any water on it, and the weeds started pushing through, so we’re going to have some extra weed pressure that we really don’t want.”

Goplin says he spent the end of last week and the weekend spraying for pests on alfalfa.