Welcome to The Life and Times of a Payne County Plant

Categories: Pesticide and fertilizer application Uncategorized

Hello.  The purpose of this blog is to deliver timely horticultural information to the residents of Payne County, Oklahoma and the surrounding area.  Although there are certainly exceptions, when someone calls or comes by the Payne County Extension Office with a question, others are soon to follow with the same question.  A pesky insect outbreak is a good example of this.  Depending on the timing, by the time an article is written and published discussing the issue, as much as 10 days could have elapsed.  If you are watching your prized garden being eaten alive, you’ll agree this is too long to wait.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to use this blog to help you respond to issues like this is a more timely manner.

I’ll also discuss a myriad of other topics that might be of value to you.  The image below is a perfect example.  Now, I can’t speak for the owner of this property but in my mind, a little crabgrass suddenly looks like a pretty good deal when compared to this alternative:

Postemergent crabgrass control damage

I can say please read the label and follow directions until I am blue in the face but as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words!  In this particular case, I did not speak to the applicator so I can only speculate as to the cause but I am sure that this damage could have been minimized with a simple adjustment or two.  For the sake of discussion, let’s say I did visit with the applicator and the proper product was applied.  That leaves improper calibration or spraying outside of the proper temperature window per the label as the probable cause.  The temperature could be easily solved by simply choosing another time of day to spray.

Understanding the fundamentals of proper sprayer calibration will require some education (and yes, that includes a bit of math), but it is also easy to do once an error as seen in this photo grabs your attention.   Calibration is another great example of a topic I hope to cover with the blog.

Responding to the needs of my clients is my number one goal in the Extension office.  Please let me know if you have suggestions for topics you would like to see discussed here.