East-central Louisiana: bleak harvests
Sep 30, 2008 10:33 AM
Crop losses — largely attributable to early- and late-season weather issues — continue to show up as Louisiana producers push deeper into harvest. Up to 80 percent of the cotton in east-central Louisiana parishes worked by Roger Carter and colleagues at Agricultural Management Services will be lost.
Among Carter’s observations as of Sept. 28:
Grain sorghum
“The very last of the grain sorghum will be harvested within 10 days. Late planted grain sorghum was generally destroyed by midge, sorghum webworms, and/or borers. Yields will be less than 40 pounds per acre.”
Soybeans
“Most late soybeans are turning with the exception of those severely affected by cercospora or stinkbug damage. Most late soybeans that were treated properly will be yielding 30-plus bushels per acre.
“Even though some of the more mature soybeans are averaging 30 to 40 bushels per acre the elevators are refusing them since damage is greater than 20 percent or moisture over 15 percent. Most of the damaged soybeans are either damaged from disease, weather, or stinkbugs. And the majority may be from stinkbugs where producers failed to treat near the end or could not treat due to weather.”
Cotton
“Cotton harvest is 90 percent complete in our area since over 80 percent of the acres will be shredded instead of harvested. Yields have been from 200 to 1,200 pounds per acre with an average of 500. The 1,200 pound (yield) is in southern Franklin Parish where cotton was on clay soil and somewhat later maturing.
“Cotton behind wheat is generally not as good as we want. The hurricanes and continued rainy cloudy weather caused extensive fruit loss in the late stages. Yields may be in the 700-pound-per-acre range.”
Tim White, Walter Myers, Wil Miller, Matt Myers, Lydia Ellett, and Roger Carter of Agricultural Management Services, Inc., are located in east central Louisiana, serving Catahoula, Concordia, northern Avoyelles, southern Franklin, and southern Tensas parishes.
