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Slugs in rye cover crop
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tkoppel
Posted 11/17/2012 18:57 (#2702609 - in reply to #2702457)
Subject: Re: Slugs in rye cover crop


Sanilac Co. Michigan
A couple of questions. Was the rye broadcast/flown on to the standing crop or was it drilled after the crop came off? Was the field a little "dirty" with weeds when this was done? Did you have a fairly damp August/September?I don't know how it is in central Ohio, but here in the "Thumb" of Michigan it is advised to avoid flying/broadcasting wheat into notill beans because of slug damage. I assume rye into a no till corn field is similar. I think this is because the growing point is very shallow, and slugs will eat the seedlings off down below the growing point. If it's drilled into the stubble it's sown deeper and the growing point is somewhat below the soil surface, fall feeding then takes the green growth, but leaves the growing point safe. Rye can grow some even under the snow, so you'll likely have a stand come spring and it ought to out grow the slug damage. If you had slug damage in the spring, the field was a little weedy or it was damp and cool? in Aug/Sept you had a "green bridge" going into fall. Slugs tend to reproduce in late summer early fall and you might have provided (inadvertently) a great food source/environment for the buggers to get jiggy in! The problem for you, as I see it, is how to handle the slug problem this spring. By now, those adult slugs have laid a lot of egg masses. The adults likely will die over winter but those egg masses will pop about the same time as you sow beans this spring and if conditions are right those juveniles can eat off your soy seedlings faster than they can produce trifoliats. Since soys growing point is above ground, once they eat off the cotylydens
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