Crop Insurance Today August 2016 - 8

Table 5. Node Table 6. Limb Removal % 20 20 20 20 24 24 32 32 0 25 50 75 25 50 25 50 CHILE PEPPERS New Mexico Loss % 0 22 27 41 19 40 21 30 Chile pepper production methods have changed considerably within the past 15 years due to the high cost of labor in the United States compared with other growing regions. The high cost of labor has resulted in the adoption of mechanical harvesters for picking the chile peppers, especially for red chile/ paprika production. Growers have also gone to direct seeding with little or no thinning of the fields so that the plants tend to grow taller and some of the plant architecture has changed. This chili pepper research project was developed to determine how early season stand losses would affect the production of the red chile/paprika under these closer plant spacing regimes. Two red chile pepper varieties, NM 6-4 and LB-25, were used with thinning applied eight weeks after establishment. Thinning occurred at 6, 8, 12, 24, and 60-inch spacing. The two-year average showed, that for NM 6-4, there was an approximate 30 Defoliation 50% 50% 100% 100% Terminal Removed 4 Leaf AUGUST2016 R-8 R-12 No 5 8 19 12 Yes 12 14 16 18 No 29 34 56 75 Yes 55 44 58 73 Table 7. Node Cut V-4 Cut 2 Nodes 11 Cut 4 Nodes 26 Cut 6 Nodes Cut 8 Nodes percent loss from reductions for the 6, 8, 12, and 24-inch spacing which increased to a 72 percent for the 60-inch spacing. The stand reduction resulted in no loss for the 6,8, and 12inch spacing for the LB-25 variety and then increased to 15 percent and 45 percent for the 24 and 60-inch spacing respectively. CORNIllinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, & North Dakota This is the first year of a corn research project that is focused on the effect of green snap on corn production and the development of loss procedures for corn. The research examined green snap for three stages of growth. The stages were 14 leaf, 17 leaf, and tasseling. The levels of defoliation were 0, 25, 50, and 75 percent of plants snapped above the main ear Tuber initiation treatments of 33 percent defoliation are compared with the check strip. These are Russet Norkotah Sel. 8 potatoes at the research center in Center, Colorado. 8 R-1 Loss % R-1 R-8 R-12 6 8 29 54 5 6 15 27 Loss % 6 14 14 77 node. The differences were measured in yield between the expected loss from current stand reduction charts and the actual measured loss. The numbers in Table 1 through 4 show the results from Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, and North Dakota. COTTONCalifornia This study was initiated to follow up on a previous project to determine the effects of limb removal in cotton that is specific to the growing conditions of Arizona and California. This research examined limb removal during the later reproductive stages of growth because of the greater number of limbs that are produced consistently under these environmental conditions. See Table 5. The treatments were limbs removed at node 20, 24, and 32. Either 0, 25, 50, or 75 percent of the limbs were removed from the top of the plant down. The growth stage at which the plant cutoffs were removed had a significant effect on cotton yield. The loss percentages were consistently lower than what the current charts would suggest. A second study examined defoliation of the cotton plant with and without the removal of the terminal. Defoliation was done at N4, N10, N16, and N24 (N-Node) with either 50 percent or 100 percent of the leaves being removed. The 50 percent defoliation treatments removed the top 50 percent of the leaves. The removal of the terminal with no defoliation resulted in an average of 17 percent loss. The 50 percent defoliation treatment averaged 24 percent loss while the 100 percent defoliation treatment averaged 35 percent.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crop Insurance Today August 2016