It appears Mother Nature will continue to find ways of testing our will and determination in 1997 as ice sheets and ponds cover many alfalfa and winter wheat fields after a fast snow thaw and late February rain. Does this mean certain crop death come spring? Well, I believe it was Yogi Berra who once said, "Prediction is a difficult art ------ especially if it involves the future".
Ice sheeting may cause damage or kill plants in three ways:
1) suffocation from lack oxygen
2) build-up of respiration by-products (CO2) to toxic levels
3) crown injury making plants more susceptible to disease
Injury is most likely to occur on flat, heavy, wet soils and/or where stubble does not protrude through the ice sheet. Furthermore, winter cereals will be more susceptible to winterkill than perennial forages such as alfalfa.
The good news is that plants have not yet broken dormancy to any large degree. Ice sheeting later in March or early April would likely be more damaging. By still being dormant, respiration rates are very low.
There is little that can be done to eliminate the problem at this time. Using a disk or rotary hoe to break the ice will result in more damage to both the implement and crop than if doing nothing. Applying fertilizer to melt large quantities of ice would require many tons/acre and plants would probably die from salt injury next spring. The best bet is to wait and assess damages (or lack thereof) this spring and make the appropriate decisions at that time.
For more information contact Mike Rankin|
|