August 2020

The University of Maryland Extension programs are open to all citizens and will not discriminate against anyone because of race, age, sex, color, sexual orientation, physical or mental

disability, religion, ancestry, national origin, marital status, genetic information, political affiliation, and gender identity or expression. The information given herein is supplied with the

understanding that no discrimination is intended and no endorsement by University of Maryland Extension is implied.

www.extension.umd.edu/baltimore-county

IN THIS ISSUE

1 UME COVID-19 Update

2 Penn State’s Ag-Progress

Days

2 Investing in your Farm’s

Future

2 Malting Barley Fungicide

Trial Results

3 Summer Grazing

Management

3 Baltimore County Weed

Control Board

4 2020 Small Grain Variety

Trials

4 Hay and Pasture Webinar

4 ACE Center

4 Unsolicited Seeds from

China

5 Risk Management Tools

for Hemp Producers

5 Baltimore County Seeks

Local Produce

5 Poultry Grower Lunch

6 Dates to Remember

Educating People To Help Themselves

Local Governments • U.S. Department of Agriculture Cooperating

BALTIMORE COUNTY OFFICE • 1114 Shawan Road, Suite 2, Cockeysville, MD 21030 • 410-887-8090 FAX 410-785-5950

UME COVID-19 Update

As the community outreach arm of the University of Maryland, we have been serving Maryland’s neighborhoods and residents for over 100 years, and despite the recent changes, Extension remains committed to keeping our state strong and healthy.

As Maryland begins its implementation plan for returning to offices and research facili-ties, University of Maryland Extension personnel will be following the university, state and county guidelines to protect our most valuable resource -- the people and commu-nities we work with throughout Maryland.

As of July 20, 2020, UME– Baltimore County employees are allowed to return to their offices. Administration is regularly assessing the situation to ensure the health and safe-ty of all employees.

For the safety of our colleagues and clients, county personnel will follow university, state and county specific protocols to include wearing masks, symptom monitoring, and social distancing within office areas as well. For the safety of everyone, clients will be required to make appointments to meet with Extension faculty and staff in or out of the office.

UME has begun to hold limited in-person programming of groups up to 10 people, in-cluding the Extension faculty member, in outdoor venues, while wearing masks and maintaining appropriate social distancing. On August 1st, 4-H programming will gradu-ally resume to limited programs that meet the above requirements.

We are still available for assistance throughout this time and you may contact us by phone or email, and we are continuing programming through online and virtual for-mats. A full list of events can be found on our website at https://agnr.umd.edu/events/ or on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UniversityOfMarylandExtensionBaltimoreCounty/ .

For more information on University of Maryland health and safety guidelines regarding coronavirus, go to https://umd.edu/virusinfo. Find news and information on University of Maryland Extension public programming at extension.umd.edu.

As always, please call or e-mail me with any questions!

2

Penn State’s 2020 Ag Progress Days

Penn State's Ag Progress Days is an annual event held during August. Due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, Ag Progress Days in 2020 will be held virtually from August 9-12.

The show is hosted by Penn State’s College of Agriculture and showcases educational programs, current research, the latest innovations in agricultural equipment and technology along with exhibitors from the United States and Canada.

To learn more and check out the interactive map, visit https://agsci.psu.edu/apd

Investing in Your Farm’s Future Webinar

A free, online series entitled “Investing in Your Farm’s Fu-ture” will begin on Thursday, August 6 and will run for four consecutive Thursdays from 6:00 to 7:30 PM. Topics in-clude “Retirement Planning” (August 6), “Health Insurance in Later Years” (August 13), “Business Planning and Com-munications” (August 20), and “Legal Topics, Planning Tools and Finding the Right Team” (August 27). The series is free but registration is required. You may register for any or all of the sessions offered. To register, visit https://go.umd.edu/5Qv.

2020 Malting Barley Fungicide Trial Results Alyssa Koehler, Extension Field Crops Pathologist

A fungicide trial was conducted on Violetta barley planted October

4, 2019 to assess the efficacy of various fungicides for management of Fusarium Head Blight (FHB, Fusarium spp.) and

Glume Blotch (GB, Parastagonospora nodorum). Incidence (number of plants showing any symptoms of disease) and severi-

ty (amount of the plant part affected) rating were conducted for FHB as well as foliar and glume symptoms of GB.

Please direct any questions to akoehler@udel.edu.

Do you have noxious or invasive weeds on your property?

Baltimore County’s Weed Control Program can help you manage them!

Call Weed Control at 410-841-5920

3

Summer Grazing Management Dr. Amanda Grev, Forage Specialist, University of Maryland As we move into the traditionally driest, hottest days of sum-mer, we can expect growth rates of cool-season grass pastures slow dramatically and pasture productivity to decline. Howev-er, there are management practices that producers can imple-ment to maximize plant growth during these hot, dry spells.

It takes grass to grow grass. The key to having produc-tive pastures is optimizing plant photosynthesis. Think of your pasture as a solar panel where green, growing leaves are energy producers. To maximize production, livestock need to be rotat-ed off of a pasture in a timely fashion to ensure an effective “solar panel” or leaf area is left in the paddock following graz-ing. Most cool-season forages need at least 3 to 4 inches of postgrazing residual to effectively take advantage of photosyn-thesis for regrowth. In addition to providing a photosynthetic base for plant regrowth, the leaf material that remains after a grazing bout also shades the soil surface, keeping soil tempera-tures cooler and helping to reduce soil moisture loss.

Removing leaf matter affects the roots as well, as those roots rely on the leaves to supply energy from photosynthesis. The amount of live growth occurring below ground is roughly equivalent to the amount of live growth occurring above ground, and research has shown that the amount of above ground forage mass removed impacts root health. Up to 50 percent of the plant can be removed with little to no impact on root growth. With greater than 50 percent removal, root growth slows dramatically, and removing 70 percent or more of the above ground forage mass stops root growth completely. This is where the old rule of thumb “take half, leave half” comes into play. Leaving half of the leaf area on the plant has minimal impacts to the plant root system, enabling the plant to continue to absorb nutrients and moisture and recover quicker following grazing. If the take half, leave half rule is violated and pastures are grazed too low, plant root growth stops and root reserves are used to regrow leaf tissue, diminishing the vigor of the plant root system and the overall productivity of the plant.

Provide a rest period. One of the m ost com m on m is-takes in grazing management is not providing a long enough recovery period for pastures after g razing. Pasture forages re-quire a rest period in order to maintain vigorous production. When a plant is grazed, the loss of leaf material means the plant loses its energy-producing center. The plants’ response is to rebuild that center using stored energy reserves. If the plant is given rest following grazing, new leaves will develop and will replenish this energy supply. Without rest, the plant is not able to replenish its energy supply and will continue to use the re-

mainder of its stored energy to produce new leaves. As energy supplies are depleted, the plant will be unable to maintain pro-duction and will eventually die, leading to weak stands, over-grazed pastures, and the invasion of weeds or other non-desirable forages.

Maintaining flexibility in your system will allow you to balance the length of the rest period with the plant growth rate and is fundamental to successful grazing management. How long re-covery takes will depend on a number of things, including the plant species, grazing pressure, and the time of year. As we get hotter and drier, grass growth rates will slow down and the days of rest required may be much longer than that required during the spring when rapid growth is occurring. Regardless, the rest period must be long enough to allow the plants to re-cover and grow back to a practical grazing height before live-stock are allowed to graze again; for most grasses, this height falls in the 8 to 10 inch range.

To accommodate for this longer rest period, the rotation speed between paddocks will have to slow down. The basic rule is: when pastures are growing fast, rotate fast; when pastures are growing slowly, rotate slowly. Remember that the goal of the rest is to allow young green leaves to maximize photosynthesis.

Don’t ignore seed heads. A plant that is producing seed heads is undergoing reproductive growth and not putting energy into leafy growth or tiller production. Clipping seed heads from these grasses will allow the plant to return to leafy or vegetative growth, which will increase forage quality and result in more total forage being produced over the course of the season. Clipping will also serve the added benefit of help-ing to control weed populations.

Seed heads can also be an indication of uneven grazing pat-terns in your pasture. If selective grazing is occurring, some plants are likely being overgrazed while others not enough. If this is happening, consider adding more divisions or paddocks into your pasture system. This means you will be grazing your animals on smaller areas, increasing the stocking density. A greater stocking density will reduce the amount of selective grazing that occurs, increasing forage utilization and reducing the need for pasture clipping.

While we can’t control how hot or dry summer will get, we can strategically manage the grass we have to help keep summer paddocks productive and growing.

4

Hay and Pasture Webinar

Sept. 2, 2020 3PM Online

Join experts via Zoom from University of Maryland Exten-sion and The Mill to learn about different grass forage spe-cies that might be right for your operation.

Topics to Include:

Forage species and their utility

Variety persistence and yield

Establishment and renovation

Learn about The Mill’s grass forage demo plots

Registration Required

https://go.umd.edu/foragetalk

2020 Small Grain Variety Trails Andy Kness, Agriculture Agent, University of Maryland Results from the 2020 University of Maryland small grain variety trials are posted online or hard copies may be requested

through the Extension office. Each year, seed companies submit seed varieties for testing, so keep in mind that this is not an

exhaustive list of wheat and barley varieties, but provides useful information regarding several varieties tested across five loca-

tions in Maryland. These replicated plots provide information on yield, test weight and other plant characteristics.

When reading the report it is important to factor in the statistical information provided; do not just simply look at the numeri-

cally highest yielding variety and dismiss the rest of the data. For example, while Dyna-Gro WX20731 achieved numerically the

highest yield (101.5 bu/a) in the test, it did not differ from 13 other varieties in the test (down to 93.7 bu/a). In other words,

these 14 varieties are likely to perform similarly. For more information regarding the interpretation variety trial data, see this

Extension Fact Sheet: https://extension.umd.edu/learn/publications/what-do-numbers-really-mean-interpreting-variety-trial

-results.

Due to COVID-19, DON vomitoxin data for the tested wheat varieties have yet to be processed. As soon as this data becomes

available, we will distribute the results. In the meantime, ratings for Fusarium head blight (FHB) symptoms (reported as FHB

index) are provided in the report, but keep in mind that FHB index does not constantly correlate with DON numbers. In other

words, a variety can show few symptoms of DON (low FHB index score), but have very high levels of DON in the grain and visa

MDA Issues Advisory Regarding Unsolicited Packages of Seeds from China Press Release from Maryland Department of Agriculture The Maryland Department of Agriculture is aware that people across the country, including in Maryland, have received unso-licited packages of seeds from China in recent days. MDA is working closely with its partners at USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to monitor this situation.

If you live in Maryland and have received a package of seeds that you did not order, please report them immediately to the Maryland Department of Agriculture’s Plant Protection and Weed Management program at ppwm.mda@maryland.gov or 410-841-5920.

Please hold onto the seeds and packaging, including the mail-ing label, until MDA or USDA APHIS contacts you with further instructions. Do not plant any seeds from unknown origins.

More information on this investigation is available from USDA APHIS.

Need help finding an Ag-Related Career?

We’re thrilled to roll out the University of Maryland College of Agri-

culture and Natural Resources’ (AGNR) new Agricultural Careers

and Entrepreneurship (ACE) Virtual Center!

The ACE Virtual Center pro-

vides helpful resources, train-

ing, and opportunities for those

interested in pursuing a career

to further advance agricultural

systems across Maryland. Re-

sources are available for K–12

students, prospective UMD stu-

dents, current AGNR students,

and aspiring farmers in Mary-

land. https://go.umd.edu/

ACECenter

5

Baltimore County Still Seeks to Buy Fresh, Local Produce

As part of the County’s coordinated response to help protect the well-being of our communities during the COVID-19 pan-demic, County Executive Johnny Olszewski is adding fresh locally grown produce to the grocery items being distributed to families in need at more than 30 distribution sites around the County. “Buying fresh, healthy produce from our own County farmers helps support this important industry, while adding another positive dimension to our commitment to ensuring that our families and seniors are able to keep putting food on their tables,” Olszewski said.

Purchasing fresh produce from local producers benefits partic-ipating farmers while providing delicious and nutritious farm-fresh food to families suffering from unprecedented unem-ployment and food insecurity due to the ongoing health crisis. Since March 1st Baltimore County has provided more than 3,100,000 meals through dozens of food distribution sites.

County farmers who are interested in marketing their produce to the County in support of this effort may contact Chris McCollum at cmccollum@baltimorecountymd.gov or 410-887-8023.

UMD Extension Specialist Leads Legal Component of New Risk Management Education

Funded Project Focused on Risk Management Tools for Hemp Producers Marta L. Manzano, ALEI Coordinator, University of Maryland

The Northeast Risk Management Education Center’s Risk Management Education for Producers Underserved by Crop In-surance program recently awarded a $53,000 grant to the University of Maryland (UMD) College Park Extension Specialist Paul Goeringer, who is leading the legal component of an education project developing risk management tools for hemp pro-ducers.

With the number of U.S. hemp acres quadrupling in 2019 and passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, interest in this crop continues to grow. The new multi-institutional project, focusing on developing risk management resources for hemp growers, will help fill the information void of risk management tools for hemp growers. This project will develop guides to understand what to look for in good production contracts for seed, fiber, and CBD hemp production and resources on existing crop insurance tools.

“With the expansion in hemp production, growers may not always understand the contracts presented to them by proces-sors. Information is needed to assist these growers in understanding the terms of the contracts and examples of contracts protecting both parties, growers and processors,” explains one of the lead investigators, Paul Goeringer, senior faculty spe-cialist and Extension legal specialist with the Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics (AREC), and a member of the Agricultural Law Education Initiative (ALEI). “At the same time, we just have a lack of information on how possible risk management tools, such as crop insurance coverage and the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP), will work for these growers. Co-lead investigators at the University of Tennessee and the University of Kentucky will take the lead in that area.”

By partnering with collaborators in Kentucky and Tennessee, the team hopes to take advantage of the different levels of expe-rience in producing hemp to develop tools that will work for all growers. The team had expected to hold in-person work-shops in Maryland and Tennessee in 2021, but given ongoing restrictions due to COVID-19, the group will offer the program-ming online next year instead.

This work is funded by the Northeast Risk Management Center and is based upon work supported by USDA/NIFA under Award Number 2018-70027-28588.

Poultry Grower Lunch Break with Extension

Aug. 5, 2020 12-1 PM Online

Join your favorite University of Maryland and University of

Delaware Extension Agents: Jon Moyle, Georgie Cartanza,

Jennifer Reynolds, and Jenny Rhodes to get together for a

lunch break chat. This week’s topic will be on poultry house

generators with Tim Norman from Barnes Electric.

To register for the FREE seminar: https://umd.zoom.us/

meeting/register/tJUuduqoqjkpGNDno5ZLyNu-

hRao7XHB1jlk

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email con-

taining the information about joining the meeting. For more

information, please contact Jenny

Rhodes at jrhodes@umd.edu.

University of Maryland Extension

Baltimore County Office

1114 Shawan Rd., Suite 2

Cockeysville, MD 21030

DATES TO REMEMBER

Aug 5 Poultry Grower Lunch. 12-1pm.

Free. Register online

Aug 6, 13,

20, & 27

Webinar: Investing in Your Farm’s

Future. 6-7:30pm. Free. Register

online.

Aug 9-12 Penn State’s Ag Progress Days.

Free. Click here for more infor-

mation.

Aug 12 Women in Ag Webinar: Marketing

Campaigns. 12pm. Free. Register

online.

FACULTY & STAFF

Erika Crowl Dan Carroll

Extension Agent, Agriculture Nutrient Management

ecrowl@umd.edu jcarro10@umd.edu

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Check out these additional online resources

Aug 18 Webinar: Starting a Farm in Mary-

land. 1-2pm. Free. Register online.

Sept 2 Hay and Pasture Webinar. 3pm.

Free. Register online.

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