While the bad news is that fire ants are a permanent problem, the good news is that, with relatively little cost and effort, you can prevent most of the problems they cause using currently available methods.
Summer fires burned out some hay-growing areas and summer drought has parched land that would have been growing hay, leaving East Texas ranchers in need of it for the winter months.
While most of us are just excited to get some rain and see cooler weather, there is a tried-and-true group of folks that also think about planting vegetables in a fall garden.
Some of the most frequent questions I get are in regard to farm ponds. Folks in west Texas call them “tanks” or “stock tanks”. And I have it on good order from my co-workers in northeast Texas that their chosen name for ponds is “pools”. Regardless of their name, ponds are used for watering livestock, aesthetics, or just plain fishing.
At this writing, the weather forecasts that I reference show no real chance of rain in our part of the world. Hay buying to fill the shortfall has begun in earnest.
Local producers to the county I serve tell me they have only had one good hay harvest. As we eagerly await rain, the hope for a second hay harvest is concerning.
This scorching heat is tough on just about everyone, and everything—including your plants and landscaping. Maintaining moisture in the ground is a challenge… The Texas A&M AgriLife extension service says it just takes a little planning.
In the span of a week, I had the opportunity to visit two properties, two completely different pastures, with two very different owners who wanted the same outcome. Both wanted to increase their stocking rate for cattle.
"...they’ll lay an egg mass on the bottom side of the leaf and as those eggs hatch, those larvae will start feeding on those leaves, and over the span of five or six weeks, the can skeletonize a pecan tree.”
It is sometimes easy to tell which pest is breaking out around the county by the sheer number of phone calls that I get. This week it is the walnut caterpillar that is being found all over our beloved pecan trees.
Humidity raises the heat index, and that can be dangerous for cattle. “The heat Index is more of a true storyteller of what our cattle, our livestock, are experiencing.”
“Grass likes to grow during warm nights, but we’re also having hot and humid days, and now it’s kind of drying out even more. The moisture is going out of the soil, so we need some more rain, and people are having to irrigate, so we’re starting to see dry spots,” Hill said
Cattle rustling can not only take the form of physical theft, but also through various digital formats like online auctions as well as through passing bad checks.
A couple of recent questions that I haven’t heard in some time is “how do I grow sweet potatoes in my garden?” and “where do I buy sweet potato slips?”
Good pond management includes controlling excess vegetation, harvesting fish in appropriate numbers and sizes, and keeping ponds stocked at recommended rates.
Herbicides approved for aquatic weeds, when applied according to the label, are an effective, safe, and environmentally responsible method of eliminating excess vegetation.
The Angelina County Extension office in Lufkin will feature Jay White, owner and publisher of the Texas Gardener magazine, Tuesday evening, May 16 to tackle the subject of organic pest control.
We all know the June bug as the brown beetle that fly around in any outdoor light the evening and cling to the window screens outside a lighted room. While they don’t bite or sting, they can cause damage to your landscape.
Nitrogen is a major nutrient of all plant life and of all the elements required for plants to grow, nitrogen is given the most credit for making plants green and vegetative. Without nitrogen, plants will appear yellow and will produce less.
Fire ants are native to South America. They entered the U.S. through Mobile, Alabama, probably in soil used for ships’ ballasts, but all most folks really want to know about fire ants is how to get rid of them.
Riley will be exhibiting his last steer in the Angelina County Fair as he gets ready to graduate at the end of this school year. He says his interest in participating in the fair developed as he grew up watching his older brothers in 4-H and in the county fair
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