Blogging with Brian

This spring has seen more than its fair share of snake calls at the Smith County Extension office.

Fortunately, most of the snakes you might encounter around the home will be of the non-venomous variety. But any encounter with a snake can be traumatic - for both the snake and the human.

The 'call of the spring' so far has been a shed snake skin of about 3 feet in length that was brought in by a very concerned father whose 5 year old had found it hanging from a shoe tree on the back of her bedroom closet. The shed keyed out to be from a non-venomous snake (most likely a Texas Rat snake) but that did little to quell concerns because they had not yet seen nor caught the home invading snake that left the shed skin behind.

A FREE Recreational Pond Management Seminar will be held Tuesday, May 27th at 6 PM at the Texas Parks & Wildlife Nature Center in Tyler (11942 FM 848). 

Topics to be discussed include: aquatic weed Identification and control options for private waters, maintaining pond water quality, and invasive aquatic vegetation in Texas.

Speakers will be Drs. Rick Ott (Texas Parks and Wildlife) and Billy Higginbotham (Texas AgriLife Extension). 

Bring: Water Samples from your pond(s) for free water quality analysis and aquatic weeds for identification and control recommendations.

For more information call (903) 590 - 2980.

 

Clearing muddy ponds can be a challenge to say the least.  Sometimes the true reason behind the murky water is something out of the landowners control.  Sometimes it can be improved with just a simple fix.

April 22, 2008 marks the 38th anniversary of Earth Day, a day devoted to thinking about this third planet from the sun that we all share.  Here are a few links that you might want to look at while Earth Day is on your mind.

Texas IPM - Integrated Pest Management is a pest management system that combines the proper identification of pests, determining if an identified pest is truly causing a problem, assessing if the pest is causing an economic loss, and then finding a proper method for control (proper methods could be chemical, physical, or biological in nature).

Earth Kind - Earth Kind is a homeowner gardening program designed to combine traditional and organic practices to promote environmental responsibility along with aesthetic enjoyment.

Organic Farming Regulations - The Texas Department of Agriculture regulates the Organic Certificaiton program for crops and livestock in the state.  For more information on what is involved in transitioning from a traditional to an organic farm, see this site and its links.

USDA NRCS - The USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service has several environmental programs that farmers can sign up for to conserve soil, reduce erosion, improve wetlands and riparian areas, and enhance wildlife habitat on private lands. 

 

 

Proper sprayer calibration is an important, yet often overlooked, first step in the spraying program. Calibrating your sprayer and tractor enable you to know with confidence how much volume of product and water you are applying per acre, how many acres your tank will treat between fill-ups, and how much undiluted chemical to add to your tank to achieve the proper application rate. A properly calibrated sprayer can save you money and reduce the risk of injury to the plants you are treating.

Always calibrate a sprayer using only water in the spray tank and wearing chemically resistant gloves to avoid contact with residue that may be in the system or on the sprayer.

Follow these tips for calibrating a boom or boom-less sprayer. You will need a stopwatch (or watch with second hands), a tape measure, flags or stakes, and a container that can catch water and measure in ounces (for boom sprayers) or pints (for boom-less sprayers).  You will also need a trash bag or piece of tire inner tube for catching water from the boom-less sprayer.