Happy Father's Day!

Another busy week on the farm- mostly watering.

As you can see, the cotton has gotten a little taller since last week. The weather warmed up this week. I could finally use the pressure bomb to measure the plant's water use and it was just right. We have long been able to measure soil moisture, but the soil moisture is not as important as the condition of the plant. That makes sense doesn't it? There could be a situation where the soil was OK and the plants too wet or too dry. So researchers found a way to measure the plant moisture. It is called a pressure bomb. When we 'bomb' the cotton we know exactly what condition it is in and we can schedule our irrigation.
   Of course it is one thing to say you want to irrigate when you reach such and such a level. The hard part is having everything coordinated to get there- furrows have to be pulled, pipes laid and ditches put up. Experience and preparation are important. Seeing the big picture is important. We also have to finish this irrigation, cultivate the weeds again, twice, consider whether to spray for weeds and/ or fertilize again, before the plants need their next irrigation in a few weeks. Just because we got one irrigation right doesn't mean we can relax. We have to stay on our toes. Oh yeah we also need to keep checking for bugs to make sure they haven't moved in and started eating their way through the crop.

Here's the corn-

It's not "as high as an elephant's eye", but you can see it has grown quite a bit since the last photo. That is my shovel on the left to give you and idea of the size. I can't take a picture of myself with this camera to give you scale and Indy doesn't sit still very well. When we are checking fields he is wandering around looking for squirrels or something new to smell.
   Having Indy along makes me a better farmer. He's a good motivator to take longer walks in the fields. It is too tempting when I am busy to just drive by. You can't really know a field looking through a windshield. So out we go. While he is sniffing around I can check for bugs, soil moisture, weeds and the basic conditions of the crop. Plus, a little exercise doesn't hurt.

I hope y'all have a great week.
HAPPY FATHERS' DAY to all the Dad's.
As the old saying goes, becoming a father is easy, the world of being a Dad takes a real man.

P