Rain...it is pretty dry out there. There is no grass in the hills for the cattle. The ground is getting dusty and the air is not getting washed by the rain.
The weatherman said it will rain next week. We'll see. The high pressure that has kept the rain away is pretty strong. It is going to take a storm or too just to weaken the high pressure ridge before any real rain can get in.
We'll know more next weekend.
Meanwhile I am waiting for the land levelling company. OK, to be fair they said they will be out next week which would be great. That would be really fast service since I only called them on Wednesday to tell them I had the field ready for them. It would also be great to get the levelling done before it rains. Otherwise I would have to wait for the ground to dry out enough to get the scrapers going again.
We'll know about that next week too.
In the meantime we are finishing the winter pruning and pre-irrigating the cotton ground.
By Paul H. Betancourt
Copyright January 2012
Years ago Sheryl’s uncle asked a logical question- Why do farmers water fallow fields during the winter? That’s a fair question.
You can think of winter irrigation as our water savings account. We put water in the ground now that the plants won’t use until next summer.
The first thing to remember is we don’t just have summer corps here. Someone harvests something here every day of the year. That being said, we do a pre-irrigation of our cotton fields in the winter. Once the season starts, there is no way to get enough water to the plants and get our tractors in the field in a timely manner if we start with dry fields. So, we fill the root zone with water in the winter. Then during the hot days of summer we just refill the top of the soil profile to keep the plant roots healthy and growing.
You can rest assured, every farmer knows water is too precious to waste a drop. When we irrigate fallow fields in the winter we do it with a purpose- we are getting ready for the hot days of summer.
You can find other radio bits at-
http://www.940kyno.com/index.php?c=68
I hope Y'all have a great week.
P
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