Well bloom has started. I could do without the high winds this weekend. Bees don't fly in 20mph winds.
Other wise the weather this week has been perfect for almond bloom. You can see how the tree protects the overall bloom. Can you see some of flowers are wide open and some of the buds are closed? That way if the blossoms open now don't get pollinated because of bad weather there is a chance others will open later when the weather is better. Nature is amazingly fertile.
We got the water and fertilizer on this week, so the trees should be happy and ready to push. It is truly amazing; the trees will from dormant to fully leafed out during the next month. It is an explosion of growth.
Weather is not a Casual Conversation for a Farmer
By Paul H. Betancourt
Copyright February, 2012
Weather is not a casual conversation
for a farmer. I make my living out in the natural world. If you work in an
office or a shop rain can be inconvenient, but you can still get your job done.
On the farm we need the rain, but if
it comes at the wrong time it can be devastating. Do you remember the scene in
the movie “War Horse” where the rain ruins the cabbage crop? I have had that
happen to me. We had three inches of rain one afternoon in a freak tropical
storm while we were harvesting cantaloupes. Melon harvest was over right then.
We still had over 10,000 cartons of melons in the field. I got back in the next
morning and I could already smell the fruit rotting in the sun.
I
constantly keep an eye on the horizon and checking long and short term weather
forecasts. We are fortunate in the Internet Age. I can access things like
satellite maps and Doppler radar images to see where the storms are. Grandpa
couldn’t do that.
On the farm weather is a fact of
life that affects what I do. The weather can make or break a crop. So you can
see why weather is not a casual conversation on the farm.
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