The Plants Will Tell You...

Sorry I haven't posted lately. I have been busy. I'll explain later.

Plants will tell you when something is wrong. The corn leaf on the left is not lush and green. The yellow streaking tells us something is missing. Soils and leaf samples confirm the field is short of potassium. A friend who is a retired agronomist tells me the plant wants potassium, but there isn't enough in the soil. So it picks up the sodium in the soil which burns the leaves. I need to get some potassium out there so we can have healthy, happy plants. Of course, the corn plants can't be all that upset. You can see two healthy ears of corn in the background.

OK, like I said I have been busy. We have a new project. Those of you in the Fresno area can now hear me on KYNO 940 radio weekdays. They have asked if I do a little radio work for them. Eventually the owner at KYNO wants to do a full Ag news show, but we are not ready for that yet. So we have started with one minute spots about life on the farm. You can hear me 5:30. 6:30, 7:30AM, 12:30 and 5:30PM.  We are also tyring to link this blog with the station web page. We are being sponsored by a local fertilizer company, Actagro. Thanks guys.

Next week- almond harvest! We start shaking trees on Monday. I'll report back to you.

I hope y'all have a good week.

P

Wheat Harvest

Sorry about the late post. Last weekend we helped our daughter and her family move in to their new home. I am just catching up.

There are 365 days in a year. We have been waiting for the grain harvesters to show up for about two weeks. Of course they show up on moving day. Whew.
   This sure is a pretty sight.

Hard to believe this is the first step to a loaf of bread.

Looks like a good crop. Prices are softening, but that usually happens during harvest of most crops.
Once the straw is baled we will disc the ground and rip it. Then we will let it sit open until the Fall. We will work it and bed it before cotton harvest and it will be ready for next year.

And how about the weather? It is over 20 degrees cooler than this time last week.
   I was looking over some weather forecasts this week. The average temp in our area for the end of July is 97 on the Weather Channel. That's funny. Twenty five years ago I was working with the UC thirty year average temps and they had the last few days of July were pegged at 100 degrees. I thought we were supposed to be warming up. I know they probably had different methodologies, but my point is that at least over the last thirty years, in our area, temps are not going up.

Elsewhere on the farm-
   The corn is now officially as high as an elephant's eye. It really grew during last week's heat. It is tasseling out. It is getting another shot of water and fertilizer this week.
   Today we finished the second irrigation on the cotton. It is finally blooming. Some bugs started showing up last week. They are getting sprayed this week.
   We finally have hull split in the almonds. That is about two weeks late. Another reflection of the cool Spring weather. Almond harvest is next. We will start prepping the fields next week. Meanwhile there are always weeds to kill.

I hope y'all are having a great week.

P

Happy 4th of July!!!

Anotherr busy week on the farm. We are getting ready to irrigate the cotton again so furrows were built up, weeds pulled and ditches put in place.

Here's the view from the tractor as the cultivator goes through the field.

This cultivator is six rows wide. Those steel spiders cultivate the weeds and break up the soil which we through back up in to the bed. Ruben gets a good sixty acres a day in if there are no problems.

As you can see the cotton is growing fast. We make the crop in the next five or six weeks. Anything that blooms after the middle of August won't have time to mature as an open boll before harvest. So, keeping up on irrigation, fertilizer and bug control is very important for the next month or so.


It is also the 4th of July.

Personally, my favorite clause of the Declaration of Independence is where Jefferson wrote, " He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." Some things never change do they? To farmers at least, we can't seem to turn around without having some government agency or another showing up with a bill or a fine or a regulation. I make my living producing food and fiber, not filling out forms. The wealth of this nation was created by producing products and services, not filling out forms. Some day we will get that straight.

While I am on my soap box...
   Ben Franklin is quoted as saying, "The American Revolution was not fought for freedom, but for self-government." Think about that one for a minute. Our system was founded on the idea we can govern ourselves. We need to rise to that sort of expectation, because I can tell you, If we don't govern ourselves there are people that would like to rule over us. I, for one, would probably not like that.

And, of course- thank you to the men and women of our armed forces who have sacrificed so much for our independence. Thanks also to their families who have waited and worried while their warriors were gone. We owe you all a debt of gratitude we can never repay. THANK YOU!

Weeds and Hot Weather

Warm weather and water make the cotton, and the weeds grow.

Can you see the dark flecks int eh furrows? Those are pig weed seedlings that sprouted because of the water from last week's irrigation. If we leave them alone they will be three feet tall in a month. So, we fired up the tractor...

and started cultivating the cotton.
   Both of these pictures are taken from the same spot in the field. I didn't move an inch. In the first picture I looked down at the weeds. In the second picture I looked up toward the tractor.You can see the stems at the top of the top picture are in the bottom of the bottom picture.
   We are running two passes of the tractor. In the first pass we use a rolling cultivator to loosen up the soil. For the second pass we use a fixed cultivator to shape the beds for the next irrigation in a week or so.

It got to 111F this week. Fortunately it has cooled off. The old hands tell you cotton likes heat. That is true up to a point. The plant is a lot like me, it shuts down at 95F. University studies show the stoma on the bottom of the cotton leaves actually shut down at 95 to protect the plant. Ideal temps for cotton are between 65 and 95. Below 65 the plants won't grow and above 95 the shut down. See, just like me, I operate better when it is warmer than 65 and cooler than 95.

I y'all have a great week.

P

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

First Irrigation

Hi there. Sorry about the late post. Busy weekend. Saturday graded papers and cooked for a charity event at a local art museum. Sunday Church and a birthday party for little Persia who is 3 today. I needed to go to work today to get some rest.

OK, back on the farm-

The big question is when to start irrigating the cotton.

If you start too early it can cause the plant to go to all stalk and no bolls. Not good since we get paid for producing bolls.

If you start too late, or the weather heats up real fast- you BBQ the plants. That's not good either. There is a point called the Permanent Wilting Point and it is as bad as it sounds; if they wilt too much it is permanent and that is not good. Little toasted cotton plants don't produce cotton either.

We are big fans of research from the University of California and the California State University system.They do basic research on question s like this. The UC Farm Advisors have actually developed ways to measure the plant and the soil to tell us when it is the perfect time to irrigate. Of course, as with most things, it looks great in the textbook, but how do you translate that into field conditions? So, each June we spend a lot of time checking fields and checking with each other. We calculate how long it will take to get over the fields and look at the weather forecast. Sooner or later it is time to pull the trigger and begin irrigate.

As you can see in the photo above we began the first field last week,after things started to warm up. We will hold off a few days and begin the second field the middle of the week as things warm up some more. Of course, that is after checking the soil moisture and the plants one more time.

I hope y'all have a great week.

P

So, how do farmers respond to goofy weather?

A short post this week, we have been busy visiting with family who came for Heidi and Will's wedding!

Thirty years ago this week I climbed up my first tractor here on the farm. Never expected to be here that long. It has been interesting to say the least.

I spent that first summer mostly driving a D-8 and working ground. The first three weeks it was 100 degrees plus. This boy, who grew up in San Diego was wondering what in the wide world of sports I was doing here.

While that first summer had three weeks of 100 plus weather, this June is beginning with cooler than average weather. Yesterday was perfect for the wedding. Today was ten degrees cooler and rainy. The newsies have called to do interviews asking how this goofy weather affects the crops. Well, the cooler weather slows crop development on all crops. Some like it better than others. My grape growing friends are saying their vines think  this is Napa weather. Of course, as soon as this rain passes by they will all be applying to sulfur to control mildew. The cherry guys have to be hating this rain. A little rain on the cherries and they will start splitting.

People ask what we do, as farmers, about the weather. We adjust. Normally we start watering the cotton the first week of June. But, since it is cool and raining we will wait. We have the fields ready to irrigate, the beds are ready, the ditches are put up and the pipe laid. If it warms up the end of the week we will start watering. Hopefully, we know our crops, our fields and the weather enough to make intelligent decisions. That's part of what makes this job so interesting. You can't just farm by the calendar.

I hope y'all have a great week.