Seedlings

One of my favorite Spring sounds is the sound of the Red Wing Blackbirds in the wheat fields. They just sound cheery. The males look beautiful with their black feathers and red shoulders in the green of the wheat. I have to say though, they are camera shy. I no sooner whip out the camera and they hop just out of range.
Well the corn is up...

...and growing fast. There few sights that feel as good to a farmer as seeing the seedlings come up. Basically you have one shot to get it into the ground. It can take a couple of weeks for the seedlings to come up out of the ground. The weather might be nice when you plant, but it can turn to crap as soon as you are done. You have no control over what it is going to be after you plant. There is nothing you can do but wait. So, it feels good to see healthy plants poke their little heads out of the ground.

   We will cultivate it next week, then put some fertilizer on while we can still get a tractor in there. Then water, water, water all summer.

We got the caps off the cotton this week---just in time. It hasn't been hot, just nice Spring weather. But, boy, oh boy, did the cotton come up fast. We started dragging the caps off on Wednesday. By Thursday morning it was all ready to go and we can only de-cap a hundred acres a day, or so. Ruben turned on the jets and set a new land speed de-capping record. He had everything uncovered by Saturday morning.

I couldn't leave you without one more picture.

My exercise program consists of taking the dogs for a one mile walk nearly every morning. This is Toby. He is Sheryl's puppy and he is a water dog. He cannot resist. Whenever he finds a puddle he finds it and lays down in it. When we cross the canal he is in in a flash.He loves it when I irrigate the trees, then there is water all over the place.
I hope y'all have a great week.

P

Cotton Planting

Well, the cotton is in the ground. Now we wait. When it is warm enough we get cotton up in 8-12 days. So, hopefully I can show you pictures of cotton seedlings in two weeks.

   We actually pull a dirt 'cap' over the cotton seeds when we plant. We farm heavy clay soil and it tends to dry hard. This cap of dirt lets to seedlings come up with out having to push through a dry clay layer. They can literally break their necks trying to push through the dirt.

   The forecast is for mild to warm temperatures which is great. Like I mentioned last weak, cold temps cause all sorts of seedling diseases that can hurt the plants so badly they never recover. Yes, if they get sick now you automatically limit your yeilds in the Fall even though there is six more months to the growing season. That is why planting time can be so full of stress. You get one shot to plant. If you blow it, and have to replant, you lose precious time to make a crop. We need a full season to make a cotton crop. Any time lost now cannot be made up. But, if you plant too early and it gets cold you get in trouble too. This, ladies and gentlemen, is another reason I do not have to go to Vegas or Reno. There is enough high stakes gambling in my life as it is.

The corn has germinated. That rain last week hardened the dirt above the corn seed like a three quarter inch layer of concrete. We should have put a cap on the corn too. But, you rarely ever have to put a cap on the sandy soil on that ranch. We have been running wheeled spikes over the beds to break up the crust. It will be fine. Just takes extra work and burns up diesel.

Next week we will put on the final irrigation in the wheat. We will also water run some fertilizer in the wheat. The heads are fully formed. They are empty now. Next they will fill up with the 'milk'. When that dries down it becomes doughy and then drys to hard wheat. That will be in June. We will harvest in late June or early July.

  Will will also water and fertilize the almonds next week. We split our fertilizer applications so the trees get a little food at a time. It doesn't do us any good to stuff our selves then starve either does it? So, we spoon feed the trees and give them four or five applications of fertilizer during the season. This also keeps the fertilizer from leaching down away from the plant roots. Fertilizer is way too expensive to lose any to leaching.

I hope y'all have a great weekend.

P

And we thought March weather was crazy???

We started the week off warm and sunny. We had rain and hail on Thursday. This morning we had frost. That was a surprise. I rode the motorcycle home from a friend's last night and it felt cold. If it had been November I would have thought frost. But, it is April and I "knew" it wasn't going to freeze. Wrong. I hope the little basil plant in the herb garden survived that.

Now what do we do? We have been busy this week. The corn is planted [ Finished that as the rain started on Thursday.] The cotton beds have been worked. The planter and harrows are ready to start planting on Monday. And it is cold.
   There are only two things I know for sure about growing cotton: if you plant it cold it will get sick, and if you plant it in the dry it will not sprout. Cotton likes a minimum 58F soil temperature. It was 52.5F this morning. The University of California has a really cool website that calculates degree days for cotton planting. You need a minimum 15 degree days for the five day forecast for good planting. Last week it was 30DD. Today it was 7.
So, we will wait. We'll check on Monday morning and go from there.

FLOOD RELEASES

What you are looking at here is a picture of flood release water going by us near Tranquillity, California. A neighbor tells me the water district told him that they are running 4,000 cubic feet per second [cfs]. That is enough water to fill a football field a foot deep in ten seconds. That is 8,000 acre feet of water A DAY! They told him they would run 4,000cfs for sixty days. THAT'S A LOT OF WATER GOING OUT TO THE SEA!
   Sorry, that kind of drives me nuts. We all hear about California's continuing water shortages. We fight over a few feet of water here and there and then we let nearly half a million acre feet run out to the ocean. In 2006 we let 27 million acre feet go out to sea in flood releases. That is enough water for every home, every business and every farm in California for a whole year, and we flushed it out to sea.One year later my water was cut by 90%! Are we crazy?
   The reality is there are wet years and dry years in California. I have looked back over the records from the 1860's to present. In every twenty year period there is a two or three year drought. We are fools because we do not prepare for this. The politicians and the environmentalists don't want to build any more dams. They want to use groundwater storage. OK. Does anyone know how much groundwater storage potential there is in California? I cannot find anyone in Sacramento or in the water community who knows the answer to that question.
   The next time you talk about water in California please think about this picture. On one little stream, in the middle of nowhere half a million acre feet of water were flushed out to the ocean.

OK, I got that off my chest. I feel better.

Actually, it has been a great week. The weather is beautiful. I am on the back porch with a cup of coffee. The sun is out and the birds are singing. The wisteria, lilac and star jasmine are blooming. I am going to rest, visit with friends and family and go to church this weekend. Monday we'll see if we can plant some cotton.

I hope y'all have a great week.

P

Spring on the Farm

What a difference a week makes. A week ago we had just survived three inches of rain and half an inch of hail. This week has been warm and sunny.You can see it in the fields; not only are the crops growing but the tractors are out and working. Cotton beds are being worked and planted. Tomatoes are being planted. Everybody is Go, Go, Go.

When I ask a fellow almond grower, "How are your nuts?" it sometimes raises an eyebrow. I am not trying to get personal. I am asking about their crop.
    Can you see how fast the nuts have grow in the photo above? A month ago these nuts were pinpoints inside those beautiful blooms. They are growing fast.
    Of course the trees are shedding also. Nature is so abundantly fertile she puts a lot more blossoms on the trees than the tree can ever hold on and produce as full size nuts. So there is a natural shedding process. It gives me a heart attack when I see it since I don't know how much of the shed is natural and OK, and how much of the shed is caused by bad weather or bad management. We won't know the answer to that question until the end of the season and we harvest.

As you can see the wheat is heading out. It is a beautiful sight. The next two weeks we will plant the corn and the cotton, then we'll water the wheat one more time. Then the wheat will dry down in May and June and we'll harvest the end of June or beginning of July.
     If you look carefully at the next picture you will see a lady bug. The field is full of lady bugs. I love them because they eat bad bugs. I haven't seen any bad bugs so I don't know what they are eating but it is always a pleasure to see them. To me seeing good bugs is the sign of a healthy field, it tells me the natural system is in balance. I'd much rather have the lady bugs patrolling the field and taking care of the bad bugs than me either spraying or squishing bugs with a couple of boards.

I hope you all have a great week.

We'll be busy making the most of the sunny days.

P

A Crazy Weather Week

     What I wanted to show you is how fast the trees leafed out. Do you remember when I said they would go from being dormant, to bloom, to leafing out in one month? Well, here it is. If you look carefully you can see the nuts come out of the middle of the blooms. And, how about those leaves?

And, now for the rest of the story...
     The top picture was taken before lunch on Monday. This picture was taken Monday afternoon about 5:30. We had received an inch and a half of rain on Sunday. Monday was nicer, until we got half an inch of hail and rain in about fifteen minutes. We had a TV crew from the Univision station in the driveway to do a report on the weather and how it was affecting farmers. They couldn't believe their eyes when the hail hit.
     I didn't want to believe my eyes. For those who want to ask- I have no idea how much damage the hail caused. We may never know. In a good science experiment you have a control. The whole orchard got hit with hail so there is no way of knowing what we lost. Fortunately this is the only field we buy extra insurance to cover. That may have been a good decision.

Other than that we have been doing the same things y'all have been doing this week. Trying to get some work done and stay dry. The wheat loves this weather. We got some fertilizer on last week and this rain has been working it in. The cotton beds are soaked. It will take at least a week to get them dried out enough to work them. So, even if it stops raining it will be two weeks before we can plant. That will give the chance for the ground to warm up.

The weatherman says Spring will come to our farm next week. We'll drain the fields that have been flooded and get back to work.

I hope y'all have a great weekend.

P

Almond Bloom- III

   Well, almond bloom is past the peak. The petals are falling and the leaves are pushing out. It is pretty amazing, the trees go from dormant to leafed out in about a month. We have had a nice bloom. It was windy a few days last week and the bees don't like to fly in the wind, but other than that the last week has been nice.


   I rode the motorcycle down to a growers' meeting near Coalinga. Riding along the orchards was like riding through a living colonnade of color. A very different experience on the bike, not like driving by in my truck. Of course, the bees are a little more problematic.

   BTW- the growers' meeting was interesting. We are at historic high prices and there wasn't a word said about the markets. Most of what we talked about were the new government regulations and pending government policies. Kinda shows what we worry about. We'll have to talk more about that some time.

   We got the corn ground bedded up and started watering it. We should be ready to plant corn the end of next week. We'll see what the weather is like then and go from there.

   The wheat looks fabulous. We are going to fertilize it again this week and start the water again. Yes, we have had a lot of rain fall this winter. But, we still need to irrigate to make a crop. Remember last winter's rain? The guys who dry land farmed their wheat, that is they didn't irrigate, made a quarter to half a ton per acre of wheat- even with all that rain. Those of us who irrigated made over three tons per acre. And that is the reason we irrigate.

    We started working cotton beds last week. We run a cultivator over the beds to knock down the weeds and break up the clods in preparation for planting. We'll run at least two passes and then wait for the weather to warm up. I hope to have the beds and the equipment ready by April 1st. Then we wait for some warm weather and plant. We'll talk about it more later, but cotton is very susceptible to cool weather. Here are the two things I have learned about planting cotton over the years: if you plant seeds in dry soil they won't sprout and if you plant when it is too cold the seed will rot in the ground. That is it. That is all I know for sure about growing cotton. The rest of what we do has a certain amount of windage.

Yes, things are busy on the ranch again. We are coming out of hibernation. As my father-in-law says, it is time to 'whoop and scoot'.

I hope y'all have a great week.

P

Almond Bloom- Week II

 Well that was an interesting week. It wasn't the rain and the frost as much as that fierce wind the other day.

Thank you to whomever has been praying for our almonds. We sure appreciate it. They seem to have weathered the storms and last week's freeze fairly well.

The ten day forecast looks pretty good. The bees sure flew well in yesterday's sunshine.

We will be preparing forty acres this week to plant corn. We will disc and furrow out the field. Then we will pre-irrigate. When that dries down we will plant the corn the end of the month.

Things are getting busier as the days get longer and warm up.

I hope you have a great week.

P