Bugs and Water

   As you can see from the photo, the cotton is growing. That is my bug net in the foreground. This time of year we are checking fields at least once a week for bugs. We monitor pest and predator populations. As long as there are more predators than pest species we can skip spraying. But, remember, the predators have to eat something don't they? So we are always at risk of some pest damage. By keeping a close on it we can balance the need to produce a crop and care for the environment.

   We have been spoon feeding the cotton some fertilizer. Instead of dumping it on all at once. We run it in the irrigation water. The amount we put on is determined by leaf samples. The plant tells us when it needs more food. That way our fertilizer goes into the plant and doesn't get flushed down in the groundwater.

   In other news, wheat prices are up $80 per ton since last month. This has been caused by the drought in the Mid West. Their yields will be much smaller than expected and with a fixed supply the price goes up.

   We are about three weeks from the start of almond harvest. We will start preparing the centers for harvest in the next week or so. While the dogs were taking me on our walk this morning I realized it is late July already. Wow, that was fast. We must be having fun, because time sure is flying.

Here is one of this week's radio scripts-

It’s Soil, Not Dirt

By Paul H. Betancourt

Copyright June 2012

                I was reminded last year of something even farmers forget- it’s soil, not dirt.

            A lot of people, even some farmers, think all the dirt does is hold the plants upright. There is a lot more to soil than holding the plant up.

            Last year Fresno State previewed a film by Deborah Koons Garcia titled Symphony of the Soil. In the film Garcia shows the amazing complexity of fungi and bacteria in the soil. I have been farming for thirty years and I had forgotten that there are fungi in the soil that help some plant roots grow. Pretty amazing.

            As Garcia illustrates there is a complex symphony of things happening in our soils. It’s not dirt, it’s soil and it’s full of life. There is complexity that staggers the imagination that’s below the surface at the molecular level. Leonardo Da Vinci wrote six hundred years ago, “We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot.” Not much has changed has it? We’ve been to the Moon, but we are still surprised by what’s underfoot.

I hope Y'all have a great week.

P

Dang, that was hot!

No matter how you slice it 109F is hot. The good news in our Valley is the mornings are 30 degrees cooler and humidity isn't an issue.

   Cotton blooms are yellow the first day, then fade and turn pink. When they drop off they leave a little cotton boll which grows and gives us the cotton fiber.
   This week I got the petiole results back from the lab. It showed two fields were short on nitrogen. We started a water run of nitrogen fertilizer in the fields we were irrigating.We boost the other fields this next week.

I wish I had a good picture of a cantaloupe for this piece from the radio this week.

Fresh II

By Paul H. Betancourt

Copyright June 2012

                Previously I mentioned how we used to grow cantaloupes. We don’t do that anymore. Growing fresh produce isn’t for the faint-hearted.

                Growing fresh fruits and vegetables is a roller coaster. If you hit the market you can make serious money. If the market is down you get nothing, but bills. There a no guaranties. The first year the family grew melons they netted over thousand dollars an acre.  Some years we disked the field in. Over the years I figure we broke even on melons, but it is tough on the nerves and makes for crazy cash flow. Bankers are rarely impressed.

                We had no idea when we planted if there was going to be any money in it. Even as harvest started all we got was a daily pack out sheet telling us how many loads and the daily spot price. Current spot prices don’t tell what the fruit actually sold for, we didn’t find that out for thirty days. So, we have all the expenses and work of planting and caring for the crop and no real idea of what we made until a month after harvest. On top of that melons are really perishable. They are at peak freshness only so long.

                Can you see why we quit? Everything we grow now be boxed, baled and stored. It’s easier on my blood pressure.

I hope Y'all have a great week.

Wheat harvest has begun!

It's always a pretty sigh to see the harvesters roll in to the field. We have been working on this crop since last  winter.

Of course, as soon as the harvesters and balers leave we'll start working the ground to get it ready for next year's cotton crop. Never a dull moment.


In other news-
   Not only does the wheat look good, but prices are going up. The heat wave in the Midwest cooked a lot of corn and grain prices are going up. On the news yesterday they were saying that losses are big enough to raise food prices 3% by the end of the year. I don't know about that, but I do know wheat has gone up $40/ton since last month. I have only pre-sold about half the red wheat. I'll keep an eye on things for the next few days. Have I mentioned recently how much farming can be like gambling?
   We started the second irrigation in the cotton. Looking good so far. Bloom began about a week early. The heat hasn't been too bad so the plants are growing well. I sent leaf petioles to the lab. We should have results back on Monday. I'll use those results to tell if we need to put more fertilizer on, or not. No need to guess, fertilizer costs too much to leach any below the root zone.


I wish I had a good cantaloupe photo for this story. This is the script for one of my radio pieces this week.


Fresh 

By Paul H. Betancourt

Copyright June 2012

                When I was a kid my dad loved cantaloupes. As a kid I was unimpressed. Years later we moved up here and we were growing cantaloupes. Wow! Let me tell you, I am a convert!

            There is nothing like a vine ripe, sum warmed melon. Mmmm- sweet and mellow. We’d eat ‘em fresh in the field. We’d take ‘em home, slice ‘em in half, scoop out the seeds and fill it with French Vanilla ice cream. That is a hot weather treat. For variety we’d  eat melon slices with pepper or Mexican spices. I’m starting to sound like Bubba on Forrest Gump when he would start listing all the ways you could make shrimp aren’t I? Well, I don’t think you can make cantaloupe Gumbo, but there are quite a few ways to enjoy fresh cantaloupes. Just ask our neighbors in Mendota-the Cantaloupe Capital of the World.

            Here in the Valley we are blessed with a wide variety of fresh produce. If you can’t eat well here,  you can’t eat well anywhere. Even the lowly cantaloupe can become a summer treasure.

You can find the audio at-

http://www.940kyno.com/index.php?c=68

I hope Y'all have a great week.
Keep cool, summer's back in town.


P

Summer Days and Summer Nights

Another busy week on the farm. Summers are like that.

We've been killing weeds and running water in the almonds.
Waiting for the harvester to come and cut wheat.

Killed weeds and ran furrows in the cotton. Pipes are laid and we are ready to start 
water next week. The first bad bugs showed up.
   One field had some aphids last week. Not good. This week all I could find are Lady 
Bugs; they eat aphids. Go Lady Bugs Go!

   For those who are not aware, I reallllly don't like spraying pesticides. On top of your concerns, that stuff is really expensive. Some of these materials are $600/ gallon. That's not a typo, they are six hundred dollars per gallon. We put it on with an eye dropper and only when we reallllly have to.

   We practice Integrated Pest Management, or IPM.  The University of California and others have worked out the methods to decide when the most effective and economical time to treat our fields will be. We don't spray when we see the first bad bug. We let the beneficial bugs like our Lady Bug friends keep them under control as long as possible. We monitor our fields regularly and we learn the growth cycles of our crops and of the pests. Working hard and working smart. It keeps us productive and helps care for the environment. That's the kind of Win-Win I like.

Below is one of this week's radio pieces.

Summer Nights

By Paul H. Betancourt

Copyright June 2012

                I grew up in San Diego. Even though I have lived here over thirty years I still have not gotten used to July weather. So, I gotta tell you, when a friend said he was leaving for law school in LA and he would miss the summer heat I thought he’d been in the sun too long.
That’s crazy talk.

            But, then he clarified himself and said he would miss the warm summer nights. OK, that makes sense. I have enjoyed a lifetime of warm summer evenings: BBQs, weddings, fiestas, wine tastings, and evenings reading on the back patio. Those warm summer evenings are something special. 

            So, when you hear me complaining about the summer heat I want to clarify, I am whimpering about the heat from Noon to six or seven in the evening when it is a hundred bazillion degrees out there. After that I gotta admit summer evenings here are de-lightful.

There's nothing like a summer picnic under Half Dome.

We used to work cattle years ago. I saw a lot of sunsets like this from the saddle.

I hope Y'all have a great week.

P

Making Things Productive

   One of the things we try to balance is pushing the cotton plant to produce. If we water too early the plant goes to stalk, producing vegetative growth and not cotton bolls. I don't get paid for stalk, I get paid for bolls. So, we manage the plant for boll production. The first step is holding off the first irrigation until the plant starts setting fruit. This year the conditions have been so good and the plants are so vigorous that this week we have been applying a plant regulator to control height.

   As you can see the plants are  growing strong. Just four ounces will do the trick. That will keep them focusing their energy on growing fruit instead of bolting and growing tall. Next week we will cultivate and reform the beds. Then we will be ready for the second irrigation in a few weeks.

   In other news- this week the harvesting crew will come and cut the wheat. In the almonds we are irrigating and killing weeds.

Here are some thoughts from a recent radio bit-

We Need to Grow A Lot More Food- Fast

By Paul H. Betancourt

Copyright May 2012

At a recent regional economic summit, Ryan Jacobsen, Executive Director of the Fresno County Farm Bureau said, that in the next forty years we are going to have to increase the global food supply by 70% to meet demand. That’s a lot of food! Jacobsen’s estimate is we will have to grow more food in the next forty years than we have in the last five thousand years! You heard right-more food that we have grown since we began farming as a species.

As I have said before- we have a lot more people on this planet and we are losing farmland all over the world every year.

 We need to make each acre more productive not less productive. Even famed Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson, a hero of our enviro neighbors, would agree. Wilson sees this century as a bottle neck century. Our environmental problems have been caused by technology, so as Wilson sees it we have this century to leverage technology to solve our problems. The problem is his environmental disciples are working hard to make farming less productive. This has got to stop. We need to use the tools of technology to increase farm productivity. There are going to be a lot more mouths to feed in the coming years.

You can find the audio version at the link below-

http://www.940kyno.com/index.php?c=68

Click on June 4th.

I hope Y'all have a great week.!

P

Happy Fathers' Day Y'all!

   Well, the heat is on. Summer is back in town, the...never mind.
When we first moved up here some of the old timers told me the cotton likes the heat. I found out years later cotton and I like the same temps. Cotton starts growing at 65F and shuts down at 95F. That sounds just about right. The cotton physiologically shuts down after 95, and so do I.

   First irrigation is applied. The fields look good. We will cultivate weeds this next week. Also, take care of things in the orchard. The wheat is ready to be cut. The harvesting crew said they would be here the end of the week. We'll see.

   In honor of Fathers' Day I am posting a radio script about a joke Dad and I shared. He's been gone a few years now and I still pick up the phone to call him when something comes up that I think would interest him. Then I remember I can't do that any more.

Talking with Dad

By Paul H. Betancourt

Copyright June 2012

                I wish I was half the Dad my Dad was. He always encouraged me no matter what I was doing. It didn’t stop when I grew up. He didn’t understand why I wanted to farm, but he always had an encouraging word. I would call on weekends to chat. One call I was whimpering and whining about something or another. He would pat me on the back from over three hundred miles away.

            One time I told him, “You know, this reminds me of a story. A guy was talking to his friend about how hard his work was at the circus. They were on the road all the time. He was always cleaning up after the elephants. When he was in the parade, he wasn’t in the parade, he was walking behind cleaning up after the elephants.

            His friend said, “If it’s so bad, why don’t you quit?”

            The first guy was shocked, “What? and get out of show business?”

Well, farming isn’t show business, but I hang around because I am proud of what I do, I enjoy the challenge and I am waiting to see what’s going  to happen next.

I hope Y'all have a great week!

P

Irrigation started and Some Thoughts on Climate Change

   We have had forty mile an hour winds and a twenty degree swing in temps. Wow! The cotton has kept on growing. We got started on water. Even though we lost two days we got the first field watered. We'll start the second field on Monday.

   I am posting the full text for one of this week's radio pieces. It got snipped a bit because of length. The issue is too important for me to be misunderstood. Next year California will begin implementing AB 32, Schwarzenegger's Climate Change Initiative. He's gone and we are left holding the bag. To be honest, I am worried about this one.

Why I Question Global Warming

By Paul H. Betancourt

Copyright February, 2012

                I question Climate Change because of Science, not in spite of Science.

                There is a silliness that only scientific knuckle-draggers would doubt Global Warming. Well Science and Reason teach me to not accept things until they have a good rational basis. That is why I question Climate Change. I don’t see the Science there. The one solid fact is that we have higher concentrations of CO2 in the air since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. That makes sense, we have been pulling up fossil fuels that have been underground for ages.  But, we don’t know what this fact means.

                There are those that interpret the data to mean that global temperatures will rise over the next century. Are these the same people that can’t forecast the weather for next month?

                Another reason I question Global Climate Change is the Science has been politicized. There is an inherent bias.

                Twenty years ago I had lunch with a meteorologist. His presentation before lunch seemed skeptical about the issue of Global Warming. When I asked, “Why?” he said it was simple. If he asked for a research grant to prove Global Warming the check books were open. If he asked for a research grant to prove Global Warming wasn’t happening the checkbooks snapped shut. There is an inherent bias in funding the science. Michael Crichton addressed the bias in his 2004 novel, State of Fear. [Which, BTW, is a good read if you have the time.] Crichton called for  funding pure research, but that just isn’t realistic.

                I am a big fan of Reality. I’ll gladly settle for the facts when we know them. Let’s get the politics out and use our heads to solve real problems.

                Do you want to care of the planet? Then I’m your man.

                Do you want to up end the global economy because of your fears and incomplete Science?

Sorry, I can’t do that.

We have  on precious planet and the responsibility to take care of it. Bad laws wont help any more than ignoring the problem.

you can find the audio at-

http://www.940kyno.com/index.php?c=68

I hope Y'all have a great week.

P