Monday, May 10, 2014

This morning, Ross and I took a tour of many of the planted fields of corn and soybeans.  We found all the corn had emerged and it was growing well–beginning to get a good green color.  It has been challenged by the cool and wet conditions… not conducive to perfect development.  The soybeans also were nearly all emerged and beginning to give those fields a green cast as you look over them.  The crop development of the soybeans has also been retarded by the cool and wet conditions.

But we expect some acceleration to occur this week… the temperatures are predicted to rise into the mid 80s.  That, coupled with sunny skies will aid crop growth.

The little beans are liking the warmer days! You can see in this shot the vestiges of the bean’s cotyledons and the development of that first unifoliate leaf

We did find that White River (West Fork) has reached its crest on this latest flood event, called a “Minor Flood” by the hydrologic experts.  There are some areas on Nellie and Grubb that have river water up on them, and the high river will cause the water departure from the Huey farm location to slow down.  White River should fall back inside its banks by the weekend.

The Shepards are working at Lett, repairing some WASCoBs.  They will be installing new conservation structures there and at Watjen this week.  Looks like returning to planting will be contingent on Shepards’ work, and also on the drying of the fields at Nellie and Huey.  We’re hopeful that by week’s end, we can go back to planting, and finish off that important step for our 2014 crop. One good day’s work will finish the planting, for both corn and soybeans.

Shepards are working on the Lett farm, here repairing a WASCoB

Good news! There is not much, if any, replanting of soybeans that must be done, at least so far!  Therefore, for mid-May, the farm report is a fairly happy one!

We had to hire a crop duster to fly on the fungicide for the wheat crop.  That went on over last weekend.  The wheat fields were just too soft to drive our sprayer through them.

The local crop duster applies fungicide to our wheat during that critical 36-hour window over the weekend.

John has his helper Ella today to get the sprayer ready for this evening’s work.

John will be spraying the last of the corn burndown herbicide this evening.  He may have to maneuver around some muddy spots, but it’s gonna be good to be able to check that operation off the to-do list.   Post spraying of herbicide on soybeans will begin later this week.