Tangled

Found a few of these little guys today. It reminded me of a wheat field I saw a few years ago. It was early July, the wheat was golden and was covered in vetch that was in full bloom. A beautiful combination of gold, green and purple - would have made a nice post card pic. However, not sure if the guy in the combine thought so. I'm sure he had a few choice words.

Trophy is the herbicide of choice to go after vetch in wheat. A word of caution though, speaking with the NuFarm rep today I found out that Trophy needs at least a min temp of 8C 24 hours before and after to have good control on vetch. A min temp of even 5C could decrease control by 25%.

Caution: Worms at Work

Now, because the wheat fields I was in today were so clean they were boring - I started to notice how much work the worms have been doing this spring. Check out this pic.

These piles of residue are called worm middens. Under each pile is a worm hole. Middens are used for protection of the night crawler and as a food source.

Middens can tell us a lot about the health of your soil. The more worm activity the better. The average moldboard plowed field has about 13 middens/sq m while a no till field has about 75 middens/sq m.

Next time your out standing in your field take a look and see if your worms are at work.

Still got your dirt?

Wow, was it ever windy on Monday! My eyes are still stinging from all the dust in the air. I was told out by Zurich, there was hesitation to send the school buses home as visibility was so bad. I was thankful that my own fields are notill, we kept our dirt and maybe even gained some.

So today I am trying something new. I have a new phone and am trying to blog directly from it. Sorry if the format looks a little off, I need to play with it a little.

Here's a pic of some April 9th planted corn. Looking pretty good. Soil temperatures have been fairly constant over 50F and there is moisture there as the field got about 2/10's on the weekend.

I was also in a field of September planted wheat today. It's at growth stage 31 ( first node) and very thick. There is very little disease pressure, I only found some septoria on the dead winter leaves. Weed pressure in this field is low but come next week, it will be time to start scouting your wheat fields for herbicide and fungicide application. There are a few cool nights forecasted until the middle of next week and then it will be time to get over the wheat. To avoid damage, I try to avoid any applications 2-3 days
before and after a <5C night.

One other note. If you are still in need of any corn seed, please let me know as soon as possible. I have a good supply of top 2800HU+ seed and some seed available that is less than 2800HU.

It's Go Time!

Optimum corn planting time for the highest yields is in the later part of April. We are nearly there and the local conditions are excellent.

Reason number one: Anything above 50F is perfect. An old farmer's tale is that it is safe to plant corn when you can sit bare bottomed on the soil. I wasn't about to do that and was defiantly not going to post a pic of that so I took my thermometer to the field.


Reason number two: The trees are all budding out now. Yes, some got frosted off a few weeks ago but now everything is breaking dormancy.


Reason number three: The ground is working up perfectly. For the winter we had, I am shocked at how well the ground is working.

Reason number four: The long term forecast only has a small dip towards 0C early next week and then it is an upward trend from there.

Good Luck and Safe Planting!

Brrrrr

I have to apologize for my absence on here. My Dad had some health problems and was day by day for the last little while. His is on the mend now, the stubborn Dutch farmer in him got him through. He has a long recovery ahead but hopefully all will be well by the summer so he can get back on the golf course.

Quite a bit has happened in the last few weeks. Most notable is a few very COLD nights. The beautiful green wheat and alfalfa has taken a hit but should recover. Below is a pic of the worst I have seen. It was on muck and it had about 3 tillers. It had N applied before the frost. You can see in the pic that all the leaves are burnt off but there is still life in the stem. When sliced open, the growing point is light green-white. It may look tough for a while but should come thru.



I was out in my alfalfa last night. I have to admit, I was worried the last few days about it as it turned a pasty yellow and lied right down. Yesterday, it started to recover and stand back up. The stems are still green and new leaves are growing. I still expect first cut to be on track if the weather cooperates between now and then.

As for the corn, keep it in the bag a little longer please! Ontario's seed supply of corn is very tight and if we have to replant acres of corn, you may be stuck with no seed and a field unsuitable for much else due to N and residual chemicals.