Jul
18
Crop Report, from Rich Bubb
July 18, 2007 |
A few weeks ago my wife and I took a day trip to Shipshewana, an Amish community in northern Indiana specializing in agribusiness and tourism. Along the drive there I noticed many fields with monstrously large portable/movable irrigation spraying systems. Some of them were in operation, spraying water in mass quantities on crops. The fields using this method were nice and green. Those that weren't were stunted.
The corn crops we drove past had their uppermost leaves pointing straight up, which is a sign the corn needs water. We saw "tasseling" but few ears of corn on the stalks. We had heard some farmers are getting ready to plow under their existing crops and wait it out until next year, but didn't see any evidence of this yet. My drive to work takes me through about 20 miles of farmland, so it'll be easy to see this happen.. if it does.
Scott Brooks explains:
It's when corn is tassling that rain is most critical. When corn tassles is a largely a function of when it was planted. The amount of rain it gets in the pre-tassling stage also plays a role in when it will tassle, but not as much as when it was planted. Tassling occurs most often in July.
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New crop corn and beans are off a whopping 10% this week alone, with corn off over 20% during the month of July. It seems the like the crops are getting the rain they need.
In Monroe County, Michigan, many home gardeners are experiencing seeds that do not sprout or take longer than usual to sprout. Some agricultural field are as you say, but others are just find with only a few stunted areas in each field. We are looking to test the soil for metal toxicity by air borne pollution. Suspect that barium and aluminum oxides may be the problem in some fields and gardens. We have found barium levels in well water to be six times the toxicity level set by state and federal standards. We are also collecting rain water for testing. The Sierra Club has turned us and its Monroe County, Michigan members a deaf ear! Testing runs from $16 to $175 per sample. Depending on whether the state or private labs are doing the testing.