The scurs are thinking the Weather Eye has turned a blind eye to our needs in the rain department. Will we get over the hump or are we stuck in a rut? Starting Thursday, mostly sunny with highs in the upper 80’s with lows in the mid-60’s. Partly sunny Friday with a modest chance of evening showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the mid-80’s with lows in the mid-60’s. Partly sunny on Saturday with a fair chance of a shower or thunderstorm. Highs in the lower 80’s with lows in the low 60’s. Sunday, mostly sunny with highs in the upper 70’s and lows in the upper 50’s. Mostly sunny on Monday with a good chance of evening showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the upper 70’s with lows in the upper 50’s. Tuesday, mostly sunny with a good chance of showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the low 80’s with lows in the upper 50’s. Cloudy on Wednesday with a good chance of an evening shower or thunderstorm. Highs in the upper 70’s with lows in the upper 50’s. On August 4th we will have lost one full hour of daylight since the summer solstice. The sun will set before 8:30 p.m. CDT on the 7th. The normal high for August 4th is 80 and the normal low is 61. The scurs will be doing their rain dance.
Crops continue to amaze as rainfall this past week was meager. Only .51” total at the ranch and .56” in Bugtussle. Our outlook doesn’t look great for any large degree of change anytime soon. While the crops appear from the road to be in relatively good shape there are indications that up close and personal there is trouble looming on the horizon if precipitation doesn’t arrive soon. Fortunately the cooler temps have bought us some time but sooner or later there will be a reckoning. 100-day maturity corn planted in the first week in May is now milk stage and earlier maturing soybeans planted early May are now R5. Both crops are healthy as the dry weather hasn’t been favorable for disease development. Soybean aphids have been easier to detect but that’s been typical the past several years at this soybean growth stage.
Also typical is the annual push to spray fungicide and toss insecticide in with it. There are several reasons for this, including product sitting in the warehouse that hasn’t been sold. I’ve worked in ag retail off and on too. And as is my wont, it’s time to wonder why some continue to advocate this policy. Tossing insecticide in with other products just because it’s cheap, guaranteed or both ignores the premise for using it. It’s not sugar water and walking into fields recently sprayed with some of these products can cause some serious adverse health effects. Along with that, misuse of these products increases the odds that the insects intended to be controlled will develop resistance, rendering the product useless in upcoming growing seasons. We’ve already done that with numerous chemistries trying to control weeds, insects and diseases. Why do we keep doing it?
Believe it when I say I’ve seen enough organisms develop resistance to products over the past 40+ years to make your head spin, some of it of my own doing. Glean herbicide, one of the first new herbicides I dealt with in ND, was gone almost as quickly as it hit the market. Kochia figured it out in about four years. I liken what’s going on presently with resistance to what we experienced in the livestock industry with antibiotics. In the early 90’s, we’d blast all the animals coming off the show circuit with a prophylactic injection of LA-200 to prevent (or so we thought) any respiratory diseases from developing. It should’ve come as no surprise that within a matter of a few years, the product was worthless against pneumonia. It was replaced by more expensive products, often with shorter shelf lives and other baggage. Some of them were risky to use. Mycotil could kill a person if accidentally injected with it. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.
The garden is thriving with minimal chemical use. Rotating vegetable crops and even some fallow are parts of the equation. With the lack of rainfall, using products only as needed and enough manual labor to accomplish the desired result produces healthy veggies and the exercise certainly doesn’t hurt. String beans kicked it in gear and while the planting looks much like area crops, namely uneven, they should bear well into September. Tomatoes are starting to blush with the cooler nights so we’re looking forward to BLT’s. Zucchinis are being zucchinis, producing like crazy and loving the heat. Seems like you blink and the small zuke a couple days out yet is three feet long! Not to worry. The sheep love the overgrown castoffs. As Betsy’s dad says about cats, zucchinis are a renewable resource.
It's that time of the year again. The swallows are lining up on the power lines. Within a matter of another month to six weeks, most of them will be gone for the season. It’s heartwarming after a long winter to see them arrive in the spring and sad to see them go in the fall. They should’ve had good foraging what with all the mosquitoes and flies that were produced. It’s also time for Freeborn Co. Fair. That means time for a large amount of leftover baked goods from Auntie Mar Mar. After toiling at work, doing chores and making supper, they’re a welcome treat for dessert. Or any other time I happen to stumble across them.
Poppy still has plenty of summer left to go. She likes wandering the yard but especially enjoys being in the garden. There are lots of things to check out, especially the many pollinating insects due to the flowering plants. It’s like an obstacle course as she tramps across the dry soft soil. Plenty of white cabbage butterflies to chase although her recent favorite has been the Carolina grasshoppers. She hasn’t caught any of the butterflies but has captured the grasshoppers and eaten them. She’s also eaten some of the weeds after I’ve pulled them. Hard to tell if Poppy will grow up to be an agronomist or an entomologist some days.
See you next week…real good then.