Nutwood

I worked in the Nutwood area today.  Of interest was some Glyphosate resistant waterhemp.  I discussed it with the customer a bit and He had noticed it too.  He said he has not been using Glyphosate for very many years.  

We sampled some for Nitrogen today.  We have been finding that fall applied and spring applied nitrogen have not stayed as high as the customers hoped they would.  Most of the problem is dentrification. 

May 30 Litchfield overpass

I worked in the field today after 5 days off.  Work was in the Virden Girard area.  It was very wet getting there, but not too bad where I worked.  No field work was ongoing.  My customer was enjoying the holiday.  Not much to report on except moisture conditions and they are not good.  More rain in the forecast for tomorrow.  Almost everyone is done with corn in that area.  If you are not done with corn, you need to push your pencil on the prevented planting option to decide whether to plant late or just let it go this year.  Remember also that prevented planting cannot be used more than 3 years in a row.  Soybeans are also an option. 

The photo below is from the overpass north of Litchfield.  In view it looks like most of the corn is up.  Even the field in the foreground is up. 

Erosion Problems

Some days it is hard to predict what a blog may be about.  We went for  short drive north of town to see if we could see some of the reported 2 inch hail and we did. 

We also ran across this construction site that was eroding out into the road and washing from there almost directly into the city's Glen Shoals Lake.  Farmers take a lot of heat for erosion on cropland, but sites like this contribute a large percentage of their sediment to the lake.  Everyone needs to take responsibility for their contribution to the problem and try to do something about it.  This site has no silt fence, no straw bales, and no temporary seeding.  any of those would have prevented the mess. 

Toughbook

Last week we took the time to take some photos of sampling activities for future reference.  On of the things we photographed include the Panasonic Toughbook that I have been using as my principal field sampling guidance for the last few weeks.  My Toughbook is loaded with Global Mapper and I have been mainly using a Wintec wireless receiver with it.  Except for an incident where I broke the screen the computer seems pretty durable.  The screen breakage was strictly carelessness.  This setup seems to be a good alternative to good way to some of the more expensive ag specific products out there.  Toughbooks are available on Ebay for around $400 the receiver can be had new for about $60 and the Global Mapper is around $300 on some websites.  A Ram-mount is also needed.  My friend Kelly has 2 of them he he has been using with FarmWorks software for the whole spring season.  We agree that they seem to be very durable.  It has added to our available number of GPS units.  If I use a white background with no aerials.  It is very visible.  This is as close to paperless sampling as we have come although, I like carrying the photo, because it is faster than turning on the photo and squinting at it on the computer.  A last thought is that with the territory we cover, it is good to have a fully functional computer in the field.  We are only as far away from the Internet as the nearest McDonald's.    We are hoping that is setup will last a year or 2 at least. 

Photo sums up crop condition

The photo was near West Alton, but could have been almost anywhere between Hillsboro, IL and St. Charles, Mo.  We had 1.5 to 2 inches of rain on soils that were barely dry enough to plant.  Lots of replanted wet spots will be drowned again.  This is saturated enough to denitrify for several days. 

Rainy Day

It is a rainy day, so I can post "early" today.  I have worked 19 days in May so far.  Many of them were rainy days somewhere.  My secret National Weather Service (NWS).  NWS website has some wonderful tools for spot information.  First off you can click on the map and get a forecast for anywhere.  Our territory squared up is about 1000 square miles.  You can imagine different forecasts in different places. 

The first thing I do when I get up in the morning is check the radar.  If it has rained then I click on storm total to see how much and where.  This feature is sometime erased fairly quickly, so I try another source.  There is a precipitation analysis tab that shows you a map of rainfall totals for just about any time period you choose.  It is pretty accurate.  From time to time I have posted those maps here to keep you up to date on departures from "normal". 

If you don't trust the data because it is radar derived, you can always look at the the observations.  scroll down and find the map.  You can click on any station and get actual rainfall data.  It is sort of a pain because the hourly totals are not summarized for a day, but it gets you actual measurements.  There is lots of information and data on NWS site that is free.  This is a taxpayer expense that seems worthwhile.

Chesterfield

I spent the day in Chesterfield.  Weather was perfect for a late spring day.  I sample unplanted soybean ground, Planted corn ground and just up corn ground.  There were really no issues with any of it.  The burndown had worked well on the bean ground and early weeds are dead.  No resistance issues here.

I think this weeks crop report over estimates corn and soybeans planted a bit.  I am not sure that is an issue though. 

I did see a deer and geese along with a soaring turkey vultures.  Turkey vultures are beautiful in flight, but ugly as anything to look at.  Also, they will eat anything dead including dead skunk. 

I also saw a Blackhawk helicopter fly over.  That is an inspiring sight as well.