So you know how I like milestones. But how much bigger of a milestone is there than this:
Artiness aside, that's blog post number 300! I hope you have read each and every one. If not, I'll wait until you catch up. But for everyone else, despite my gloomy forecast this morning, the sun came out and it turned into a nice day. And warm too, into the low 70's. It was a good day for Dan and Tim B to attach orange plot number tags to the orchard wire. This will serve as a guide for treatment applications, which will start very soon.
Behind the orchard on the North side is where we planted some cover crops after wheat harvest last summer. One of the cover crops was oilseed radish. This was the first time we planted them, and I really didn't know what to expect in the spring. But I was surprised to see that they were all dried up, despite the thick and fleshy form of last fall. And I had heard that there is often a sulfur smell, but I didn't notice that. Just powdery radish carcasses.
We also planted some Austrian Winter Peas. They are also all dried up now as you see below. There are also some strips with no cover crop. After two years of soybeans and winter wheat last year, we plan to plant corn here this year. Our aim is to see if the cover crop would have an effect on corn yield.
It was also dry enough by late afternoon on Farm 7 to plant a no-till oat experiment. Here we see Tim D making some pre-plant nitrogen applications to the plots.
And then sowing the oats. (Insert own joke here.)
So we were happy to get some planting started while it is still April. There is a chance of rain tonight, but if not, we will plant sugarbeets tomorrow. We will all sleep motionless so as not to accidently do a rain dance.
