So yesterday was a special treat for Stephanie and Tim B. They got to go on an aerial flyover of the NCRS with pilot Nick. We try to do that every year, but it has been awhile since the last one. Sadly, St. Johns has no municipal airport, so they drove up to Alma where Nick keeps his plane and then headed back South by air.
They soon reached cruising altitude, although Nick better keep his eyes on the road, er..air and not so much on the instruments.
And here is a view of the NCRS office/barn complex on Farm 1. It was a partly cloudy day which made it difficult for Stephanie to take pictures. But you get the idea.
This shows Farm 3 looking to the North. You can kind of see the irrigation running. To the bottom of the red barns is where Brian has some of his vegetable plots.
This is Farm 5 which has corn, soybeans, sugarbeets, winter wheat and alfalfa.
This is Farm 7, one of the newer farms that we started farming in 2010. It is very productive. To the right in about the middle, you can see the plots on Farm 12, which is the demonstration and tour farm. We will have a riding tour of Farm 7 to show some of our replicated plot field nutrient research.
This is Farm 12 looking back to the North. You can see Farm 7 to the North, and in the middle on the right, you can see a drive across from that wheat field. That is the Farm 8 apple orchard. This is area is where our Research Field Days will happen. Everything is conveniently close. Regarding Farm 12, this is the first year we have had this farm. You can see the dark soil with high organic matter. In fact the bottom part would be considered muck. It has very low nutrient levels, so it should be interesting for fertilizer comparisons. That water area at the bottom is a gravel quarry, which is kind of strange to be right next to muck soil. Hope you are coming to a field day to see it all for yourself.
Next they flew over the new office building. The old office is completely gone now, like it was never even there. They are in the process of getting the grounds landscaped. It already is looking pretty nice.
This is a nice shot from the other end. It does look like barns from the back, which is intentional. Haven't been out on the walking trail yet, although this place is so big on the inside that you do quite a bit of walking anyway.
And then it was back to Alma. I liked this shot that Stephanie took of all of the windmills up there. I did not realize how many there are, and this is all pretty recent. Hopefully there are none in front of the runway.
Safe and sound, back on the ground. She brought her pics to show at the farm this morning, and I carried them straight to my computer so they can be up in blog land.
