Live From the NCRS!

What A Way to Start the Year!

2012-01-16T21:37:00.008-05:00

So I have been gone recently, but I have a good excuse. I was in Hawaii with the ACLF Research and Sales Incentive tour with many of Liquid's top sales people, along with some growers and other company personnel. It was on the island of Kauai where there is actually some Liquid fertilizer in use in some of the island's agriculture. Senior Agronomy Manager Cory Schurman is the one who works with several ag-businesses, one of which is Kauai coffee. There is over 3000 acres of coffee on the island, with recent expansion onto ground that was formerly sugarcane now that there is no more of that grown there. But a group of us visited Kauai Coffee on Monday of last week for a tour. Below are some of the rows of coffee plants by the office and store. They showed us how coffee is harvested with the machine below. They are behind on harvesting this year due to cool weather earlier in the year. With cameras flashing, the group followed.
I believe we were told that they have 11 of these machines, and running 24 hours a day, they can harvest around 40 acres. So it is a slow process. The fingers inside that cage spin around and knock the berries off the plant onto a conveyer and into a hopper.

After that we drove to a Syngenta research farm. There are actually several seed company farms on Kauai. Syngenta has been testing Liquid in their corn plots for several years now. Fertilizer is both planter and drip tape applied. Below one of the agronomists, the one facing the other way, talks to the attentive group about what they do there. (See anyone you know?)

Basically they are working with the introduction of certain traits into parent stock seed. If successful, someday it will be used for the production of the seed of the future. But there are thousands of plots, and it takes a long time to find what they want. They mainly grow corn here on Kauai, but also some sunflowers and a little soybeans. You can see corn everywhere on the West side of Kauai. There is corn in a block that is 3 inches tall growing next to a block that is tasseling. I guess someone keeps track of it all.

So that was interesting. But it wasn't all work, if you can call it that. There was plenty of time for fun stuff like attending a luau.

Watching a beautiful sunrise. (I understand it does that every day there.)

And sightseeing around the beautiful scenery. I notice that I use the word "beautiful" a lot. Thats because it is.

And that was that. Hope you can make it over there one, or more, days. I can't wait to return. But thanks to Mr. Troy for making it all possible.

So today it was back to the NCRS. It's beautiful too, but not in the same way.

Welcome 2012 (Be Nice to Crops This Year)

2011-12-31T20:30:00.001-05:00

Noel from the NCRS

2011-12-23T17:44:00.004-05:00

So I was driving to the NCRS this morning and saw this beautifu sunrise over Farm 6. And since I never trave without a camera, I pu ed in to take a picture. This is the first fu day of winter, and it is off to a nice start. And though we don't have any snow, and won't have a white Christmas, it is a sp endid sight.

A though there is sti p enty of work to be done, it is appropriate to pause for a much deserved Christmas break. And hopefu y it can be spent with fami y and oved ones. So the crew of the NCRS sincere y wishes our faitfu readers a Heartfe t Merry Christmas!

(And did you get the Noel or No "L" theme? Ho Ho Ho!)

New Sprayer Arrives

2011-12-20T21:23:00.002-05:00

So today the NCRS took delivery of a new Proptec sprayer. Tim brings it in after it was dropped off while Doug watches, I'm sure with his mental gears turning on how he can make it better. It was bought at the recent Great Lakes Fruit and Vegetable show in Grand Rapids. It is completely different from any other sprayer that we have. It will mostly be used in the new apple orchard that will be started in the spring. It is like an air blast sprayer designed to maximize coverage of the target crop with very fine droplets. So it is primarily for fungicide, and probably insecticide, application, but some crop nutrition can be mixed in too. Additionally it can be used on vegetable crops. This will be much better than the backpack type sprayer that Brian and Dan use now. Phil takes a look at the rotary atomizers, as they are called. They can be moved to any position to enable optimal coverage.
You know I will have pictures of it in action next year.

Sign of the Times

2011-12-19T13:05:00.003-05:00

So we have the NCRS office door all decorated for Christmas. But there is a sign out front as well. With all of the expansion of late, we find ourselves again in the hiring mode. This time we are looking for a Research Agronomist to work in the Field Crop side. Details are on the agroliquid.com website. Click the "About" tab and then "Join Our Team" and click on Research for the job description. Or pass the information on to someone you may know that would be wanting to get involved in the exciting world of Liquid research.

We can also see some of the Liquid crew anxiously watching outside for the line to form.

Peace on Earth, or at least North Dakota

2011-12-09T19:50:00.004-05:00

So this week I spent some time in Northern North Dakota for some grower meetings and grower visits. Area Manager Kevin Abentroth was my host. It was plenty cold, but no snow, or not much. So have you ever read (or seen) a North Dakota license plate? Its motto is on it declaring it as The Peace Garden State. Now I didn't know what the Peace Garden was, but we were near it on the map, and I made Kevin drive us up there. And Kevin, a life-long North Dakotan, admitted that he had never been there. So we went. I thought it was inside North Dakota, but it is actually right on the black line that is the border between the US and Canada. Below is the sign for it, and you can see the Canadian border stop in the background. Below is a picture of the peace tower, soaring 120 feet into the sky. I read later that it represents the soaring ambitions of the early immigrants. (Although I would imagine that the main ambition in the winter time was to keep warm.) But I was disappointed that we didn't see any of the beautiful flower gardens like in the pictures in the brochures. And I would have thought there would be more tourists, but we were the only ones. It was a balmy 8 degrees. But this place was dedicated in July of 1932 to acknowledge the peace between the two countries and pledge that we will not take up arms against one another. That's a relief. Although some of the hockey games get pretty rough. Anyway, after my picture taking, we left and had to go through US customs to get back in. Even though we didn't go into Canada, only on the black line. Had to answer all the usual border questions and open the pickup doors so he could look inside. It took longer than our park visit. But we were finally allowed back home. (We didn't get out and kiss the ground due to the cold.) But now I can cross that off my list of things to see.

Winter's Icy Grip

2011-12-04T21:40:00.007-05:00

So last Friday it looked like winter at the NCRS. (Actually the snow fell on Tuesday night while I was away on an International Fertilizer mission.) But it was a heavy, wet snow. There was about a foot of snow where I live 20 miles South of the NCRS and I came home to considerable tree damage, and spent the weekend with the chain saw. But I digress. Our outside field work has been complete for several weeks now, but you can still see some corn still out in the area. Below is a shot of Farm 7 last Friday morning. Seeing fog hugging the low ground was an unusual sight. We got a new planter the other day. It is a Kinze Interplant planter. We like the design for planting 15 inch rows, like soybeans. It will be much better than the drill that we have used recent years. The staggered layout of planter boxes are supposed to enable adequate residue flow through the planter. Our Monosem had some inter-row boxes, but they were right next to each other on the same tool bar. It was like a bull dozer with crop residue. So we are optimistic for this one. And if we want 30 inch rows, the front boxes lift up like the one on the right. Now our fine crew will work to get it rigged up for Liquid fertilizer. We plan to use gps guidance, but have the row markers just in case.

So in with the new and out with the old. Below is the dis-assembly of the old reliable plot-Hagie, and the re-assembly back into a field sprayer. I got all of my stuff out of it, like my record book and peanut butter sandwich baggies. I spent a lot of time making research plot applications of all type in this machine. From broadcast applications to the soil, foliars on a variety of crops, as well as drop nozzle applications of N in corn, we went through a lot together. But change is inevitable, and our new Hagie offers more opportunity. But you never forget your favorites.

So I'm sorry to say that the ol' blog may slow down a bit with regular postings, as most of our time is now devoted to equipment stuff in the shop and writing up the research reports in our office. Plus the occasional grower meeting and trade shows where we spread the word of Liquid research. So check in from time to time, or you can sign up for e-mail announcements of new postings. Anyway, thanks for following the antics of the research crew here at the NCRS>

Holiday Viewing

2011-11-23T16:40:00.004-05:00

So a common family activity over Thanksgiving is to watch a movie. Remember when I showed the making of an epic movie here at the NCRS? (It was in the October 3 posting.) Well that movie has been released and is now ready for viewing. And you can see it for no charge this weekend. All you have to do is go to the Liquid website (www.agroliquid.com) and on the home page or the Research tab, you can find the link and "click" to watch it. It features several familiar faces from the NCRS and gives a review of the year. But I don't want to give too much away. Several people have already given me the thumbs up when I asked them how they liked it. (At least I think it was their thumb.) You can also watch some other videos available from the site. Plus if you are a traditionalist and like a cartoon first, you can watch the always entertaining "Farm Guy". So pop some corn and pull up a chair for hours, er...minutes of entertainment. And Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

Class Is In Session

2011-11-22T16:57:00.003-05:00

So today the NCRS welcomed 15 MSU students from the Advanced Crop Production class. Oh and their teacher too. Since the word "Advanced" is in the title, what better place is there to visit? Us four agronomists talked about the Liquid company and philosophy of plant nutrition, how we set up and run our plots, the equipment we use, and probably some other interesting topics as well. Then we gave a tour of our equipment and the buildings. It seemed to go well and there were some good questions, as many of the students are from farms. I enjoyed being a teacher for a day, although no one brought me an apple.

Field of (Shattered) Dreams

2011-11-19T10:00:00.002-05:00

So have you ever had your hopes and expectations crushed on a field due to poor performance? Well I'm not talking about a field of corn here, but rather what I saw on a football field last night in Ames, Iowa. Well at least the home team was happy.

Some Week Here

2011-11-12T19:42:00.003-05:00

So last week was pretty busy. I was on a fertilizer mission Monday through Wednesday. Stephanie, Phil and Doug harvested sugarbeets on Monday. Below we see Phil topping the beets prior to lifting them out of the ground. Here is the 4-row beet lifter used for the harvest of each plot. Then the beets are dumped into a wagon with a weigh scale. It has been a pretty good system for several years here at the North Central Research Station.

Remember the new plot Hagie sprayer that we got? Well it took a little longer to get ready for field action this year due to all the new construction projects. But Doug has it all prepared now. And Friday was my first day at the controls as we have a treatment on wheat where the fertilizers are applied after emergence. We have had good yield response to this in the past. It is quite an advancement from the old Hagie, which I have used for so many years. But this is set up so that we can put different fertilizers in different tanks and apply them at different rates in a single application. So in this application we applied different rates of Pro-Germinator, Sure-K and Micro 500 with water as a carrier. It was pretty cool to run.

Photo credit to Stephanie who clicked this picture during the minute that the sun was out. Next year it will be ready to make all of the plot fertilizer applications.

Beacons of Light

2011-11-10T21:41:00.004-05:00

So hopefully you recall my mentions of all of the fresh vegetables that have been donated by the Specialty Crop researchers to the Lansing Food Bank. In fact, this years' donations exceeded 50,000 pounds of vegetables to the hungry people of mid-Michigan who find themselves down on their luck in this tough economy. Certainly I am aware of the food banks that are around the state, but did not know much about the organization other than the big truck that showed up on a pretty regular basis once vegetable picking began. Well the folks of the Mid-Michigan Food Bank noticed and nominated Agro-Culture Liquid Fertilizers to be a recipient of the prestigious Beacon of Light award given at todays annual Michigan Harvest Gathering luncheon hosted by the Food Bank Council of Michigan. The award was given to Agro-Culture, but really it is Dr. Brian Levene who should get most of the credit, followed closely by Tim and Dan who do much, and often most, of the actual picking. Brian started donating vegetables several years ago, and with the expansion of the vegetable research, the annual donations have rapidly increased. So I was only too happy to accompany them to get the award, especially since, as I said, there was a luncheon involved. Above we see the Liquidites (me, Tim, Dan and Brian) and Kim Harkness of the Mid-Michigan Food Bank who has been Brian's contact for the past several years. (I said I would give picture credit to Sara Martin of the MI Dep't of Transportation Photo Unit if she would send me the picture, and she did.) There were other awards, and lots of people who make this effort a reality here in our state. All kidding aside, it is really humbling that people make helping the less fortunate their passion and profession. And I am only too happy to be a part of such a generous company as Agro-Culture Liquid Fertilizers. Several people mentioned how appreciative they are of the fresh vegetables that we donate, as that is often hard to come by at food banks. They also mentioned how they were especially impressed with the giant watermelons. I should also say that Troy bought and donated several heads of beef purchased at the county 4-H auction. So it was a great experience to see the impact that Brian and crew made to help keep people fed, and to learn more about how it is done.

Nearing the End of Harvest

2011-11-05T13:54:00.004-04:00

So another milestone was reached Thursday when we harvested the last corn experiment, which was on Farm 7. It was a much cooler day, but good for harvesting. So enjoy the last picture of chasing the combine. And here is the last of the corn trickling into the grain cart for weighing.

Here are the border strips that remain after an experiment is harvested.

So Phil gets busy and cleans those up plus the additional production corn on the farm.

Yesterday Jeff and Stephanie were busy soil testing. We will use the results as guides for next year's recommendations, and to monitor any changes. We would like to get an automatic hydraulic soil tester to speed up the process. But we don't want Jeff to be another victim of automation.

So one more harvest task remains, and that is sugarbeets. Tune in Monday to see if Mother Nature allows us to dig up the beets. Enjoy the weekend.

Bow Your Heads, The Soybeans Are Done!

2011-11-01T21:50:00.007-04:00

So here it is November now, and we still have soybeans to harvest. Well we aren't the only ones. Several in the area were taking advantage of the nice sunny and warm day to try and finish the beans. But this was our last field, and it was different in that we had some field-long strip treatments that we wanted to get yields of. So we did. The treatments were on certain gps tracks in the field, and Stephanie rides along with Phil to help follow the carefully constructed harvest plan. Stephanie returns the favor by taking a picture of me taking a harvest sample and recording the strip weight. (See, I do stuff besides just take pictures.) After our treatment harvest, Phil finished harvesting the rest of the field and we bid farewell to soybeans for another year.

Sorry not to have shown what the specialty crop folks are doing for awhile. Well they are busy constructing a greenhouse by the new equipment building. It will have access to water and power here. They will use this greenhouse to get transplants going in the spring for setting into the field experiments. It will be better than the growth chamber (a.k.a. "the morgue") they use now. Here we see Tim checking Brian and the ground to make sure it's level. Uh....well good luck with that.

Below we see Ron running the chisel plow on Farm 7. Now we do save ground for no-till soybeans, but this was on Farm 7 which was tiled last year and needs some tillage to get it more level. Take it from one who rode over the tile tracks in the grain cart.

There was one more important task. What, you have never collected a dairy manure sample? We had some manure spread on one of our field plots today, and we collect a sample to test mainly for nitrogen content. As bad as this is, it's better than the poor lab person on the other end who has to open and run these all day. We saw that on our tour of Midwest Labs just about exactly a year ago. (Which was recorded in this blog.) Well there's something for everyone.

I got this cleaned up and stashed for shipment to Omaha. Although I hope no one tries to make coffee with it tomorrow from this container. Good to the last drop, indeed!

Halloween and Harvest Continues

2011-10-31T20:52:00.004-04:00

So everyone knows what today is. And nothing says Halloween like an expertly carved "LIQUID" pumpkin. Don't you agree? For the more traditional pumpkin, here is one made by my artistic daughter Dana. It's scary, yet lovely at the same time. I can't look away.

But before hitting the street for candy, there was a whole day of work to get through first. First job of the day was taking some soil samples in a potassium fertilizer experiment.

On the back of Farm 5 I saw a Posse of turkeys. I get a kick out of animal group names. Other favorites of mine are a Congress of salamanders or a Prickle of porcupines. Some people think Congress is acting like a bunch of Prickles. Or something like that.

Then it was time to start harvesting corn again. Here we see Phil setting the gps monitor for the experiment we are about to harvest. This way we can make sure that we are in the right plot, you know for recording the grain weights and all that sort of thing.

And we're off. Today we started on Farm 7, the only remaining farm with corn plots left. There are eight experiments here. At 40 plots per experiment, that would be....I'll get back to you on that. But it's a few days work.

Recall that we retain grain (hey that rhymes) samples of each plot for moisture and test weight measurements. Stephanie and Ron take a load of samples down from the grain cart and return more empty containers. What a trade.

Below we see Stephanie running the samples through the Dickey-John machine. I am happy to see that she is trying to get on the good side of her boss by wearing the colors of my alma mater Oklahoma State. (Or maybe it's because of Halloween and she has three young trick or treaters waiting at home.)

Back in the field Doug stopped by to check on progress. He is doing some chisel plowing in some fields that were tiled last year and still need some leveling. So much to be done in this complex world of nutrient research.

But that's what we do.

Finishing the Week

2011-10-29T14:33:00.004-04:00

So Friday we got back into the field for some plot activities. We harvested some more corn plots on Wednesday and finished Farm 5. Now all that remains is the corn on Farm 7. But alas, it is too muddy to get on as of now. Thursday it was rainy again. But Friday was kind of nice out, so we took advantage of it. One thing that was on the fall agenda was making fall strip-till applications. Or as we call it: Nutri-Till. We have demonstrated good results with fall applications of Pro-Germinator and Sure-K. Here we are comparing placement: either in the traditional lower shank placement, about 8 inches under the surface, or in shallow placement in the seed zone. And other stuff too. Here are the strips after application. They will now wait for the planter next spring. (Am I talking about next year already?)Another fall activity is application of (pardon the expression) dry potash on plots for next year. These will be in corn next year and will be compared to planter applications of Sure-K. I show this to prove the validity of the research we do here at the NCRS. But you already know that Sure-K will prove superiority. The applicator here is MSU intern Jeff who is able to help us on Fridays while a student the rest of the week. He assures us that he got a real life education working here on the farm this summer.

Late in the afternoon Doug wanted to harvest some non-plot, or "production" corn on Farm 7. The corn on the west side is kind of hilly and not as heavy of ground as where the plots are. Below Troy checks on Doug while Stephanie offers her advice.

Some of the corn here was planted well after June 1, and needed a grain moisture check. Doug tosses a sample in a container to Stephanie who will check it. Well the news wasn't good there, and so it will have to wait much longer. But there is other earlier planted corn to run. It was tough getting this corn planted last spring with all of the wet weather and having to re-plant some. (Note: if you enlarge your view, you can see lines of Canada Geese overhead. There was wave after wave that evening.)

Coming back into the farm research compound there was a pretty view of the sunset in the clouds.

That's a good sign.

More Corn Harvest...(What, You Were Expecting Maybe Garbanzo Beans?)

2011-10-25T21:58:00.004-04:00

So today we fought the weather and won. It was kind of rainy this morning, but then let up and we knocked out several more corn experiments. Stephanie took the first shift in the grain cart. Here, besides enduring my pestering picture taking, she collects a plot grain sample for moisture and test weight determination. And yes she is wrapped in plastic to preseve freshness...and to keep dry in the rain.
Regular readers will recall this camera placed on the edge of one of our corn experiments to record plot growth. (OK, that's alfalfa behind it, the corn is the other way.) It supposedly takes a picture every 15 minutes. I don't know if that includes night. But it has been there since May. (Someone is going to have a big bill at Walgreens to get all of those pictures developed.) But we harvested that experiment today. So unless they come and shut it down, there are now pictures of harvested corn stalks.

Here we are on Farm 5 harvesting the continuous corn plots where manure has been applied to some plots for over 10 years. (For those annoying idiots on Ag Talk, this is the ONLY test that receives manure. Not the whole farm.)

The grain trailer fills up fast on corn harvest days. Fortunately we don't have to go too far to unload it at the elevator. In fact, Tim came over to the other side to drive the grain cart tractor while Ron drove the corn to market.

So there will be more of the same for days to come. This may be it for awhile unless somethng newsworthy happens. If so, I am quickdraw with the camera.

Let's Harvest Corn!

2011-10-24T21:46:00.003-04:00

So today was a very nice day here at the good ol' NCRS. A bit windy, but comfortable in the 50's. We got a couple inches of rain from last weeks storms, and it even rained some last night. But we were able to get into the fields having lighter soil today, and knocked out three corn experiments. Grain moisture was pretty good, from 20% in one experiment to 17% in another. Below we see the combine making the rounds on Farm 3. To speed things up we harvest the middle four rows of the plot, and take to border rows later. Weighing the grain from each plot is the same as with beans. But we fill up the grain cart and truck much faster.
We had very strong winds last week which stripped leaves from many of the trees. But there is still some nice fall color around.

This wheat on Farm 3 was planted on October 5 and was looking bright in the late afternoon sun. Recall that we leave tram lines for the sprayer to make topdress and other applications.

Quiz question for the day: What is this unusual crop that we baled up today? Troy gives his inspection.

Answer: It is baled up drip tape from plots. After years of collecting the drip tape in various ways, for the past couple years we found that the quickest and easiest way is to pull it out of the plots and run it up in the round baler. Then we will haul it to the dump in a compact bale. Anyway, we hope to continue harvesting corn plots tomorrow. But sadly, the rain man looks to return. Hopefully we can get something done before he does.

Harvest, Then Rain Delay

2011-10-19T14:13:00.004-04:00

So it was kind of wet on Monday, and we switched to the corn head and harvested some corn. Not plots, but got some production corn out of the way and got the combine ready. Then yesterday it kind of dried up some and we switched back to soybeans to harvest our last two plots which were on Farm 3. Unlike last week when it felt like summer, it was cool and cloudy. Below we see Phil taking off the border rows to get ready to run the plots. On the left is one of our recently planted winter wheat plots that is looking good. Round and round as usual.
We were anxious to get done as rain was on the way. In fact the weather guy on the local weather channel said that heavy rain was possible over the next two days.

Looks like he was right based on this picture taken after lunch today.

So we will use this time to summarize results, work on equipment, and get ready to start corn harvest. Being cold and rainy out makes this a good day to eat up a big, steaming bowl of Butt Squash. Dive on in!

Pay Your Bet

2011-10-17T15:42:00.002-04:00

So you know that there was a bet made between Tim and Stephanie/me on the outcome of the football game between Michigan State and Michigan. The picture below tells that the winner was the Spartans (of course.) The bet was to hold a decorated pumpkin (designed by Stephanie), and Tim added the facial expression himself. I don't know if he is referring to his having to hold a Spartan pumpkin, or to the way the Wolverines played. Well, better luck next year. You'll need it!

Showdown

2011-10-14T16:58:00.002-04:00

So I mentioned yesterday that tomorrow is the big game in the state of Michigan. It's Michigan (booo) vs. Michigan State (Go Green...Go White). The line is drawn and the bets are made here at the NCRS. Tim thinks the Wolverines will prevail while Stephanie and I are confident the Spartans will continue the dominance of the past three years. Tune in Monday to find out what the bet was and watch the loser (not losers) pay off.

Recruiting Trip

2011-10-13T22:14:00.004-04:00

So today Stephanie and I did something different. We attended the Michigan State University College of Agriculture Job Fair. It was nice to get away from the farm for a day, although we do not understand why they have an agriculture job fair during harvest, but that is beyond our control. It was kind of damp today anyway. The event was held at the MSU Spartan Football Stadium, in fact in the same spot that we had our PLFP dealer meeting last year. But after our table set up, they gave us vendors a meal prior to the 4 pm start, and it was up in the press box of the stadium. (Notice our "Alumni" ribbons.) It is quite a view. Here is a view of the stadium from the press box. This weekend is the big rivalry game between the MSU Spartans and that team from Ann Arbor. It will be here at Spartan Stadium in front of over 76,000 fans. They had it covered, I guess due to the threat of rain. They had big blowers at either end to keep air flow over the turf. Did you know that MSU has beaten the lowly Wolverines the past three years? Well they have and hopefully it will be four straight on Saturday.Here is a view from the other side. This is the pool that I used to swim in many (ok, an extra "many") years ago. And I even dove off of that 10 meter tower on the left. Foolish youth. And that building on top is where MSU plays hockey. They were NCAA champions as recently as 2007.

Here is our table. We are talking to students about being an intern at the NCRS next summer. And who should stop by but Jeff and Amanda. They are doing well but certainly miss the farm. They are standing by their posters of their internship this past year. They should both be graduating next year, so if you are looking for some top notch workers, they would be an asset for your business. (Really! Contact me for more information.) Over the course of the evening we talked to a number of intern candidates, although they would have some big shoes to fill.

It is the first time we have been to this job fair, but it was pretty busy. There were 66 businesses and agencies there talking to students about internships and full time employment. It was fun to participate and see the students so full of hope and optimism. I was like that once...and still am as the future of agiculture is very promising. No matter what, people have to eat.

Now that was a day!

Making Progress

2011-10-12T21:33:00.003-04:00

So yesterday we harvested this soybean test on Farm 5 and this morning we planted another winter wheat experiment. This one will evaluate timing of application of Pro-Germinator and Sure-K. Here is Phil running the drill. And here is a picture from my familiar spot in the Hagie making broadcast applications. The main fall-applied wheat fertilizer around these parts is none, even though we have demonstrated significant yield increases with Liquid. Many growers are too busy with harvest to spend time with fertilizing wheat. But we will keep trying to spread the word. Also few drills are set up with liquid attachments. Anyway, a challenge with broadcasting liquid fertilizer is all of the crop residue on the soil surface.
Then this afternoon it was back to soybean harvest. We harvested three soybean tests on Farm 7 today. There are only two more soybean tests to harvest, and those are on Farm 3.

On my way home, I stopped by the wheat field that we planted this morning and was happy to see that it was up already.

Oh wait, I think I was looking at another field. Sorry.

One Thing After Another

2011-10-11T21:14:00.004-04:00

So harvesting continues. Yesterday we harvested our Black Bean plot. As you can see, it was great fun. Black beans are unloaded into the trailer as they begin their journey to market. Hope they aren't disappointed.
Here is Doug late in the day harvesting one of our "production", or non-test plot fields. Pretty, isn't it.

Then today we established a winter wheat experiment after the black beans were harvested yesterday. It is an interesting array of treatments, some drill-applied, and some broadcast. That's Doug running the drill and your author in the sprayer, in this pic taken by Stephanie.

Here we see Doug and Stephanie mixing another treatment for the drill to apply during planting. Generally we find that drill-applied fertilizer works the best. But we have also had good results with sprayed planter-time fertilizer.

After planting wheat this morning, it was back to harvesting soybean plots this afternoon. We have made good progress with bean harvest in this stretch of warm weather. The end of soybean plot harvest is in sight. But rain is forecast for later in the week, and we have one more wheat plot to plant tomorrow. So the rain will be good for that.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Beautiful Day Out...Let's Harvest Soybeans!

2011-10-08T20:21:00.003-04:00

So this incredible summer weather continues. It got up to 81 degrees today. But today the trees are really starting to show fall color. This is on the Road to Farm 7, where our adventure begins. We started harvesting there yesterday. Below is what an unharvested soybean experiment looks like when we arrive. Each experiment usually has 10 treatments with 4 replications. Let's see....that would be...(just checking)....40 plots to be harvested. Each plot is 265 feet long. It takes about an hour and a half to harvest one experiment. Today we harvested two, so that would be...let's see.....(just checking).....ok, about 3 hours. Not too bad for a Saturday afternoon.
Phil opens up the experiment by harvesting off the border rows. It is plenty dusty, as beans usually are. And they were dry, less than 13% moisture. Don't worry Mom, I have a dust mask when in the dust trails.

And the familiar site of the weigh cart chasing the combine from plot to plot.

When the cart got full, it was dumped into the grain trailer. Note the word Research on the side.

We also like the company theme "Research Driven, Farmer Trusted" on the fender. We do the "Research" part, and are glad when the "Farmer Trusted" part follows.

Haven't had a chance to see how the treatments in the experiments are doing so far, but we are pretty happy with the yields considering the year. But the results will be coming. All that is hidden will be made clear. Happy harvesting yourself.

More Soybeans Harvested Today

2011-10-06T22:18:00.003-04:00

So remember last Wednesday when I showed a picture of a big field of soybeans that I said I would show again after harvest. Well here it is and that's Doug planting wheat. This field was tiled last fall and was still a little rough as it was no-till this year. So I'm sorry to say that we worked this ground to smooth it out, and we will return to reduced tillage in the future. In the meantime it was back to soybean plot harvest, today on Farm 5. And that means the grain cart was again chasing the combine around the plots.
Here is Phil dumping the beans from a plot into the grain cart for weighing.

Stephanie was back in the chair at the scale today as I conveniently had a meeting at the Liquid world headquarters this morning and early afternoon.

Phil demonstrates how happy all of us are during harvest.

We harvested two soybean experiments today. Here is the second experiment after soybean removal. It's a pretty scene of former landowner Lyle Hynes barn and shop. Lyle is still around.

So it was another good day. As far as the scene below....don't ask!

I forgot to mention that the summer-like weather continued today. It was up to nearly 80 degres this afternoon. This is great for our late corn. The warm weather will continue, and so will we.

Busy, Busy Day

2011-10-05T23:00:00.002-04:00

So I was walking outside the office barn here at the NCRS and out of the corner of my eye I see a couple of sunbathers with their backsides to me, sitting on the sand. I tell them to please not turn around. And then on closer inspection I see that it is just a couple of gourds (or some sort of butt squash) that Brian grew in the vine crop area. I will have to ask him what kind of mad science they are doing over there.

In the meantime they had brought up pumpkins from the pumpkin plots. Most are given away. (Note to self: claim a few for the front porch at home before they are all gone.) Below we see Dan, Tim and Brian. And who is that on the right? Why it's Tony who came all the way from town to see us. (Wonder what he really wants?)

Today we got started planting wheat. Remember the other day I said that we would plant a wheat experiment after Navy Bean harvest? Well that is what we are doing below. Phil guides the drill through a plot.
And just like we all do, Phil proves he is letting the auto-steer do all of the hard work by saying "Look Ma, no hands!"

And as if that were not enough, we had another group stop by for an afternoon plot tour. These were a couple of Michigan dealers and a grower who used Liquid fertilizer for the first time this year. They were accompanied by Brian Martidale, Area Sales Manager for this part of Michigan. He is below on the right. Here Stephanie explains what we were doing in this soybean foliar fertilization experiment. We hope to harvest it pretty soon.

And that concludes the tour season at the farm. Now go home and harvest something! Yes it was a busy day, with many more to come the rest of the month.

Soybean Harvest Begins

2011-10-04T22:53:00.002-04:00

So following Navy Bean harvest yesterday, we started on soybeans today. But first there was some PR work to do. It was decided to make nice with the neighbors of all nine of the farms of the North Central Research Station. Especially since there may have been some noise and distractions from some of the construction projects this year that may have interupted the sleepy rural setting. Since it was likely that they would not really like a bucket full of corn and soybeans, it was thought that a basket of stuff that you could actually eat would be better. So Stephanie got a hold of real baskets while Brian, Tim and Dan assembled a supply of potatoes, bell peppers, carrots, onions, watermelons, pumpkins and gourds for distribution. Tim and Stephanie then hit the road delivering the goods. It went over well. Don't you wished you lived next to the NCRS? Then this afternoon after the dew burned off, we started with the soybean experiment on Farm 6. This ground is pretty sandy and tended to be pretty dry this summer. So these reached maturity before most of the other farms. In fact most of the soybeans around still had some patches of green beans, and so we could use a good freeze to finish the job. It was my turn to ride in the grain cart and record the plot weights. Ron ran the combine and Doug drove the cart tractor.
We have never worked much with cover crops at the NCRS. Sometimes we have planted oats on some lighter ground that give some residue and hold the soil in place. Oats are killed by frost in the early winter, and so do not get very big. But this year we are working with some cereal rye planted right after harvest here on the light ground of Farm 6. This will survive the winter and will need to be killed prior to planting. You don't see much cover crop planting this far North, but we will give it a try as some growers swear by it. It could give some residue and perhaps build organic matter over time. Some think it helps with weed control from allelopathy.

We planted alternating strips of rye and will have treatments in corn next year both with and without the rye to see if there is an effect. We plan to repeat this over time, planting rye after soybeans each year. There was good soil moisture, so hopefully it gets established quickly.

If it looks cool after emergence, I'll take some pictures...as usual.

Lights, Camera...OK, not much action

2011-10-03T22:09:00.005-04:00

So today I got to make a movie. Well maybe not a real movie. It's not like we're down on a Caribbean beach or something. No we are at the North Central Research Station and I am giving a season-ending summary of the Year In Research. It was our first day of fall harvest which made a nice background. I'm not sure when this will be through final edits or if I will ultimately end up on the cutting room floor, but I gave it my best. I use the "method acting" technique where I try to identify with my character who is a research agronomist for a leading fertilizer manufacturer. Oh wait.... We are once again under the direction of Mick Rizzo of Creative Services, shown below on the right. That's Michael on the left. They use two cameras, one with a tight shot and one with a wide shot, and then put them all together with what looks best.
And here is the first field crop harvest of the fall: Navy Beans. We do these beans first because there is a severe dockage penalty if there are other beans, like soybeans, in the load. And so we will switch to soybeans tomorrow, as cleaning out a combine of all the loose beans is a big pain. Although we will have to do it next week when the Black Beans are ready. But that's not till next week and we researchers live in the present. Below we see Phil at the combine controls with Ron pulling the weigh wagon with Stephanie inside it. Well actually he is driving the tractor that is pulling it. As previously mentioned, we harvest the middle four rows of the six-row plot, with the outside rows serving as borders. The border rows are taken off in the next round with the combine.

As I have said before, we really like the AWS Wind Reel on the front of the grain head. It blows air that helps feed the cut bean plants and shattered beans into the feeder house of the combine. We used to have problems when we got to the end of a plot and bean plants would still be sitting on the cutter bar, and you would have to shake the grain head up and down to get them to feed, and that didn't always work. Plus this slowed down harvest. But those problems are a thing of the past, and we are thankful for that.

Here is the plot weighing process. Phil unloads the beans for a plot into the scaled grain cart, and Stephanie records the weight.

Additionally, Stephanie will collect a bean sample for moisture determination back in the office.

And here is the last pass. That's a wrap. (I learned that as I was being a movie star. It means we're done.)

Tomorrow we will plant winter wheat here. It won't be filmed, just my usual still pictures. But "thanks for watching." (Spoiler alert! That was my last line in the movie.)

Biding Our Time

2011-09-28T16:45:00.002-04:00

So the vegetable crew is still in full harvest mode. Below we see Troy checking on Jalapeno pepper progress with Brian. No time to visit, Dan and Tim keep picking. Get the chips ready for some hot dip.The field crop folks are getting the combine ready to start harvest. Hopefully we can get started next week as it is supposed to dry out and even be up to the 70's. Last year with early planting and lot's of good heat units, we started harvesting corn even in mid-September. But not this year with the late planting start and wet spring. But it will happen soon as Doug and Ron make sure that harvest will be problem free. (Now there's pressure.)
You can see the drill in the back of the above picture getting ready to plant wheat as soon as the Navy and soybeans are harvested. Below is one of our production fields that was planted early, and is a short-season variety. Hopefully next week I can show the same view with the beans gone.

We will be ready.

Crunching Numbers Part 2

2011-09-27T16:50:00.004-04:00

So it's good to be back. It has been cloudy and rainy the past several days, but still warm in the 60's. It hasn't frosted since a brief one last week that did only some minor frosting of some crop leaves. On September 5 I made a blog post called "Crunching Numbers" where I talked about how many Growing Degree Days (GDD) we still needed for our corn to reach maturity, or black layer. Growing Degree Days are calculated daily based on high and low temperature. (As a refresher, or for those who don't grow corn, the black layer forms when the kernal is mature and is no longer connected to the cob for nutrient and water uptake. So the "connectors" turn black as their use is complete.) We have received 2550 GDD since May 5 as of today. So any corn needing that much or fewer GDD would be mature. And such was the case of some 98 day corn that we planted on May 5 on Farm 3. It requires 2450 GDD for maturity, and as the picture below shows, it has reached black layer. But not all of the corn is so lucky. The corn below planted on Farm 7 is a 103 day hybrid that requires 2575 GDD to reach maturity, and it was planted on May 10. (Due to the wet spring, our planting sequence got a little out of sorts, and perhaps we should have switched hybrids and planted the fuller season ones first. But who knew.) The corn is still somewhat green, and is next to a soybean plot where most of the leaves have dropped. These were group 2.4 beans.
Since planting, it has received 2508 GDD and still lacks 67 GDD to be physiologically mature. I'm sure there is some "wiggle room" in these numbers, but they are a pretty good indicator. As you can see in the picture below, it is not at black layer, but is close. Now we estimate with current high temperatures in the low to mid-60's, and lows in the lower 40's, that we are getting around 7 or so GDD's per day. So I suspect we will reach maturity with this corn.

But this is probably not the case with all of our corn. Again, due to the exceptionally wet May, some of our corn did not get planted until June 1. We traded in our 103 day corn for a shorter maturity number, and planted some 96 day corn then. That was all that was available then. Now it requires 2410 GDD to reach black layer, and it has only received 2238 GDD since planting. So we are 172 GDD short as of today, and it is unlikely that we will be able to get that many GDD's before killing frost. So it will be harvested wet and with a poor test weight. But we only have one experiment with this corn, and the results will be meaningful. I feel it.

Also on Farm 7 are our Black Beans. Again due to rain and planting delays, they weren't planted till June 27 which is about 2 weeks later than normal. They are now pretty much mature and are dropping leaves. We hope to apply the defoliation treatment soon, but it has rained every day this week, with more in the forecast. Edible beans like our Navy Beans and these Black Beans are usually the first plots we harvest, and the defoliant helps to complete leaf drop and pod drying. Below Stephanie gives them an inspection.

Below is a dry pod that I opened to show the black beans inside. Aren't they pretty? In case you missed it, as I have said numerous times, Michigan is the nations' Number 1 producer of Black Beans. So be thankful next time you eat refried beans.

In fact, I'm headed for the Taco Bell drive-through right now. Adios.

So it's good to be back. It has been cloudy and rainy the past few days, but fairly warm in the 60's. It hasn't been below freezing except for one day last week. On September 5 there was a blog called "Crunching Numbers" where I talked about how many Growing Degree Days (GDD) we lacked for corn maturity. We had some 98 day corn that has just recently reached black layer. It was planted on May 5 and needed 2450 GDD for black layer, and we have recieved 2550 as of today. Sure enough, as the picture below shows, it is, in fact, at black layer.

Please Stand By

2011-09-19T21:28:00.002-04:00

So our blog is down for a bit of upgrading. As it says: Please Stand By. (Or sit or whatever makes you comfortable.) It will be back. Honest!

Back For A Visit

2011-09-13T15:52:00.004-04:00

So yesterday we had a couple of return visitors. On the left is Ron Mulford, retired from the University of Maryland where he was manager of the Poplar Hill Research Facility on the Eastern Shore. In fact he was there for nearly 40 years, and has had plot evaluations of Agro-Culture Liquid Fertilizers in corn, wheat and soybeans. Last year about this time he paid us a visit, and was back again yesterday. He was accompanyed by Benjy Conover, Sales Account Manager for Liquid in that area.Even though he is retired, he likes field research so much that he is still going strong with a variety of plotwork for different ag interests, including ACLF. Ron has seen favorable results with Liquid in several tests over the years and has shared his impressions at a number of local meetings. (There are results printed in the 2010 NCRS Research Report on the website.) He brought with him results from this years testing from several sites for wheat and corn. Ron admits that he is impressed by the size and the top of the line research equipment used here at the NCRS to ensure accuracy of applications. One piece of equipment that really caught his eye was our modified air flow dry fertilizer applicator (see May 11 blog). While we are a liquid fertilizer company, accurate comparisons of products is key. This machine ensures that comparison treatments are applied right as we strive for the fertilizer truth. Anyway, it was an enjoyable day discussing results and looking at our plots in the nice weather that we had.

Farm Tour Season Is Not Over

2011-09-09T16:26:00.004-04:00

So I guess the word is getting around and folks are still flocking to the NCRS for a tour of the place. On Wednesday we welcomed a small group of growers and dealers from North and South Dakota. They flew here in the morning (and boy were their arms tired. But seriously folks...is this thing on?) and headed to the farm for a quick lunch and introduction to the place. And then it was time to hit the fields. At the first stop below, we see Brian talking about the potato plots and what went on there. Next Stephanie talked about the Navy bean plots. North Dakota in particular grows much of the country's edible field beans (along with Michigan.)
Below some guy discusses one of the corn plots using ears as props. Chad does not appear convinced.

After the excitement of the farm, the group drove over to Ashley for a look at the plant. Plant Manager Gerrit Bancroft was our host. Below he shows the manifold system that loads the tanker trucks.

Then we went outside to look at some of the storage tanks, rail car loading, and the area where loaded tankers are parked awaiting trucks for delivery. As has been the case in previous visits, the 9000 gallon "supertanker" garners extra attention. These particular visitors had not seen tankers of this size with the extra axles. They are common in Michigan, but are not legal everywhere. In fact, this tanker is only licensed in Michigan and Ontario. It sure would make deliveries more efficient if they could go more places. They are double the size of the regular tankers.

Then it was back around to the front, say hi to Michelle and Bill, and back to the airport and fly home before supper. The only way to go. It was actually kind of chilly that day and several of the guys were looking forward to getting back to North Dakota so they could warm up. Probably won't be saying that much longer. Thanks to Kevin and Chad for setting this up.

Then yesterday Stephanie and I went over to Michigan State University's Saginaw Valley Research & Extension Center near Frankenmuth. We have some foliar fertilizer treatments for sugarbeets in some of their test plots there. There may have been a little more leaf size and slightly greener leaves as well on the beets with foliars. But the leaves are starting to lose some color now anyway as the beets begin to bulk up now that it is getting late in the season.

The experiment below is testing some different treatments for Cercospora leaf spot, a serious fungal disease of sugarbeets. This can be a devastating disease and most beets around here are treated several times a year with fungicides to keep it at bay. In fact, Phil made a fungicide application on our beets today. Fortunately improved genetics have helped too. Whatever they are doing, it doesn't look like much is working. However I was told that these beets were innoculated with Cercospora for the test, so I guess it would be worse than in real life.

Then this morning I was taking a look around and stopped by the grape plots. Brian, Dan and Tim have already started picking these Concord grapes. They are really pretty, and they taste like a bite of grape jelly.

And who should stop by this afternoon but Jeff. Only gone a little over a week, and he missed us so much that he had to come back. Actually he came back for his weed collection for a class. And he wasn't quite finished and had to track down a couple more. Below he is digging up the elusive Jimson weed (Datura stramonium, yep, I still got got it!). One catch to plant collecting is that they have to have a flower or seeds, and these are now flowering.

So it was a busy week, even though it was short with Labor Day.

Crunching Numbers

2011-09-05T17:21:00.006-04:00

So here it is September already. And here I go again talking about the weather. This is Labor Day, and so the farm was closed today. We were so hot for much of the summer, but lately we have had some nice days in the 70's and 80's, but one warm day in the upper 80's or 90's still shows up on occasion. Saturday was one of those hot and humid days. Doing anything outside made you sweat, and I did. Then today, Monday, it only got up to 62 for a high. Much of the day was cloudy and in the 50's. What gives? And I looked at the weather around the country and it was cool down in Oklahoma. I called my parents in Stillwater this afternoon, and it was in the 70's after roasting in the 100's just two days ago.

So anyway, with the late planting of some of our corn, and the cold start of the season, one wonders how much longer till the ears reach maturity. Fortuntely, Stephanie does a great job of keeping track of things like this, so that when I ask, she delivers. We planted much of our corn the first week of May. So from May 10 through September 1, we have had 2216 Growing Degree Days (GDD). (We normally can start planting around April 24th or so, but not this year.) We planted mostly 103 day corn this year, which takes 2575 GDD to reach physiological maturity, or black layer. So we still need around 359 GDD to reach black layer. We think we should get around 14 GDD per day, so that means we should be able to reach black layer by the end of September, which is good. As long as we don't get a frost. But what about the corn we planted in June??? We planted some 96 day corn on June 1. So from June 2 to September 1, we received 1933 GDD, and it takes 2410 GDD to reach black layer. So we still need 477 GDD for that. So if we can average 14 GDD per day, that leaves us 34 days, or into the first week of October. We have usually had some frost by then, but hopefully not a killing frost. So there will be plenty of thermometer watching and nervous pacing in the farm office.

Well since I made you read through all of that, I am going to take a chance and break one of my journalistic rules, again. I generally don't like to show a bunch of plot picture stuff and get excited about it, only to be dashed by harvest numbers that don't support what I thought I saw. But harvest is a ways off and no one will remember anyway. So here goes....

In preparation for one of the recent farm tours, we picked some ears from one of the corn experiments to see if there were any visible differences. This was a corn experiment comparing applications of all of the different ACLF sulfur fertilizers. This soil has only 6 ppm of sulfur, which is quite low. One of these sulfur additive was the new fertilizer product accesS. Currently we do not recommend in-furrow application of accesS, as it lowered yield on coarse soil last year. It should be placed 2x2 or with N at sidedress. But this test was in heavier soil. For in-furrow on corn, eNhance has shown to be an effective sulfur treatment in combination with combinations of Pro-Germinator, Sure-K and Micro 500. Anyway, in the experiment we applied a number of sulfur treatments with 3 gal/A Pro-Germinator + 7 gal/A Sure-K + 2 qt/A Micro 500 through the planter. These ears were picked from one replication and are in the picture below. Three consecutive ears were picked and the two most unifrom ears were in the picture. And this corn was one of the late-planted plots, inserted into the ground on June 1.

On the left, labelled 3-1 was 2 qt/A of accesS in 2x2 placement. Next was 2 qt/A of accesS with in-furrow placement (3-2). Next was 2 qt/A of eNhance with in-furrow placement (3-5). And on the right is in-furrow planter fertilizer with no added sulfur (3-9). So it was apparent that the ears that received sulfur were bigger, and at the time of picking, were darker yellow indicating advanced maturity. But again, harvest will tell the real story, more so than two picked ears from one replication. But a guy can dream, can't he???

So it was nice to see some visual differences anyway. Something to tide us over till harvest I guess.

Hope You Like Peppers

2011-09-05T16:36:00.003-04:00

So I've said that one of the best things about working at the North Central Research Station is that you get so much great produce to eat. I quit my home vegetable garden years ago. But the problem is that it takes manual labor to get the great eats. This is when I really miss Jeff, Amanda and the Jakes. But last Friday it was time to pick green peppers, again. So Stephanie and I decided to be nice and help Brian with the task. There were both Green Peppers and the purple Tequila Peppers to be picked in a test. It really isn't too bad, as long as you don't mind lots of bending over. I often go to the just sit on the ground method. Pepper plots are picked numerous times once they become the right size.

This isn't just for fun, it's an experiment. So the pickings must be weighed, as Stephanie does below, and counted.
And then after dumping into the tote, go back and do it to the next plot. This tote will soon be on its way to the Food Bank, after some is taken to meet the requests of fellow Liquid employees at the farm, office and plant. You don't have to tell us to eat our vegetables.

There are still plenty of peppers on the plants that will continue to size up, and be picked the next time, and the next time and the next time....

Picture Day

2011-08-31T22:24:00.002-04:00

So we were all dressed up for the grower tour yesterday, and what better time for some pictures? We especially wanted a current picture of the full-time research staff for our website. Here it is almost September and we still don't have a picture with Dan. He was probably wondering what was taking so long. Below is a group shot of everyone left at the farm. And lucky us, it was taken by a professional photographer with a big fancy camera, one that you don't carry in your pocket even. That photographer is John, on the left in the picture. I don't know if I've mentioned him in the blog before, but in addition to being a photographer, he helps us on the farm in the summers, mainly with landscaping duties. And since he took the pictures, we decided to let him be in one. And just like last week when we had to say good-bye to the Jakes, yesterday we had to do the same to Amanda and Jeff. It was time for them to head back to classes at Michigan State University. And I hope they both took a little of the North Central Research Station back to school with them. (You know, as long as it wasn't tools or a tractor or something.)

They were both great workers and a big help in all aspects of the farm work and plot establishment. Good luck to you both and stop by any time.

Grower Tour of the NCRS

2011-08-31T21:27:00.003-04:00

So yesterday was probably our most important tour so far since it was mainly for growers. Some are already using Agro-Culture Liquid Fertilizers, and some are just interested and came to take a look at the place. So us worker types assembled at the farm at sunrise to get ready for the 9 am start time. I guess I will say that sunrise now is at around 7 am, so it really isn't too bad. For the morning tour, we divided up into three groups. Stephanie and I each took a group on the field crop tour, and Brian led the specialty crop tour, you know, like vegetables. It was a pretty good sized group of attendees. Most were from Michigan, but others came from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Iowa, North Dakota, and probably other states as well. Here is the trailer arriving for the first stop on Farm 7.
Most hopped off the trailer for a closer look at ears and roots pulled and dug from this corn plot.

This is either a treatment comparison or an ear auction.

Would you like to spend your birthday talking to a bunch of people about Navy Beans? Well whether Stephanie liked it or not, she did it.

Even Amanda got into the presenter mode as she took a turn to talk about a soybean foliar fertilizer experiment at a stop on the afternoon tour. (Jeff also took a turn on the morning tour.)

The birthday girl waits on the start of the afternoon tour along with Doug, Phil and Jeff.

Here we see Brian and Tim showing the afternoon vegetable group a field of dead potatoes.

Doug explains the layout of the new fertilizer and chemical containment building. It goes above and beyond what is required, but that's just the type of company we are.

Troy Bancroft provided some additional words about how Agro-Culture Liquid Fertilizers goes the extra mile in everything we do in order to be environmentally responsible. This pertains to the responsibility of being good neighbors to those living near the farm and manufacturing plant, as well as in product production, delivery and nutrient characteristics. For more information, he suggested visiting the Responsible Nutrient Management Foundation website: www.rnmf.org.

With the tours wrapped up and everyone gone home, it was time for the deer to come back out and continue eating our corn.

PLFP Specialty Crop Tour

2011-08-27T09:06:00.003-04:00

So last Wednesday's PLFP tour of the NCRS also included a look at fertilizer research of specialty crops. Brian, Dan and Tim hosted that event. Below Brian talks about the potato plots. You can see that they are getting close to harvest. In fact, yesterday the vine killing application was made. Another stop looked at the cole crops: cauliflower and broccoli. The cauliflower harvest has been completed previously, but Dan is still stretching the broccoli production to see how long it will go.
Here we see Brian and Dan demonstrating the backpack air blast sprayer. It is used extensively for fertilizer application as well as for disease and pest control.

The tour also included the now famous melon taste test of cantaloupes and watermelons from both Liquid and conventional fertilizer programs. There is a difference.

Here is a stop at the vineyard, which also contains other perennial crops like blueberries and landscape trees. This year will be the first grape harvest for the NCRS.

And that wrapped up the tours for this week, but more to follow....

Farm Tour Yesterday Was Wet, But Well Worth It

2011-08-25T21:48:00.005-04:00

So we had our big dealer and sales management tour yesterday. It was part of the the big annual Professional Liquid Fertilizer Program for Agro-Culture Liquid Fertilizers. In all the years of having tours at the NCRS, we have never been completely rained out. But with the rain over the weekend, and then an additional half inch on Tuesday night, we would have to alter the tour. That meant leaving out Farm 7 which has heavier soil and was too muddy. Sadly the field bathrooms would be unused this day.But it wouldn't be a complete downer. On the bright side we got to watch NCRS vegetable donations being loaded onto the Mid-Michigan Food Bank truck. I think we are over 9000 pounds so far, with much more to come.
There is no doubt where these came from. These are the collapsable totes that will be returned later for more. It really is so much better than the boxes that used to be hand loaded.
So we already had a contingency plan in place just in case of rain. So when the tour started late in the afternoon, we were able to get on Farms 3 and 5 and show some interesting plots there. And then to fill the remaining time, we returned to the Farm office shop where we showed some pictures of the Farm 7 tour plots with accompanying Travel Log information. Additionally there were some Liquid fertilizer fun facts and some information on how we do plot research at the farm. I thought it was very enlightening. Hopefully I wasn't the only one.

Because of the large number of farm tourists, about 180 or so, we split into three groups. About 30 to 40 went with Dr. Brian and the Specialty Crop staff, whose tour was not hindered by the rain. The other two groups were divided between Stephanie and myself. Below we see Stephanie talking about one of the corn experiments on Farm 3.

And here I am talking about fertilizer comparisons in Navy Beans. Riveting!

Sadly, I have not gotten pictures from Brian, so those will have to wait. (We had additional meetings today at the hotel site.) The groups had meetings at the hotel in the morning, then went up to tour the new Ashley manufacturing plant in the afternoon, and then came to the farm. So it was a long day for them. (I imagine that Nick will have pictures of the plant tour on his blog.) Away the busses went after the farm festivities drew to a close.

That evening there was a dinner at the Ashley plant for company employees, friends and those vendors who actually built the place. I realized that this was the last day for Jake and Jake, or the Jakes as we call them. They both have worked at the farm in the summer for many years, since they were in high school. Left Jake departs to his Junior year at Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia and Right Jake to his Senior year at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. So this might be the end of the Jakes, as far as working at the NCRS. How sad for us. Bye Jakes, and good luck.

So after that dinner, which was really nice and well attended, I headed for home, stopping to take this picture at the NCRS on my way.

So that would be two farm tours down with two to go. Next Tuesday is the tour for real farmers. If you want to attend and can make it to Michigan, give Stephanie a call. It's not too hard to track her down.

Still At It (and "It" is Research)

2011-08-23T13:23:00.003-04:00

So yesterday was another beautiful Monday at the farm. Temperatures only in the 70's and we got 0.8 inches of rain over the weekend. So no need to run irrigation again. We are happy when it rains on the weekend so that it doesn't interfere with work. It was time to pick cantaloupes. Brian likes to make a game of it to keep the workers entertained. Here he tosses a ripe melon to John, who adds it to the pile for that plot. I didn't see any drops anyway. Then it is up to Tim to make the melon count and record the weights.
The field crops department has one more foliar application for the summer, that being on Black Beans. (Of which Michigan is the number one producing state.) Since it is the last one, and since interns Jeff and Amanda are now short-timers, they each got to make up a foliar treatment based on the vast fertilizer knowledge they acquired this summer. Here they are mixing up the treatments, with Jeff making sure he is grabbing the correct fertilizer jug.

Here is what the beans looked like yesterday. They are starting to vine and are flowering.

So they made this a contest for best treatment yield. The gloves are off. And to make it fair, each one made their own applications. Here goes Jeff.

And now here comes Amanda. We may have to call them out of class for harvest to keep it fair.

With that done there is still some vegetable picking today. But the main job is getting ready for our big company fertilizer dealers and sales management tour tomorrow. Tune in here for the latest on that later in the week.

Saturday Raceday at MIS

2011-08-20T21:13:00.007-04:00

So you may recall that Agro-Culture Liquid Fertilizers is a supporter of an organization called Farm American. Its purpose is to promote agriculture to the non-agricultural public. Quite simply, to promote the concept that, although other segments of our economy rely on imports, our food supply is best and most safely provided by American farmers and ranchers. So this weekends NASCAR race at Michigan International Speedway will have the #78 Furniture Row car displaying the Farm American paint. Well that race is tomorrow. Today's race was of the NASCAR truck series: The VFW 200. Liquid, through Albert Bancroft, was able to obtain tickets and a track suite to watch this race, and some 23 Liquidites and family were able to go watch. We left St. Johns early and arrived at the track in Brooklyn around 8:30 am. We were met by our hosts, some from Furniture Row racing, and Albert.They have let Liquid use their show car at various events around the country. I have featured several mentions of it here on the blog. And here was the car again, waiting for all of us to assemble and be photographed. It was a beautiful morning.
Well wouldn't you know it, but three of us were called out for a secret event. So Jean, Dennis and myself were escorted to the track where we got to ride in one of the pace cars, a souped up Camero. Thanks to PR man Jeff Owen for setting it up. Our driver was an actual NASCAR truck driver, Dakoda Armstrong. (And that is my bag of crossword puzzles and magazines, not a purse. Well maybe it is, not that there's anything wrong with that.)
I don't follow truck racing, and did not know who Dakoda was at the time. But he was a very nice guy in his first year as a race truck driver. And he just turned 20, and he was driving us around at over 130 mph! I looked him up on the internet when I got home and found his website. It seems that he grew up on a large grain farm in Indiana. I didn't know at the time that he was once a farmer or I would have introduced him to Liquid. Although I guess he had enough on his mind already. But he was a very nice guy, and I'm sure the girls find him easy on the eyes. So he became my new favorite truck driver.
Here is the view as we went around the track. We made three lightning laps. It was really fun. That Camero is not very roomy, but is built for speed.

After our ride we got to look at the race trucks. I will say that they really don't look like trucks as they are so low to the ground and it looks like the body is shorter from top to bottom. The beds are covered too. And look at the camber, or tilt, of the left side wheels. I guess that is to better grab the banked track. The trucks then went out to qualify for race position yet that morning.

Later I saw Dakoda and his crew waiting to qualify. I guess that some of the sponsors like his farm background, as there are several ag businesses on his truck. He did go on to qualify for the race.

Up at suite level, you can see what they call the Midway, or where team merchandise is sold. I took a quick walk through earlier, but unfortunately, I did not see the Danica Patrick merchandise trailer at that time. It's the green one in back. Well it was too far to go back down, but I probably would have found something of Danica's worth having.

Then after truck qualifying, they let the Cup cars out for a practice. The "Cup" cars are the ones that will race tomorrow. It is the big leagues of racing. We had scanner radios that let us listen to the drivers talk to their teams as they tried for last minute adjustments. It was fun to see. Below is a stream of cars going down the pit road to the track. Unfortunately, all of my pictures of the cars on the track are blurry due to speed. The posted speeds of laps on the board was around 187 mph. Below we see the #78 car in the middle driven by our favorite driver, Regan Smith.

The cars would go out for awhile, then go back to their garage, then back out, then back to the garage, and so on, trying for that magic adjustment. Below is Regan on the side of the track doing something. Hopefully it is the right stuff.

Then I saw the #88 driving by the parked and waiting #98 truck of my new favorite driver Dakoda. I don't need to say who #88 is do I?

And at 12:30, the trucks were off and racing. Here is the view to the left from the Farm American suite.

And then we had a special guest: Regan Smith. He dropped by for the proverbial Meet and Greet, answered questions and signed autographs. (I noticed a lot of the drivers would gladly sign autographs, unlike other sports stars.) I have not seen him before, but he is genuinely very nice and friendly. He seemed like he enjoyed the visit, even though he probably has to do this type of thing often. But he was really supportive of Farm American and thanked Liquid for it's support of that.

And he posed for pictures, here with Albert in front of the Farm American poster. Then he had to go start loading up on pasta (from American wheat), the energy food for tomorrow's race. He is scheduled to be at the Ashley plant open house next Wednesday. But I know he would rather see the farm and race tractors.

After that, it was back to watching the trucks go round and round. Here is the view looking right.

I went outside the suite to look at the stands. Unfortunately, truck racing does not seem to be a huge draw. I don't see how it continues with low attendance, but what do I know? Maybe if they used regular stock pickup trucks hauling fertilizer totes it would bring in more fans.

And after 200 miles, your winner was Kevin Harvick, who is also a Cup driver. Sadly, Dakoda got taken out by a big wreck not too far from the finish. It wasn't his fault as he did not make any errors driving us around earlier. There is a truck in all of that tire smoke from the victory burnout.

And like all champions, he stands on the door and waves. Maybe our fertilizer truck drivers should do that after making a delivery. I will get right on that. (What is Tapout you may ask? Fighting clothes like for ultimate fighters. Probably not going to wear any of that on the upcoming tours. But a nice win for the sponsor none the less.)

So it was a great day, something new for us. Thanks to Albert, Farm American and Furniture Row racing for such great hospitlity. And tomorrow: Good Luck Regan!

Showing Off The Farm Today

2011-08-18T17:07:00.006-04:00

So it was early to the NCRS today to get ready for our first day of farm tours. We were expecting a group of growers from Ontario with AgroSpray, as well as a group from Tennessee and Kentucky with Security Seed. The Canadians arrived first, and after welcoming remarks by VP Nick, some comments on the how to's of research, weather and Michigan agriculture, Stephanie headed off with that group for a tour. The other group arrived later, and after a similar intake of coffee, donuts and information, they took off with me.Below they hear the details of a soybean experiment...
...and of a corn experiment. Repeat a few times, and throw in navy beans and sugarbeets for good measure, and that's a show!

At one stop we examined treatment effects on corn ears. (Want to know what they were? Then come to a tour.)

Phil gives the group an explanation of our new containmnet building.

After lunch, Brian gave a taste test of watermelons and cantaloupes from both a conventional fertilizer program and from a Liquid program. (I was a little late with the camera, as there was quite a crowd earlier. But I was still eating lunch.) The fruit's fertilizer program was kept a secret during testing.

Quiet please, here are the results. Brian confirms that Liquid does in fact have the firmest and sweetest melons. Yay Liquid!

And with that, the event drew to a close. Here go the busses with the visitors from the South.

Thanks for coming. Ya'll come back now. Hear?

NCRS Plot Tours Start Tomorrow

2011-08-17T16:57:00.002-04:00

So we're ready.

2011 Mint Parade...Bring Your Umbrella

2011-08-14T19:37:00.006-04:00

So yesterday was, once again, the annual St. Johns Mint Parade. As always, Agro-Culture Liquid Fertilizers was entered. It would be a three-part entry. First would be the Farm American car hauler trailer. the new 9000 gallon Super Tanker, and the #78 Farm American NASCAR show car. And as has been a staple for the last several years, vegetable hand outs from the NCRS (thanks to Dr. Brian, Tim and Dan), and of course the always desired 2 ounce ferti-Rain samples for houseplants. But the morning started with heavy rain. Would there be a parade? Fortunately just before heading over to the staging area, the rain stopped. At the pre-parade staging area, the Liquid contingent got separated, so no group picture this year. But below we see some of the Liquid-ites going over the parade strategy.
Below Nick makes a safety check with the Fire Marshall.

Now it's time to head to the streets. Liquid, as headliner, brought up the rear. Below they take their place behind a septic hauler and a bail bond truck.

OK, I don't know who this float is, but any float with a pug deserves a picture.

The Liquid banner leads us through the streets of St. Johns lined with townsfolk the entire route.

The vegetables are behind the race car and are bagged and handed to Liquid family for distribution.

Stephanie makes it a family affair with all three kids, and husband Ryan is somewhere. Don't drop that pepper Tyler.

Have a pepper....No? Ok, how about a cucumber?

Have a fertilizer.

Keep up with the car.

Nick, David and Andrea race to keep up with motorized Paul.

It takes a lot of employees and supporters to meet the demands of fertilizer- and vegetable-hungry St. Johns.

It takes the skilled piloting of the tanker by driver John Dixon to wind through the streets of St. Johns.

Everyone helps load vegetable bags.

The race car looked great on the streets. Next week is the NASCAR race in Michigan where it will race with the Farm American paint.

The end of the parade was just ahead at the end of Clinton Street in downtown St. Johns. Parade watchers wave at the tanker.

Sadly, by this time the supply of handouts was depleted. But Amanda and Stephanie march on. (Didn't Stephanie start this parade with three kids?) Then the rain started.

Wet paraders load into the car trailer for the ride back to the office.

Back at the office, the car is dried off to keep it looking sharp. It sure was a nice addition to the parade, for both the marchers and watchers.

Sadly, the rain made the usual visit to the festival show area a washout. But it didn't rain all day, so I presume there was something going on there. But the parade was a top success.

Meanwhile Back at the NCRS...

2011-08-08T20:52:00.006-04:00

So with my globe trekking of late, what about the NCRS? Well there is still plenty of researching going on, and it won't stop till the last kernal is plucked and weighed. For example, on Monday of last week we had another application of foliar fertilizer to soybeans. We have several experiments this year evaluating applications at different growth stages. Below is an application to soybeans in the R3 stage of growth, meaning there are small pods in the upper nodes of the stem. With recent rains at the NCRS, the crops are doing great now after virtually no rain all July. Also last Monday the oat plots were harvested.
Here is a picture taken last week of our fertilizer and chemical storage area. The tanks are all gone and moved up to the new storage building. The dike and liner have also been removed. And the chemicals that were stored in that small building are also moved to the new storage area. I remember putting that building up back in....well I don't remember what year it was, but it was a while ago. Doug got us a spill containment bottom for that shed. But we never did have a spill. So I guess we didn't have to be so safe after all. (Just kidding.) But it will be nice having everything inside now as it was a pain having to pump out the rainwater from the dike and spray it on the alleys on the farm.
It was time to harvest alfalfa again, and last Thursday Ron cut the plots.

We are also evaluating foliar fertilization on Navy beans. So last Thursday we sprayed fertilizer treatments. They are just starting to flower and are vining. Soon the rows will be closed. We haven't really found a good foliar recommendation, especially since Navy beans receive soil or planter applied applications. But this will be the year! On Friday we baled the alfalfa and weighed them by plot. Below, Ron ran the baler and that's Amanda who stuck a stake in the bale with the plot number on it. The bales are still kind of wet, but the dairy farmer who takes the bales prefers them that way. So we don't have to wait for the hay to dry before it is baled. Using high-speed photography, here is Doug putting a bale on the scale. Two samples were collected: 1) to determine moisture and 2) for submission to a lab for quality analysis.

And that brings us to today. It is time for pickle harvest. Brian rounded up a crew to pick pickles. We are very fortunate to have good summer help, and they made quick work of this. The pickles grow so fast that waiting even a day will get them too large for the desired pickle size. I mean, they have to fit into the jar after all. Tomorrow they will be graded for size and uniformity. I'm sure I will take pictures of that. I took this picture last week of some of the vegetable plots. Below we see a nice looking plot of carrots, and onions are in the background. The vegetable crew has worked very hard to keep these plots looking so good, and they will be harvested at the appropriate time to see what the nutrient applications did for yield.

So that pretty much brings you up to date. Who knows what tomorrow will bring to us folks that call the NCRS home, among other things.

More From the Peace Garden State....

2011-08-08T10:04:00.005-04:00

So getting back to my trip to North Dakota last week... On Wednesday we headed over to potato country in the Northeastern part of the state. As we headed East, there was less evidence of prevented planting, although it was still wet. There is a grower who used Pro-Germinator + Micro 500 in some strips in a circle of irrigated potatoes that we stopped to see. First we had an opportunity to look at some of the potato storage buildings. The picture below is looking down a storage unit. There are two sides like this in a storage building, with a total storage capacity of 250,000 hundredweight (or 100 lb units). See the metal tubes against the walls? Those are perforated and lay on the floor when potatoes are in the building and enable air to be pumped in to keep the storage temperature correct. Here are the holes that the tubes fit into. Temperature control is very important, andthere is a very complicated system to enable this.
Here are some of the fans that generate the air flow. The air blows through a mat system with refrigerated water flow for cooling, and I'm not sure how they heat it. But there are temperature control monitors all over and a big air conditioning/heating unit outside. When carefully loading the potatoes into the building, they keep track of what field each load comes from. This is to ensure quality controls. There were also louvers and other devices to control air flow. So I feel confident that potatoes are being well taken care of from harvest to market.

On the way out to look at the potato test, we passed this impressive field of irrigated corn. Only the irrigation had not been run all summer due to the excessive rain. All the way from Devils Lake we saw quite a bit of corn. North Dakota is really becoming a corn state now that short season hybrids have been developed.

Retired NDSU/U of Minnesota Potato Expert Duane Preston was our host on this day. He came prepared with a potato fork so that we could dig some samples of Russet Burbank potatoes from the Liquid and 10-34-0 strips. The comparison was 30 gal/A of 10-34-0 vs 15 gal/A of Pro-Germinator + Micro 500.

Potatoes from one comparison area are below, with the Liquid potatoes on the right. These were from four hills each. Hopefully another dig can be done closer to harvest in mid-September to get a better look at performance.

So that was it, a quick in and out to North Dakota, but it was a very interesting two days. I enjoyed my time and hope you liked seeing what I saw. North Dakota is a great agricultural state with such a variety of crops. It is a leader in putting food on America's table and I always enjoy going there and visiting with growers. I thank Kevin and Mitch for driving me around, and it was good to see Duane out in the potato field where he always feels at home.

North Dakota: Our Newest Wetland

2011-08-05T21:59:00.006-04:00

So last Tuesday I went to the airport again to take me back to North Dakota for several activities. Kevin and Mitch Abentroth picked me up in Minot and we went up to Mohall. (Minot is still reeling from the recent floods with so many houses ruined for good.) First order of business was to attend a drainage tile field day hosted by the Hefty store in Mohall, ND. I wrote about being there last March. Drainage tile installation is a big deal in many parts of North Dakota with all of the snow and rain. That water has to be removed in order for optimum crop growth. So there was a demonstration of a field being tiled North of Mohall. There was a good turnout.Brian and Darren Hefty were both there. Brian spoke about the particulars of this operation. He has lots of experience with this and it showed.

This particular operation is with a pull type tile plow. (Unlike the self propelled tile application unit used at the NCRS). They had a big tractor, but it was pulling pretty easy at low rpm's. It was following a pre-mapped course with a gps system.

Here is the plow which also has gps guidance in order to control depth of tile placement. Depth has to be controlled in order to get the water to flow downhill to the final drain. I won't go into a sales pitch or anything, as these are pretty spendy. But compared to custom installation, and the anticipated yield increase with tile, owning one of these makes some sense. Plus you, or someone in the family, could do some custom work and recap the investment in pretty short order.

Now when I was here in March, there was quite a bit of snow, and it had been a wet fall. So everyone was worried about a wet spring. Well the worries were well founded as wet didn't describe it. It was a disaster, with up to 90% prevented planting in this area. I had never seen so much land in the summer devoid of crops. Mile after mile there were hardly any crops to be seen. I talked to some growers who had been to the meeting last March and it was like 240 acres planted out of 3000 for many of them. So it is a tough year.

At least the grower below is growing an oil well that hopefully will pump some cash because there are no crops in this field.

Many of the fields had been sprayed to control the weeds. In fact some were being worked in order to keep the fields somewhat in order. But others had not been sprayed and had weeds four feet tall. What a challenge that will be getting ready for a future crop. And hopefully it will be this fall for winter wheat or next spring.

There were a few fields that were able to be planted. Below is a field of late planted malt barley that had Pro-Germinator + Micro 500 at planting. It looked really good and the grower was pleased. It was good to see something growing anyway, because there wasn't much.

So that and a little product information presented back at the store took most of the day. We had business the next day over towards Grand Forks. Another thing going on in North Dakota is the oil boom. There is quite a bit of drilling going on, mostly in the Western part of the state. But there are not a lot of motels anyway, and those are often rented out to oilfield crews. Well as luck would have it, we found a casino resort that had rooms. It was the Spirit Lake resort just south of the town of Devils Lake, and it was really nice with inexpensive rooms and food. I had not been to this area before, but Devils Lake is a big collection point for rain runoff. It has been growing for years in the rainy seasons. Kevin said it used to be a big slough, or swamp that you could pretty much walk across. Now it is a huge deep lake that has swallowed up thousands of acres of farmland. When we were driving to it from the south, there was massive construction going on to raise up the road. It was a rough ride. I thought for sure it wouldn't be that way the next day heading north towards the town of Devils Lake. But I was wrong. Below is the view of the road out to the north as seen the next morning. Look at that sliver of a road going across the lake. Kevin said that there was a road that went under a bridge on that road. You would need a submarine now.

Here is the challenge. Raise and fortify this road. They are working around the clock. I wonder what will happen when they try to pave it, as far as traffic management. I feel bad for all of the expense, but it's jobs. (So thinks this person from high-unemployment Michigan).

So it was a very interesting day. There were more adventures to come on this Wednesday, but that will have to wait till tomorrow.

OK Heat Wave

2011-08-05T16:45:00.004-04:00

So after my time in Arkansas, Jacob drove me to my hometown of Stillwater, OK. I was joined there by my daughters (Elyse from San Diego and Dana from Grand Rapids) and wife Cathy at my parents. Surely you have seen that there is severe heat and drought in that part of the country. There is a creek that runs (or used to) behind my parents condo where they have lived for the past 25 years. It has never dried up in all that time, but it is dry now. Below, my feet are quite dry in the middle of the creek.When we left on Sunday, we stopped by the bank sign where the temperature was 107! (I just looked and it's 110 now.)

Mother Nature is a mad scientist. Stillwater is on course to set a record for number of days over 100, and just last February they set a record low at -19. Still-water may have to be re-named if things don't get better.

What's Happening in Arkansas?

2011-08-04T21:49:00.004-04:00

So again the blog has been missing in action. Well I have been busy with fertilizer missions of late, and will try to get caught up. But first we have to go back to last week. I made a visit down to Arkansas. It gave me a chance to catch up with some long missed aquaintances and see some new things. Every year is different in agriculture. Sales Account Manager Jacob picked me up and we went over to Marvell to long-time Liquid dealer Farmers Supply. We visited with the staff there and then Chris took us for a tour. One stop was to a corn field with some different fertilizer strips, including Liquid vs dry. Below Jacob and Chris count kernal rows from sampled ears. We did find a number of ears with 18 rows in the Liquid corn but only 14 and 16 rows in the dry. It's not too far from harvest, so time will tell. Later we went to see a long-time Liquid user near West Helena right on the Mississippi River. They got a peanut contract this year and are growing over 600 acres of peanuts for the first time. No small venture. But the peanuts look great, having received Pro-Germinator + Sure-K + Micro 500 at planting. They were sure to innoculate the peanuts at planting too. I have never seen peanuts in Arkansas before, but these really look nice.
They are producing lots of peanuts and are just starting to peg which will produce even more peanuts. (I'll be you didn't know I did a research project with peanuts for my Master's Degree. Well I did.)

This area of Arkansas was extremely wet this spring. Many growers had to replant a number of times. But this growers corn looked very good in spite of all the water that stood. He said water blocked access to some fields for the first time in memory. In fact, some fields had to have ammonium nitrate flown on because it was too wet to run side-dress rigs. So to have corn that looks this good just weeks from harvest is a blessing and a reward for persistance. Like the peanuts, this corn had Pro-Germinator + Sure-K + Micro 500 applied at planting.

The next day we went and visited some cotton fields where Liquid was used. Again, it was very wet this season. Some fields showed a need for some foliar application to replace potentially lost nutrients or something. Below the cotton in the foreground recently received a foliar application of fert-Rain + Sure-K, and looks good and green compared to the cotton in the back which wasn't sprayed, but will be.

I am always on the look out for oddities, and found some. I have seen this before in cotton and some other crops. I am told it is a genetic thing, but it sure looks odd.

Sodium in irrigation water is a concern here. In fact, sodium in these soils is thought to possibly block some uptake of potassium, since they are both similar in size and charge. So foliar application can be an important approach to getting potassium into the leaves without going through the soil where it could be blocked from uptake. Anyway, we saw an example of sodium in a field where a wheel drive gear broke and the pivot stayed in one spot for an extended period. So you could see the effects of the high-sodium from the water. The cotton was lighter in color there. These growers do use gypsum to try to tie-up the sodium, which is a good idea.

In most other irrigated fields there was evidence of sodium. The picture below was from a furrow irrigated field, and so there was no water going on the leaves. But sodium that was taken up through the roots was flushed out of some leaves through the xylem due to root pressure (known as "guttation".) The salt accumulates at the margins and is washed down onto the leaf surface with dew. Or so I think that is it.

But none the less, the cotton looked very good and has potential for high yields. We did not see any evidence of flower or square shedding in the fields we were in, indicating that the cotton is retaining it's fruiting structures. So that is what I did last week. Tomorrow I hope to tell you the tales from this week.

Ag PhD Field Day 2011

2011-07-25T16:38:00.003-04:00

So last Friday was the Ag PhD Field Day at the Hefty Farm in Baltic, SD. This is my second year, and it is a real treat. But on Thursday I had a chance to visit the Blank Slate Field which was just down the road a few miles from the show site. Darren Hefty showed several Hefty dealers and some of us Liquid-ites around. Of interest was where the planter fertilizer was left off for a ways, and the corn was shorter and showed potassium deficiency on the leaves. The rest of the corn is tasseled and way over our heads.One new feature this year was a real live race car! This is the Farm American/Furniture Row NASCAR. Agro-Culture Liquid Fertilizers is a supporter of Farm American which was formed to promote agriculture primarily to the non-ag public.
Each participating company has plots. As was pointed out by Darren, this is Brian's ground, and he makes sure that there will not be fertility shortages and applies hundreds of pounds of dry fertilizer annually. But in the plots, planter-applied Pro-Germinator + Sure-K + Micro 500 really made an impact. In the picture below, the corn in the foreground had the fertilizer off, and it is shorter and not tasseled like the corn around it. The picture really does not show it as well as being there, but it was very noticeable.

Here is the trailer that hauls the car around. Plus the nice Liquid displays.

The Liquid booth was very busy all day with steady traffic of interested growers. It seems that everyone was well familiar with Liquid from the Ag PhD show and the Blank Slate blog. There were growers from as far away as Maryland and Texas that stopped.

Brian and Darren led a tour of the plots. Many hundreds followed along. There was a lot to see and learn about crop nutrition, seed, chemicals, equipment, and new ag technologies.

The crowd was there to learn. I was also there to eat. They had an outstanding lunch and dinner for the hungry crowd.

One item of particular interest was some cotton planted by a seed company. Now cotton is a long ways from home here in South Dakota. Many had never seen cotton and enjoyed getting their feet in some. We have planted cotton at the NCRS, but never have gotten a boll due to the short season up North.

Finally it was time to pack up and get ready to leave, after an enjoyable, although very warm day. This gave the car groupies a last chance for a picture.

I would certainly encourage anyone to attend next year's show. I know I will. Thanks Hefty's.

New Plot Work in the Dakotas

2011-07-25T16:14:00.004-04:00

So last Wednesday I went to Fargo, ND to visit some research plots that we established in the area. We are working with two contract researchers on crops such as spring wheat, sugarbeets and canola. Just like much of the country, it was hot. But it was worth seeing the progress. Below is a view of some of the spring wheat. They looked good in spite of all the rain this spring and also that has continued. Below area sales manager Kevin Abentroth takes a closer look at a spring wheat plot at another location. These plots also look good and hopefully will give us some new information.
Here is a close-up of the heads. Again, we were well satisfied with how the plots looked here.

Another crop that maybe not too many people are familiar with is canola. But there is quite a bit grown in North Dakota. The picture below shows the edge of an experiment where there was no applied fertilizer. It would be the outer five feet or so. The plot next to it had 100 lb/A of nitrogen with 6 gal/A of Pro-Germinator + 2 qt/A of Micro 500. Fertilizer makes quite a difference. This experiment is testing different N fertilizers for effect on growth and yield.

Below is a picture looking across the test. There are different treatments, but all have about 80 to 100 lb/A of N along with the Pro-Germnator and Micro 500. They look good and full.

Now adjacent to our plot is another plot evaluating something other than fertilizer. Contract researchers do not share details of other plots with freeloaders like us. But the main researcher did tell us that the only fertilizer applied was 100 lb/A of N (we think it was urea, but not sure.) But in the picture below, look at the resulting growth without application of phosphorus and micros like in our plots. It is much less and uneven. We would guess that the yield would be no more than half of what we would get with the full program. Responsible Nutrient Management does not mean applying no nutrients, but the right amount of needed nutrients.

And we had another spring wheat test at a location in South Dakota. Again, the wheat looks good and we are hopeful for results that will give the grower some more tools to use for getting more yield. That is why we are here.

So after this, which was on Thursday, we went up to Baltic, SD to get ready for the Hefty Field Day.

Trying For More Corn

2011-07-20T09:25:00.003-04:00

So most of the corn is tasseling now at the NCRS. Some of the later corn is not yet this far along, but most is. We have had a great deal of heat units of late to advance corn growth, but sadly, still no rain. I believe we have only had 0.1 inch all month. But more on that later. Yesterday we made some foliar applications of some fertilizers to corn in the VT stage, or tassels fully emerged. These were applied along with a popular fungicide, as well as treatments of fungide with no fertilizer and no foliar at all. As dry as it is, I'm not sure what diseases are around, but the mornings have very high humidity and dew, so we will see. The Hagie plot sprayer makes a good applicator for these treatments. Here I am coming out of a plot. The nozzles on 15 inch spacing on the boom work great for this. I turn off every other one so that just the nozzles over the row middles are spraying. I also use pretty high pressure: 80 psi. And since it is a fungicide and good coverage is desired, I used 20 gal/A. So it blasted away pretty good. Fortunately yesterday morning was cloudy, so it didn't get too hot. Below you can see the nozzles spraying between the rows.
The nozzles that weren't spraying were directly over the corn plant and brushed through the tassels getting covered in pollen. All this pollen didn't bother me, but poor Stephanie got choked up a little from allergy. Although I did feel sad that none of this pollen would ever have the opportunity to land on a corn silk and make a pollen tube and ultimately, a kernal. But I try not to think of these things during application.

Now for the rest of the week I am off on yet another fertilizer mission. Have a good rest of the week and, as always, should anything blog-worthy happen, this is where it will appear.

LIQUID Employee Fun Day

2011-07-17T17:10:00.007-04:00

So after all of the hard work by the LIQUID employees in St. Johns this year, we were treated to an employee (and family) fun day yesterday. It started with a half round of best-ball golf with teams. (For some reason I did not get my camera out for golf pics. Too busy looking for my ball in the trees I guess.)

Then there was a nice lunch at the golf course, where we were joined by others who were non-golfers and any kids. After lunch and awards, Nick addresses the group. Then we drove over to Ashley for a tour of the new plant. It is fully operational now, and last Friday was the last day for the old plant in St. Johns as everything worth keeping was moved to Ashley. There will be a plant tour at the PLFP as well as an open house for the public on August 24. Circle the date.

We split into groups to see the place. It was impressive. Below Albert talks about all of the 30,000 gallon tanks in the place. There are more on the other side of this room, and other rooms too. He said how many there were but I forgot. But it's alot.

Below is a picture of the place where trucks are loaded. This is the stairway and ramps that Ron built at the farm. They can load a tanker really fast. He said how fast, but I forgot. But it's really fast.

After seeing other things like reactors, boilers, railcar loading/unloading, truck scales, offices, and Twin-Pack loading, we said farewell and went to the North Central Research Station for more festivities. It was 90+ degrees out, but the excitement was such that no one noticed. Below Nick addresses the group again.

Then we loaded up for a brief tour of the new buildings and to have a look at the growing crops.

Here we are by the grapes. There were bunches of them. No really!

Then it was back to the shop for a final treat. Troy's homemade ice cream and cake (probably not made by Troy) are served below by Andrea and Jill. It really hit the spot.

So thanks to all of the Bancrofts for providing such a great time.

Wheat Plot Harvest is Complete

2011-07-16T21:33:00.004-04:00

So after hopping off the last plane on my trip back from Louisiana on Friday, I raced to the NCRS so that I could be around for the completion of winter wheat plot harvest. It was my lucky day that they weren't finished. Doug was in the combine drivers seat that day.

Stephanie was at her usual spot as plot weight recorder up in the grain cart. I rode along to document the operation and get caught up on company gossip while I was gone. Here we see the wheat from a plot being dumped for weighing.
Stephanie collects a wheat sample for moisture determination and test weight.

It has really been dry this month. No rain. It's Friday, so time to turn on the irrigation again.

And here it is, the last plot strip.

And that's that. Put the combine away till soybean harvest in a few months.

Way, and I Mean Way, Down South

2011-07-16T19:59:00.006-04:00

So I was on a fertilizer mission to LA last week. No, not Los Angeles, but Southern Louisiana. I reported from there last March about how we were planning some research plots there this year. This was my mid-season visit. I was accompanied by Sales Account Manager Reid Abbot and Agronomy Manager Alan Parkinson. Now these were replicated plots conducted by contract researchers, or independent researchers who conduct fresearch plots for various agricultural companies. For a fee, of course. Below we see Reid taking a look at a cotton plant in a plot. Reid works a lot with cotton in South Texas where he lives. The cotton looks great. Couldn't really see any treatment differences at this time. A crop where we have customer use, but not much research, is sugarcane. We have several different comparisons here with Liquid fertilizer where dry P and K fertilizers and 32% UAN are the norms. Below Alan surveys a plot. Not much sugarcane in Idaho where Alan lives though.
Sugarcane is a pretty tough plant. The leaf edges are very stiff and sharp due to sharp barbs along the margins. The picture below is a shot through a had lens showing the barbs.
At another location we have some rice fertilizer test plots. Again, we are mainly comparing the normal dry program with a Liquid program. They all look good, and couldn't really tell any differences at this time. There are quite a few acres in Arkansas using Liquid fertilizer with good success.
The rice heads are out and they are flowering now. It was pretty to see.

In this part of the South, rice is grown in rotation with soybeans. Now rice ground is poorly drained, and usually high in magnesium, so it is tight. Since the land is so flat, and there is normally a lot of rain in the South, this ground can become very saturated and even flooded. So in this test we are simulating the effects of heavy rainfall on soybeans, such that they are turned yellow. We want to see if application of foliar fertilizers will enhance recovery. Now as it turns out, this part of the South is experiencing drought this summer. So these plots are actually in small rice plot levees where flood water can be introduced. The plots below had water on them for up to five days, and then removed. The beans turned yellow, and were sprayed three days ago. So we will see.

We also visited several farm fields that had been sprayed with foliar fertilizers. One problem around here is wild hogs, a.k.a. ferel pigs. They come out and ruin portions of soybeans fields. We could see hoof prints. There were several areas like this. We were told that this is tiny damage compared to some fields that have very large areas of damage.

Speaking of pigs, as you may know, one of my favorite things to do while visiting Louisiana is to eat Cajun food. Now many years ago I ate at a restaurant in New Orleans called Mulates. But the original restaurant is in Breaux Bridge, just East of Lafayette. So there we went, had a great dinner and listed to a Cajun band there. In fact, this place is a Who's Who of well-know Cajun bands that have played there. So it was a great evening.

And a great fertilizer research mission as well.

Wheat Harvest Begins at NCRS

2011-07-14T18:34:00.004-04:00

So winter wheat harvest got underway yesterday. As I mentioned, I am away on a fertilizer mission, but the plots are in good hands. Phil ran the combine and Stephanie rode the grain cart to take plot weights, while Jeff pulled the cart and Amanda ran the samples for test weight and moisture. Plot harvest is expected to take three days, with another day to harvest the production wheat. Results will be know soon, but yields are said to be pretty good, in the mid-90's.
Last year we started on July 10, so the poor weather this spring didn't really push it back too much.

We Had a Visitor Today

2011-07-12T22:23:00.003-04:00

So we had an important day, but had to get some more foliar spraying done this morning. It was going to be a hot day, so wanted to get an early start while it was still somewhat cool. We like to spray when it is less than 80 degrees, which I know is hard in some areas where it is never less than that. But anyway, here I am on Farm 5. We are spraying soybeans that are in the R2 growth stage, or flowers all the way up the stalk. We plant indeterminate beans here which means that they start flower at the bottom and progress up the stalk even as it grows taller. Here is a plot that runs up to the alfalfa plots that we harvested last week. It is kind of cool looking. Later in the day, Doug cut and windrowed those borders and it will be baled tomorrow to get the plots ready for the next fertilizer application later this week. Over on Farm 6 you can see that we have been dry as the grass has all turned brown. But it is interesting to see where the sidedress rig dribbled some nitrogen on the grass as it was turning around. These strips of grass got a good dose that enabled better growth and root development that enabled it to stay better hydrated. Just another illustration of how fertilizer is our friend. I said that we had a visitor and here she is, Dr. Karen Renner from MSU. Jeff and Amanda are not only working at the farm this summer, they are also getting college credit for all of their labors. Dr. Renner is their advisor, and she is making a visit to make sure that they are doing college-worthy stuff and not just goofing off all summer. (You know from the blogs that they have been a great help to the research efforts here.) Actually Karen and I go way back as we were Weed Science graduate students at MSU together under Dr. Bill Meggit back in...well it was awhile ago. Unfortunately we really haven't crossed paths much over the years, so it was good to have her out for a visit. She did say that she had no idea how big the NCRS is and how many research plots we actually have. That is why we needed student intern help. So everyone benefits. Below Jeff and Amanda explain how the "war wagon" works.

OK, she's gone. Now get back to work. Stand counts on Black Beans need to be done. I know it's hot out, but at least you are in the shade (until that cloud moves anyway.)

Well I am off on a fertilizer mission for the next few days. I am anxious to go, but it is a much more comfortable time to visit there in the spring than in the summer. Where is it? Stay tuned.

And another thing...

2011-07-10T22:12:00.004-04:00

So on Friday I was making fertilizer applications to yet another soybean experiment, this one on Farm 6. I have said before here that I like this field as the plots are 900 feet long which makes for a nice ong run. And what should I see on the NCRS Wildlife Refuge but a deer. Our county is loaded with deer and they treat the fields like their own cafeteria.

Here is something that we see alot, but I really don't understand what it is. Evidently deer pull leaves from the corn plants and just drop them on the ground. I guess corn is just an appetizer before the soybean course.

At least they stay pretty much on the border rows for this. Chance of rain tomorrow. I wouldn't turn it away.

Hay Day(s)

2011-07-09T22:27:00.006-04:00

So another thing we had to do this week was to harvest our alfalfa plots. Here is a picture of the test site on Wednesday. It is just starting to flower. It looks really nice, as it was just seeded last year. It is 300 feet long and the plots are 15 feet wide. The actual harvested width of each plot is 13 feet. On Thursday, Stephanie excused herself from the Farm 7 spray job to get Ron started cutting the plots with the haybine. We use the gps guidance here which is very handy when looking at a solid field of alfalfa.Late Friday morning Ron begins to bale the alfalfa with the round baler. This has been a great system for yield determination. The plots are long enough that you can get enough alfalfa picked up to make a bale.

I haven't had a picture of Ron for awhile, so enjoy this one of him working in the plots.

At the end of each plot, Ron gives birth to a baby bale. This being the second cutting, the bales are smaller than at the first cutting.

Then Friday afternoon the weighing of bales commences. Below Jeff picks up a plot bale with the "claw" as we call it, and places it on a small wagon with a digital scale attached.

Amanda records the weight while Stephanie grabs two samples from the bale. One is weighed right away on a small scale. Then it will be re-weighed a few days later after being dried in our dryer. This is to determince per cent moisture. The second sample is sent to a lab for quality analysis. Results of these samples will enable determination of treatment effects on both yield and quality. What becomes of the bales, you ask? They are given to a neighbor dairy with whom we are friends. So no hay is wasted in this operation.

I pretty much stayed out of the way and took pictures, so the operation was flawless.

Lot's of Spraying This Week

2011-07-09T21:12:00.003-04:00

So after a few days off to celebrate our nation's independence, it was back to plotwork. Crops are now in the stages for foliar applications to commence in earnest. Foliar applications can be tricky because we have found that applying nutrients that aren't needed really don't affect yield. But application of potassium in low-K soils, even where potassium fertilizer was applied, can have a positive yield response. Other key nutrients would be micronutrients. I like to see Microlink Manganese or Micro 500 go along with Sure-K on soybeans in the Midwest where many soils are low in K and Mn. We have also been working with several experimental products this year. Wedenesday morning we made some applications to soybeans on Farm 5. These had been irrigated several days ago and were growing well, and would be expected to have good foliar uptake of applied nutrients. I do not recommend application of foliar fertilizers to plants that are in obvious drought stress. I like the long plots and the tram lines for driving the sprayer. Amanda had not yet had a chance to drive the plot Hagie, and today was her lucky day! She was a fast learner. After application of treatments to the plots, we usually spray the excess fertilizer on the border rows, and that is what she is doing. There is a lot of stuff to watch: the gps monitor to make sure you are in the right place, the Raven control for speed and application rate, the Wilger balls to make sure all nozzles are spraying equally, the pressure gauge to make sure all applications are at the same pressure, and probably some other stuff too. This sprayer does not have autosteer, so it is a good idea to keep your eyes on the road, so to speak. She will be the envy of her friends back at school once they learn of this!
She is a good applicator. You should see her parallel park.

The next morning, Thursday, was going to be a marathon on Farm 7. We had, according to Stephanie who is Keeper of the Plot Plans, 47 treatments to be applied on 188 plots on seven experiments on three crops. We got an early start to try to get as much done as we could before it got too hot. Also, Farm 7 is not irrigated, and although there appears to be adequate soil moisture, they could show some stress if it was sunny and hot. So we wouldn't spray then. But this morning it was cool and cloudy. Below we see the crew of Stephanie, Amanda and Jeff ready to get to work preparing the treatments to be loaded into the plot Hagie.

The first experiment we sprayed was sugarbeets. Here Stephanie got creative with a close-up of the beet and the sprayer in the background.

Next we had some corn treatments to apply. Generally we have not found foliar applications to be effective on well-fertilized corn. The uptake of N, P and K is best through the roots. But we have shown products like N Response to be effective if there is some N deficiency. This particular test is in low-manganese soil, and is evaluating timing, rates and placement of Microlink Manganese.

Practically all of the 520 acres of the NCRS have low soil manganese. But one area on Farm 7 is really deficient, and that is on a small area that has exceptionally high organic matter of 9%. Manganese deficiency is especially prounounced on high organic matter soils, and it is obvious here in these soybeans. Some plots received manganese at planting, but it did not stop these signs of deficiency. This is the first year we have grown soybeans here as it was in corn last year.

Now this plot below has not had any fertilizer applied until this foliar application. You can see the variablility of the deficiency signs. It was really worse on a small ridge through the middle of the plot, and was like that from one end to the other. We will check for soil test difference, but it was interesting. Last year I showed a picture of how high rates of foliar-applied Microlink Manganese greened up some yellow soybeans like this. So we will see.

It ended up being a great spray day. It stayed cloudy all day, no wind, and the maximum temperature was only 78 degrees. So we got everything done. Now that I like. You can do a lot with good help.

Let Freedom Ring!

2011-07-04T23:02:00.005-04:00

So it's America's birthday again. Founded in freedom 235 years ago and still the envy of those wanting to taste freedom. For those, like me, who grew up in America and don't know any different, it is interesting to read what foreigners and new U.S. citizens from around the world say about what they like about it here. Things like food choices (thanks to farmers), clean water, indoor plumbing, 9-1-1 (nothing like that in many countries), driving a car, and mostly, being able to say whatever you want. I like it when the Fourth is on Monday because it extends the weekend. And what better way to celebrate Americana than attending a baseball game. Last night we went to the Lansing Lugnuts (Single A affiliate of the Toronto BlueJays) vs. the pesky Captains from Lake County Indiana. The Lugnuts broke the tie in the bottom of the 9th with a hit to knock in a run and win 5-4. There were over 8,000 happy fans. But the show wasn't over. After the game there was a fireworks show.
Oooooh..... Aaaaah.....

Then this morning, the actual 4th of July, there was the annual parade in downtown Lansing. Now I had never been to this parade, but it was such a nice day I wanted to see what it was about and to share it with all of you. The parade began at 11 am with the Marines carrying the colors by the capital of Michigan. There were a number of other flag bearers as well. You may notice a light crowd on that side of the street. Most of the watchers like me were in the shade of the buildings on the opposite side. I did not want to be like those people sitting in the scorching 76 degree heat! Plus the view was nicer with the capital in the background.

There were several veterans groups. There also was this guy below who was in the First Black Marines in 1942, some 69 years ago. The sign said it was the 1st Montford Point Marines.

And since I am a dog lover, I had to show this group of pooches from the Capital Area Humane Society encouraging people to adopt a dog. I'm sure they would welcome visit from you. Tell them I sent you.

Lansing was, and still is, a major manufacturing city for cars. It once was the headquarters for Oldsmobile, which was sadly retired a few years ago. But it is still a big GM town. There were a lot of classic and modified cars in the parade. Troy has a classic Olds 442 that he has owned for many years that I'm sure would be welcome.

Now if you look closely at the front door of the green and yellow car below it says John Deere in faint paint. These guys didn't look like farmers, but they must be sending a shout-out to the agricultural community. How nice.

These tricked out cars were Outta Control, as was the name of their club. Low Rider: cool car and song.

And this car below is a 1970 Olds Toronado built right here in Lansing. It's fun to remember when cars were big. I remember being a kid in Oklahoma liking the Toronado. No, really! My dad had a big Olds Cutlass built here.

Well like I've said before, it's not all fun and games up here. We have a project where we take soil samples every Monday. The soil did not know it was the 4th of July, so I volunteered to do it, since I was gone some last week and all. Normally Jeff and Amanda take the samples. Well, I've got to tell you, the lack of rain has made this ground hard and difficult to sample. There are 6 plots and 10 samples per plot. So I figured if I could do a sample a second, and then time to fill the bags, it would be 2 minutes tops. But with the hard ground, I was jumping up and down on that probe (fortunately ours has a step for pushing) to get it in deep enough. So it took quite a bit longer than 2 minutes. We have talked about getting a hydraulic probe to help with all the sampling that we do. And by "we", I mainly mean Stephanie who does all the fall sampling. I have never used a hydraulic probe before, but if they can sample ground this hard, it would be worth the cost, whatever it is.

So back home for another cookout on the charcoal grill (I am not a gas-man) and sat on the porch listening to all of the fireworks going on out here in rural Wacousta. But heck, why bother watching it all outside when you can see good fireworks from Washington on TV?

I guess it's not the same. So I enjoyed the holiday and celebration of our independence. I really hope you all had some similar, or even better, meaningful experiences. (Back to more farm stuff later this week.)

July and TGIF

2011-07-01T21:59:00.007-04:00

So can it really be July now? Usually July makes you feel like the growing season has been in high gear for some time, but we just finished planting. Some of our corn has been in the ground for awhile though, and today we applied some more foliar fertilization, this time along with glyphosate. This corn was around 3 feet tall and looks good. This year also marks the first time that we have not turned on irrigation in June. In spite of my continuous whining about excess rain, it has gotten a little dry now for these fast growing crops, so the water was turned on, as we see below on Farm 5.
These Black Beans were just planted on Tuesday on Farm 7, and they are just about to emerge. Shallow planted edible beans usually pop up in just a few days. They were planted later than normal and need to get going. The weather has been good for growing crops lately and today was in the mid-80's, so good for heat units.
Below we see Phil making some glyphosate applications to soybeans on Farm 7. We used a pre-emergence herbicide, but with all of the rain, postemergence applications are necessary. In this particular field there was quite a bit of Eastern Black Nightshade that needed a death treatment. We agree that the only good weed is a dead weed. Winter wheat is coming along quickly now with all of the sunshine and warm temperatures. This wheat experiment is on Farm 3, and is the one where we applied applications of NResponse and ferti-Rain with Quadris fungicide at flag leaf. Local predictions say that wheat harvest will begin on July 15. Ron is working on the combine to make sure we are ready. (A picture of that would have been nice. Mental note: take a picture.) We started irrigation on Farm 3 too, as can be seen in the background. And finally, everyone knows the silly saying that corn should be "knee high by the 4th of July". Normally it is way ahead of that, but this year some corn is not yet knee high. But the corn experiments at the NCRS can mostly meet this standard, as demonstrated by agronomists Amanda and Stephanie. (They were so happy to make this picture. But this is for ag publicity after all.)

So as we head into Independence Day, I wish all of you a safe and happy holiday and hope you show up next week with all fingers intact.

Applications Today Were N-Tense

2011-06-30T21:45:00.009-04:00

So I know that title is lame, but they can't all be homeruns. But today I was back at the NCRS feeding some N to corn with some drop nozzle treatments. This is a way to spread out applications, although our results have generally shown that a single timely application is as good as spreading it out over multiple applications. Even with our lighter textured soils. Hmmm. But with all the rain this year, we will see if maybe there was an advantage to multiple trips. You can't see the nozzles in the picture below, but they are there. Stephanie took this picture of the N band between two rows of corn in the V9 growth stage, and about 3 feet tall. The corn is looking pretty good now that we have had some sunny days. The bad part is that there are spots around where water stood and the corn is shorter, or less stand. That complicates research.
We applied several different rates of several different N sources. We used regular broadcast nozzles (actually Turbo Tee Jets) turned sideways to make a band. This to minimize chance of spraying N on leaves. But I run the nozzles just a couple inches off the ground, and at moderate pressure, around 20 psi to minimize splashing. I recommend a nozzle in every row middle too rather than every other row. And it is nice having my boom nozzles on 15 inch centers which makes it easy to have a drop nozzle in the exact middle of each 30 inch row. Below, Jeff and Amanda change nozzles at this pit stop. Now if you do this, you should split the line to the two outside nozzles in the guess rows, and use half sized rate nozzles on those. This is because the guess row will get sprayed twice, as on the trip back the other way, and you don't want to put a double dose on there. We do this on our sidedress applicator too, as explained in a past posting.

We made drop nozzle applications to two different experiments on two different farms. After that it was time to make some broadcast nitrogen applications to the sugarbeet demonstration plots planted on Tuesday. So after the nozzle switcheroo, it happened.

So that's done. Probably have to do something else tomorrow.

Now Put the Planter Away!

2011-06-29T22:21:00.002-04:00

So I was still away on a fertilizer mission yesterday when all this happened, but Stephanie sent these photographs by carrier pigeon so that we may keep you, our loyal readers, informed. And as hoped, the last planting project was completed yesterday. This was the planting of the demonstration plots, or the "demo" plots as we like to call them. (Grow fast little seeds.) There are lots (by "lots" I mean I don't remember the exact number) of different fertilizer treatments on corn, soybeans, black beans and sugarbeets on which we can have "hands on" evaluations at the farm tours coming up later this summer. (Wanna come?) Below Phil guides the planter through a plot. These plots are much shorter than the regular research plots since they are for demonstration purposes only. Yep, it was cloudy and sprinked a little, but the rain stayed away for once. Jeff watches Amanda fill a bucket of fertilizer as part of the next treatment mix. Looks like she got it right. Jeff likes to impress people by telling them he is an intern at St. Johns. (The "hospital" part goes without saying.) No, in reality, he is proud to be an agronomist. Well I return to the NCRS in St. Johns, Michigan tomorrow, and chaos is certain to ensue. It's time to start foliar spraying of soybeans, and drop nozzle applications of N on corn. With that to look forward to, I may be early for once! Stay tuned.

The End (of planting) is Finally Near

2011-06-27T21:45:00.002-04:00

So for the first time in NCRS history, we finally had to throw in the towel on planting an experiment due to lateness. This wet, wet spring, and now summer, delayed planting so much that it is now just too late to plant milo and sunflowers and expect a harvest. So today it was dry enough to plant again, and it was decided to plant Navy beans in those spots. We do have some good treatments planned, so all is not lost. Below Phil gets an early start this morning on Navy bean planting. And then Stephanie managed the planting of the Black Bean experiment on Farm 7, again with Phil at the wheel. I'm sure I said it before that Michigan is the Number 1 producer of Black Beans.
I was away on a fertilizer mission, so I relied on the miracle of that thing we call the internet for the pictures. So that completes the major experiment planting. (Pause for cheering, even though it is almost July). Now what is left is what we call the "demo plots" which is where we plant different crops that we dig up and look at things like roots and leaves on tours. Usually they are planted a good month earlier, but who knows, we may be on the verge of a great discovery this year with late planting. That's what keeps us going......

Planting Continues...Well For A Day

2011-06-23T16:50:00.002-04:00

So we finished sidedressing corn on Monday and then switched the tractor back to the planter to try to make some headway on our later planted crops like edible beans. We had two field experiments planned for Navy and Black beans. I was gone, so the Navy bean experiment planting went very well. I came back Tuesday night in torrential rain, and it has been raining ever since. We have gotten 1.5 inches since then, so are at a standstill with fieldwork, again. It shouldn't be too late for planting Black beans yet. It is sad to drive around and see corn only a few inches tall in some fields, and soybeans just emerging. This is certainly a year to remember. Or forget.

Where Have You Been Blog???

2011-06-18T10:32:00.003-04:00

So the blog has been missing for the past 10 days, and there have been numerous inquiries and complaints. Sorry he has been a slacker, and will try to make up for it today. Not a whole lot of new things to report in the interim, just trying to finish sidedressing corn, both plots and production. Again, this has been a most unusual year where we started sidedressing early planted corn right after finishing planting late corn. The same rainy weather that extended planting has also continued through sidedressing. Heavier ground on Farm 7 is slow to dry out too. Below we see Phil applying some nitrogen on test plots on Farm 7. Alfalfa was cut and harvested the previous week, so it is time to apply foliar Liquid. If applications are made after harvest, it is good to wait a week until the alfalfa has around 4 inchees of regrowth. (Yes, we are still using the Classic Hagie sprayer as the new Super Hagie is not quite field-ready yet. But stay tuned.)
Below is a field shot of the alfalfa plots. It is a good site with 300 foot long plots that enable us to use the round baler seen in last week's installment. Notice the above picture was taken in bright sunshine. The picture below was taken less than an hour later, and it is now cloudy. This has been a regular pattern, although it did not rain today.

What the heck is this thing? An alien probe? (Ouch!) No, it is a time lapse camera installed on the edge of another alfalfa field on Farm 5. This is a prototype built by an outfit here in St. Johns, and was just installed on Thursday. What will it do, you ask?

It will take a picture every 15 minutes, during the day, of the corn plots across the alley. It will show two different fertilizer applications and how they may affect corn growth. This is kind of a test year, and hopefully we can have several in strategic spots, including vegetables, next year. I imagine they could be installed right after planting to monitor growth and emergence. It is in the adjacent alfalfa field to make sure it is not disturbed. Us worker types at the farm have thought of all sorts of clever additions to the pictures, but we don't want to face the wrath of Albert, who set this up.

Here is a close-up view of the camera. I wonder if they know it's not plugged in?

So life at the NCRS isn't all fun and games. Just ask Amanda and Jeff as they pick rocks from a recently planted corn plot on Farm 7. There are some good sized rocks here that can, and have caused issues with equipment.

With the cold, wet and cloudy conditions this spring, there is concern that some of the corn is pale, in spite of fertilizer having been applied. There has been interest in the use of foliar fertilizers to give the corn a "jump start". We applied some foliar treatments yesterday to some corn on Farm 7 that fits the description. It is in some lower ground that has been wet. Our past experience with foliar applications of well fertilized corn in normal years has not been effective on a regular and predictable basis. Corn gets the nutrition it needs from the roots. But in a year like this, foliar may indeed give it a "jump start".

But not all of the corn on Farm 7 looks pale. Below is a picture of an experiment of earlier planted corn that is now drinking in the sidedressed nitrogen, and has good color. So I don't think foliar would be of benefit now on this corn. Notice that this is a field of corn after corn. Most corn around here is rotated with soybeans, as was our original intention. But our neighbor to the north informed us that he was growing seed corn across the road, and needed a 600 foot setback for all other corn. So being the good neighbors that we are, we had to adjust some plantings which meant soybeans after soybeans on the north end, and corn after corn in the next range. We strive for peace, and have to start somewhere.

And so this installment must finally come to an end. You are now up-to-date, and hopefully you won't have to wait so long till the next installment. Thanks for reading.

Always Research

2011-06-08T21:36:00.004-04:00

So Monday was a busy day again at the NCRS. We needed expert consultation, so Stephanie brought in her son Tyler to advise us. He gave us the thumbs up. Not sure if the thumbs up from a kindergartener is good or not, but we will take it. In the meantime, construction continues in all venues at the farm. Here is the concrete crew on Monday pouring our new parking area. It will be nice to not have to park in the mud.
Today we were busy with alfalfa plot harvest. Here we see Ron running the baler in a plot.

At the end, the baler kicks out the bale for that plot which will be weighed.

Now Ron drops the bale from a plot onto the scale wagon with the "claw". Jeff and Stephanie record the weight, and collect a sample for quality analysis, as well as a sample for moisutre determination. There are 21 plots in this experiment.

In the meantime, the corn is due for nitrogen application in many experiments around the NCRS. Here we see Phil making a sidedress application to a corn plot. Many nitrogen experimental applications will be made this week to enable discovery of all things research.

So we will be plenty busy, as we have been for many weeks. It continues to be our pleasure to share with you. Tell a friend. Or even an enemy. We are happy to share.

OK Now We're Done...Well Almost.

2011-06-04T10:37:00.005-04:00

So this has been a very busy week trying to beat the calendar on finishing planting. The farm received about a half inch of rain last Sunday, much less than the 1.5 inches in Wacousta some 20 miles to the South. But it was still too wet to plant when we returned to work last Tuesday. But Wednesday through Friday we all made excellent progress. The field crops people planted 3 corn and 11 soybean experiments, which finished out the corn and beans. There are still some production beans which Doug is working at this morning. Phil was also in this morning getting caught up on spraying. So thanks to the first rate crew here at the NCRS, we are as caught up as we can be.

The following pictures are from the planting this week. Below we see the Monosem planting corn on Farm 7 on Wednesday with the drill in the background (look hard) planting beans.

Here is the drill. Most of the beans planted with the drill are with 15 inch rows.

Farm 7 still has some boulders out in the field that need to moved out of the way of the planter. Fortunately we have a he-man that can handle them.

Below Amanda prepares to load another fertilizer treatment in the drill. Not sure what caught Jeff's attention. I try to show these two in regular blog postings so that their parents and professors can see that they really are doing something here.

Here comes Phil in the planter aiming for Stephanie who took this shot. So after this week we will start sidedressing corn, planting Black and Navy beans, milo and sunflowers. The fun never ends.

So what have the veg heads been up to? They too have been very busy. The transplanter has been running long days too as we see here transplanting into plastic on raised beds. Brian is keeping an eye on the work of Tim and Dan. Good thing too.

Sorry it has been so long since the last post. But your author has been too sleepy at the end of days this week. Plenty more to come. I hope to get out and be able to show some treatment differences. So again, stay tuned and thanks for reading.

Memorial Day Monday update

2011-05-30T09:48:00.002-04:00

So we got a little rain yesterday afternoon here in Wacousta. It was decided to cancel the morning ball games here at the park. No decision has been made yet on the afternoon games, so stay tuned. I'm sure the rain missed the farm. Will let you know tomorrow.

Memorial Day in America

2011-05-28T21:21:00.004-04:00

So it's Memorial Day weekend. Again as a nation we pause and remember the defenders of freedom who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the good old US of A. Parades are a show of support as was the Wacousta, Michigan annual Memorial Day parade this morning. It was featured on this blog last year too. I never miss it. Here we see the local Boy Scouts leading off as bearers of the Stars and Stripes. Now last year they had a uniformed group carrying the flag. Don't know where they were this year. Like the rest of America, I like Spongebob, but even he doesn't make up for the soldiers.
Sadly, there will be no ball playing in the Wacousta park this year. Maybe water polo.

Looking forward to dinner on the grill tomorrow. Enjoy the weekend.

Special Visitors and Albert

2011-05-26T18:39:00.002-04:00

So I know I said that there would be no more blogs this week, but obviously my rules are made to be broken. Look who showed up: Proud parents Albert and Allison and beautiful little Eleanor. This was her first visit to the North Central Research Station. I will admit that we are glad that she lives across the street from Farm 3 so we can watch her, and the crops, grow up! And the weather cooperated for the visit too. It rained all day so that none of that nasty dust would get her dirty. And it was only in the 40's this afternoon so that she wouldn't get sweaty. Stop by any time young family!

May I Speak to Your Supervisor....

2011-05-25T13:35:00.003-04:00

So when we last spoke, our plan was to try to get some plots planted early today. Yesterday the forecast for today was for rain in the evening, and later it was updated to afternoon. So imagine my chagrin when I got up this morning and it was already raining. Even now in the early afternoon it is pouring with thunder and lightning. I really need to question the weather predictors about their playing with our lives.That's it for the week now. I may rent out the blog for the rest of the week.

Milestones

2011-05-24T22:53:00.005-04:00

So can you believe that this is the 100th edition of the thrilling blog "Live From the NCRS"? From the simple beginnings last year of showing our little research operation, the blog has grown to become a world-wide (I got proof) phenomenon. I want to thank our regular readers, and especially thank the ACLF Research staff that call the NCRS home. And thanks to the Bancroft family for giving me the opportunity to share our research antics with our fans. We are continually motivated to excel. So what else happened today? As you know, we have been fighting the battle with wet fields this spring. It sure doesn't feel like it will be June next week, as it has been extra cold and wet this year. Here we see Doug and Stephanie checking field condtions on Farm 7. This farm has our heaviest ground. Most of it is still too wet to work, but parts of it offer a chance. Normally we wouldn't push it, but alas, heavy rain is forecast for tomorrow afternoon. A decision is made.
We are thankful that this farm was tiled last fall. Other fields around that aren't tiled are still swamps. It was sunny and warmish today, so we thought that if we could work some ground, then it would dry out enough to plant early tomorrow. Below Jeff lightly works some plot ground.

The West side of this farm is hilly and not used for plots. It is a little higher and has lighter soil. It was still a little wet, but able to be planted. So Amanda was able to run the soybean drill on some production ground. The soil strips are where tile lines are buried. The humps were disked down earlier this spring, but the rest (which was wheat stubble) was just sprayed with Roundup and left to no-till. It went pretty well.

With all of this wet weather, we are spraying all of our wheat with fungicide. Phil broadcast applied Folicure and Headline on different farms. We have a test plot on Farm 3 where we are applying fertilizers N-Response (formerly High NRG-NR) and ferti-Rain with Quadris fungicide on wheat. This is a repeat of a test we did last year where we found significant yield increases where fertilizers were added. However we did not see a response with the fungicide alone, although it was much drier last spring. So we will see. Below is a picture of the field. The wheat is at full flag leaf stage with the heads bulging in the stems. I would expect them to be showing in a day or two.

I made these same applications to this same wheat test, also on Farm 3, exactly a year ago today. It was in my blog on this date then. In fact, a picture very similar to the one below was used. Last year the wheat heads were already emerging when I sprayed, due to more heat units then. But the wheat does look good this year, and we hope to show more significant yield responses with these nutritional products. Stay tuned.

Well I hope tomorrow I can tell you all about our day of planting. Thanks for reading, as we shoot for #200. I am saddened and concerned that more tornados struck today, this time in my home state of Oklahoma. I talked to my parents in Stillwater, and the sirens went off and they went to shelter, but no tornado touchdowns there. But there was damage to the south around Oklahoma City, but I don't know details at this time. I hope and pray that damage was minimal.

What Next???

2011-05-23T16:19:00.004-04:00

So where has the blog been since last Monday? Mostly watching it rain yet again. I know you don't tune in to hear me complain, but it seems that I have a lot of company this year. We had an inch of rain the previous weekend, and were able to plant only one soybean experiment on Tuesday on our sandiest ground (CEC of 5). All other fields were too wet. Then it rained Tuesday night, Wednesday and Thursday for a total of 1.2 inches. Then some light showers Saturday and Sunday, and another 0.25 inches this morning. So to remind everyone that this is still a farm, here is a picture of planting last Tuesday. We were the only one's planting anywhere around that day. Stephanie assures us that there are still enough heat units coming for the corn we haven't planted yet I started this last night when a thunderstorm caused a power outage at my home. It did not come back on till 7 this morning. So I did not hear anything about the terrible tornado in Joplin, Missouri until the Today Show. I have driven through Joplin a number of times driving between Oklahoma and Michigan. Again with such terrible devastation and loss of life as we saw recently in the South, especially Tuscaloosa. No one can prepare for how they would react to such a tragedy. How could you? The survivors all seem to be thankful they survived, yet at the same time, sorry for the losses. And all seem to have a strong resolve to rebuild. That's admirable and they sure need our prayers and support.

Activity Recap

2011-05-16T22:14:00.006-04:00

So it rained again this weekend. It started on Friday night and rained off and on all day Saturday and Sunday. There was around 2 inches in the gage this morning, so no planting today. But some of our corn is emerging. The field below was planted on May 5. Corn usually emerges in 9 days at the NCRS. It was good to see. But Michigan is still behind normal planting for corn. In the USDA crop progress report just released today, only 41% of the corn in Michigan has been planted as of May 15 (yesterday) compared to 80% last year and 68% over the previous 5 years. But the previous week only 8% was planted, so fields were busy last week. Most of the top corn states are behind in planting, but poor Ohio seems to be the hardest hit with only 7% planted compared to the 5 year average of 70%. A few states like Iowa are actually ahead of the 5-year average (92% vs 84%).But let me give a brief recap of activities late last week. Nick actually moved quite a bit of equipment from the existing equipment barn to the new one. These are things that we won't be using for awhile, but were in the way of things that we regularly use. So it was nice to get some things moved. Thanks Nick.
Here is the finished floor of the fertilizer and chemical storage barn. You can see the water tracks that slope towards the sump in the middle. This floor layout is designed to contain a 7000 gallon spill. We really don't want to test it though. It will be nice to get this up and running sometime later this summer.

We also got a 0.3 inch shower last Wednesday night which made Farm 7 too muddy to finish our two remaining corn tests there. So on Friday we switched to soybean plots on Farm 3 which has much lighter soil and had dried out enough to plant then. Below MSU Intern Amanda maneuvers the fertilizer "War Wagon" into position to load plot treatments into the drill, seen in the background in the field. Amanda was raised on Red tractors on her family farm, and it pains her to drive green, but it's all in the name of research.

And our other intern Jeff loads a fertilizer treatment mix into the plot tank of the drill. We are using the drill to plant 15 inch row beans here. This has worked very well in the past, with the fertilizer actually applied in the row, which we generally don't recommend for 30 inch row beans.

And the drill is off again to make another treatment application.

You notice that we plant soybeans as no-till here on Farm 3. We also planted some second year corn as no-till on Farm 3 as I did also on Friday. Most of the pictures to date have been conventional till due mainly to worked ground on other farms after tiling last year. But we do some no-till too, as well as strip till which has been shown here previously.

So what has the Specialty Crop Crew been up to? I just can't seem to get Brian to take enough pictures of their activities, so I have taken some. The price will be pretty steep when he comes seeking pictures for meetings and reports. Below we see Brian and Tim planting potatoes with the mechanical planter. That plot tractor can apply liquid and dry comparison fertilizer as it plants.

And today, the only outside work was over on the so-called "perennial crop" area. Dan and Tim are applying wood mulch around some small trees. You can see the fertilizer effects on the grass around the tree rows, so it is important to get them mulched. They will control the grass later.

So thats all for now from the NCRS!

Happy Birthday...To Blog!!!

2011-05-13T21:14:00.004-04:00

So can you believe it has been a year already since the launch of the wildly successful "Live From the NCRS" blog? Seems like it was only yesterday. A year ago I showed a picture of our new gps/autosteer equipment and also a picture of the frosted corn that took a hit (but fully recovered.) I have really enjoyed sharing pictures and descriptions of what we do here at the North Central Research Station as we progress through the growing season. Thanks for reading. In addition to the readership in North America, that being U.S., Canada and Mexico, the blog stats lists page views in Germany, China, Russia (zdravstvute ya'll, yep High School Russian really paid off), Netherlands, India, England and Indonesia. So wear a Liquid T-shirt the next time you are in Jakarta and you may find a friend! This is the 97th blog posting since birth last year. Hmm...I think I sense another milestone in the near future. Well excuse me for now...I've got to get back to the celebration.

Taking Advantage of Good Planting Weather

2011-05-11T20:51:00.000-04:00

So the planting weather has been ideal this week and much progress has been made. I hate to admit it, but a little rain shower would actually be nice right now as the warm weather and wind has really dried out the soil. It seems later in the week than only Wednesday since the days have been long with lot's of work by everyone. Below we see Doug on Monday planting corn on Farm 5. The concrete aprons of the fertilizer storage barn were poured on Monday.
Randy and Ron A. are busy installing the lights in the shop extension. Heads up Randy.

This week the NCRS has two Michigan State University students on an internship assignment, and will be with us all summer. Amanda and Jeff are both Crops and Soil Sciences majors and we are glad to have them. We hope they will learn much about crop nutrition and conducting agronomic research. Below Jeff does some refinement of the leaching wells.

Below Amanda spreads dry fertilizer in a comparison plot with our dry fertilizer air spreader.

The planter is still following the tractor and, with luck, we should be finished planting the corn experiments tomorrow. And then on to soybeans.

We have started planting some "production acres" of soybeans this week. Below Doug and returning summer worker Jake load bulk soybeans into the drill. The bag above Doug's head is the liquid innoculant that is metered by a tube onto the beans as they enter the auger. This works really well for innoculant application. We call it our soybean IV.

And look at this surprise to the farm we saw this afternoon. A pair of Bald Eagles were down on Farm 1. This one was eating something. (We took a head count after seeing this. All personnel were accounted for.) Tim lives right next to Farm 1 and said that he has seen them earlier. Maybe they are making a nest in the woods. They are pretty big, and very cool to see.

Keep visiting this blog for future eagle updates.

Don't Let This Happen to You!

2011-05-07T20:38:00.003-04:00

So Doug and I came in today to get caught up on some tillage and planting of what we call "production corn". That is corn, and later soybeans, that are not part of an experiment, but are planted with the same love that we show the test plots. Doug planted awhile while I worked ground, and then we switched. I've told you how much I like the auto steer. But it shouldn't be an invitation to not watch where you are going and play with your cell phone. I was on some strips only about 900 feet long, and looking up something on my phone, when I felt myself curving out of control. The auto steer had kicked off for some reason! I said "Darn, that's unfortunate." (Or words to that effect in case my mom is reading this.) The picture below shows what happened. (Note: I was planting every other track for easier turning and then coming back after a few to fill in the gaps, as I was doing here.) But here is were the story takes an unexpected turn, no pun intended (well maybe.) Rather than back up and try to get back on track, I drove on out and then started planting back towards the spot where I curved so that the rows would eventually line up with the accuracy of the RTK autosteer. But just as I was approaching the spot, the autosteer again disengaged and I started curving again!!! And guess what track number it was? Believe it or not, it was track 13! I am not making this up. So I re-engaged the auto steer and the rows did finally line up. But there will be some extra hoeing to remove the errant corn. But by somebody else, I'm not going back to the haunted corn field!

Parade of Planting

2011-05-06T21:17:00.002-04:00

So we were blessed with another nice day here at the NCRS, and all were busy. Brian has a new vegetable transplanter to use this year. This more accurately simulates real world vegetable growing, as compared to the old way of setting them one at a time by hand. This also applies "setter water" including fertilizer as the plants are set into the raised beds. Here we see Brian at the helm with Tim and Dan loading plants as the holder thing, or whatever it is called, comes around. This work is so exciting they are literally on the edges of their seats. Here we see several rows of cabbage. Later on they transplanted broccoli. I hope no rabbits are reading this.
We are doing more tillage than usual this year to work down the tile tracks from last year. Here we see Ron running our new (again for us) mulch tiller on the back of Farm 5. It does a nice job of seed bed preparation with the trailing rolling baskets.

And here we see Doug planting a corn plot under Stephanie's watchful eye. We have gotten a number of corn tests planted the past two days. The ground is ready and warmer temps are on the way.

Although we have been busy planting here this week, it's heartbreaking seeing all of the flooding along the swollen rivers to the south. Don't know how all of that will all turn out, but our thoughts and prayers are with all of those poor farmers, and with others affected.

Seed Meets Soil!

2011-05-04T21:41:00.004-04:00

So planting finally got going yesterday at the NCRS. First priority was for sugarbeets. Sugarbeets are typically planted in early to mid-April, depending on conditions. But this cold and wet spring delayed it till yesterday. Here we see Stephanie transferring the liquid fertilizer treatment to Doug and the planter. And here Doug plants a plot. Each treatment is replicated four times in this experiment. And the plots are 265 feet long, so that should give us a good read on performance.
Here is a picture of the back of Stephanie's winter coat. (Hey it was only 44 degrees and cloudy yesterday.) Albert got one for each of us research types last fall. That embroidered combine scene on the back is from an actual picture that I took of harvesting a wheat experiment. We all think Albert is a swell guy. More on Albert at the end of this.

After finishing planting of beets today, it was time to clean out the beet seed and change the sugarbeet plates to corn plates. Guest worker Alex Ruff provides assistance. (He is a much harder worker than that other Ruff guy who was out here Monday.)

Here I am planting a corn experiment later today. (This experiment has five replications of treatments and plots are 210 feet long.) It is planting of a stip till (or Nutri-Till) plot featured last year in blogs on October 30 and November 1. So we are comparing fall and spring timing of Nutri-Till fertilizer applications, as well as no-till and fall surface applications of Pro-Germinator and Sure-K in no-till. In this picture I am planting in strips that were made last fall. To the right is a no-till plot and to the right of that is a plot where the strips and fertilizer were applied were made yesterday. This will be a good evaluation of different fertilizer options, because we like to help growers figure out what would work best for them.

And now for a special announcement, if you have not already heard. Albert Bancroft and his lovely wife Allison crossed the bridge from well-rested and childless to parenthood. The sign in their front yard (across the road from Farm 3) says it all. Congratulations to the new family, and to Troy and Jill for their first grand daughter.

So it was a memorable day on many fronts. And hopefully more planting memories yet to come tomorrow. Now I have a date with a pillow.

Getting In On The Ground Floor

2011-05-02T23:19:00.007-04:00

So there are actually two blog posts today as one blog could not contain all of the activities that happened today. We are getting the new fertilizer and chemical barn ready to pour the concrete floor. This floor is unlike the others at the farm in that it will be sloped inward to contain any accidental spills. Additionally, a liner will be placed on the ground under the concrete for additional environmental protection. Today we got a crew together to help put down the liner. First it was necessary to square up all of the dirt on the edges and flatten out any loose dirt. Guest worker Dale Ruff operates one of those things that vibrates to pack loose dirt. He was told to just keep going in circles.The roller pushed rocks into the ground while Ron A. smoothes out the taper around a sump. Dale is still going in circles.
Next the tarp was unrolled...

...and then pulled across the floor. Hopefully no one lost their phone or car keys.
Here everyone inspects the work and all agree that they did an excellent job.

Next the sides were nailed up. Here Phil holds the tarp and Ron A. nails it. His work completed, Dale goose steps off the tarp much to Stephanie's amusement.

Later the concrete crew came in to push sand over the tarp. They use a laser leveler to make the grade correct for the concrete containment.

Dale, if it seems like I was picking on you...well I was. But only because I know you can take it. And we really did appreciate your help and experience with this. So thanks, and drop by any time. Stay tuned for tomorrow's report on the big pour. Till next time....good night NCRS.

Field Work...Finally

2011-05-02T22:16:00.005-04:00

So it was still cool and often cloudy, but no rain. And it was nice over the weekend, so there was some drying, and we took advantage of it. Remember the posting on April 16 showing topdressing of wheat plots? Well one of the variables in a test was timing of topdress application. We actually split a small field and topdressed half on April 13, and planned to do the other half later. Well today was later, and the wheat was in the Feekes 4 stage, with the small stems standing erect now. In the picture below you should be able to see that the previously topdressed wheat is considerably greener than the unsprayed wheat on the right of the flag.

Here is Phil applying the topdress treatment. The application is of a blend of 43% High NRG-N and 57% (volume basis) 28% UAN + eNhance. This is a blend that we are evaluating this year. It will be interesting to see if there is any foliage burn on this larger wheat. There was none with the previous application.

With that out of the way it was on to our sugarbeet test to get that ready for planting. As you know, we include conventional fertilizer treatments for comparison to the Liquid treatments, both regular and experimental fertilizers. Here is a picture of me on the dry fertilizer blower making an application of potash to the conventional plot. I think I have showed this before, but it is an air machine (built by Doug) for application of dry fertilizers to plots.

Next I incorporated the potash with a field cultivator pulled by Troy's 4020. It is a nice old tractor with plenty of horsepower. The wings are folded up to match the 15' plot width. (OK, this is a self portrait. I wanted a pic of me on this tractor. Hopefully no one was watching me sprint from the camera up onto the tractor several times till I was satisfied with the pic.)

With that done, we will plant it tomorrow. Next we have a strip till plot where we were comparing fall strip till fertilizer applications to those in spring. I showed the fall applications last October 30. This is a repeat of a test we ran last year with favorable results in that the fall Pro-Germinator and Sure-K applications were as good as those in the spring. Below we see Stephanie mixing a treatment on the "war wagon" while Ron and Phil observe.

Here is a picture taken by Stephanie looking out the back window. I probably should have moved the wiper, sorry. We call this Nutri-Till, because unlike strip-till, we have dual placement of nutrition: Pro-Germinator, Sure-K and Micro 500 in the seed zone, and nitrogen down 5 inches beneath the seed placement.

So we are set to actually plant some crops tomorrow. Only a few weeks late, but we are farmers: which means we are optimists.

We Saw The Sun Today!

2011-04-29T23:18:00.002-04:00

So today was the first day in some time that we could drive to the farm without having to use windshield wipers. But the fields are still way too wet to work and we really need some dry and sunny weather for awhile. This will be the first April that I can remember that we have no corn planted. And worse is that the sugarbeet seed is still in the planter. But enough bad news.

Yesterday Brian and Dan went up to the Traverse City area to work with some fruit trees. This area is one of the nation's biggest tart cherry production areas (Michigan is the nations leading producer of tart cherries), and Liquid fertilizer is used by a number of smart growers. The picture below shows some young cherry trees in the foreground. They took some measurements with calipers to get some baseline data on trees to be treated with some different fertility treatments, including the new Liquid fertilizer Fase2. In the background are some larger trees that have been fertilized with Fase2 (formerly G-07) for several years with positive results.

Here is what the shop extension looked like this morning. They got the paneling up and it really looks nice. Next they will blow insulation above the ceiling, and then add lights.
The apple trees at the NCRS were just starting to leaf out, and below we see Dan applying some fungicide and fertilizer. This is a very timely application with all of the cold wet weather so far this spring. Thanks Dan. Keep your fingers crossed for some planter pictures next week. Enjoy the weekend.

So What Happened Today????

2011-04-26T21:56:00.004-04:00

So today started out raining again. But the hardworking concrete guys were already at the new equipment barn to pour the floor at 6 am. Or so I heard. I was there several hours later to take these pictures. It was a cement truck parade to get the concrete unloaded into the building. The trucks went in two at a time and poured direct onto the floor. No pump today. These guys really work fast to keep up with all of the concrete coming out of the trucks. I did notice that all of these guys were pretty young. Definitely No Country For Old Men. I do want to acknowledge the expertise of the Custom Concrete crew from Holland, MI and the High Grade Materials concrete trucks. They made quick work of this whole project. It will be great when we can move some equipment out of our very crowded equipment barn now.
This afternoon I took a look at one of our winter wheat experiments. This test is similar to one conducted last year where we evaluated the effects of late applications of ferti-Rain and N Response (formerly High NRG-NR) on yield. The results were positive. But another aspect of the test was the application of fertilizer through the drill at planting. Half of the plots received an application of 4 gal/A of Pro-Germinator + 2 qt/A Micro 500, and the other half received no drill fertilizer. There were 20 plots that received drill fertilizer and 20 that did not, and all received the same N treatments. After harvest, we found that the plots that recieved the drill fertilizer averaged 8 bu/A more wheat than the no-drill fertilizer plots. That is substantial with the price of wheat today. And so many growers say they don't want to mess with drill fertilizer, they just want to get it planted. But 8 more bushels is a great return. And these same growers wouldn't dare plant corn without planter fertilizer of some sort.

So anyway I wanted to see if I could see the effects of the same drill fertilizer treatment, as this test was close to that of 2010. You could definately see that the plots that received the Pro-Germinator + Micro 500 had bigger and darker green wheat than those that did not, and all had been topdressed the week before last. In the picture below, I shouldn't have to tell you that the plot on the left got fall fertilizer and the plot on the right did not. We use tram lines for wheel traffic, and the skinny section is the border rows.

The picture below is a close up. There are 3 border rows on the left that received fall fertilizer, and the 3 on the right had none. (This is also an endorsement for autosteer as the spacing of the guess rows is dead on.) You can also see the main plots on the edge of the picture.

So we just do all of this to help the grower make choices. Fertilize wheat and get more yield.....or not. Hmmm.

Let There Be Concrete!

2011-04-25T22:22:00.002-04:00

So what else happened today, you ask? Well they poured the concrete floor of the shop extension. It was fun to watch other people work. They had a pump that was fed by the big cement trucks.And it was fed into the building where there was a large crew that spread it out and smoothed it. It only took a couple hours to get it all poured, and then a while longer to get it smoothed.
Kind of like painting yourself into a corner. Well, I guess not since they just walked out.

I never did learn the official name of what this piece of leveling equipment is called, but it was fun. Here Phil takes a turn. It's smooooth.

Meanwhile over on Farm 3, with the floor on the shop poured, the crew makes final prep work for the new equipment barn, which will be poured tomorrow. They got it all levelled using lasers for guidance. Doug watches the progress. I'm pretty sure they have done this before.

Meanwhile back at the shop, the finishers make sure the floor is right. It will be a few weeks before we can bring in heavy equipment, but it will be nice.

Hopefully the weather cooperates so that they can keep going. Tune in for the next exciting chapter....

Keeping Busy on a Soggy Monday

2011-04-25T21:35:00.004-04:00

So here it is the last week of April, and this is usually full steam ahead for planting corn. But as you have read me lamenting (some would say complaining) about the cold and wet spring, here we wait. But we were determined to get the planter out for a dry run (wait, should I use the term "dry" when talking about the superiority of Liquid?). Anyway, while dodging raindrops we checked out the planter in the parking lot since we replaced the 3-point pickup with a tongue hitch, plus several other improvements with the goal of making our lives easier. It passed. Maybe I haven't mentioned that we are renting two more fields. They are close by, just up the road a bit from Farm 3. Doug, Stephanie and I went up there to take a look and do a few work things. We should have done this already, but I took some soil tests today. Both fields have been in grass hay production for a number of years. This year we will plant corn and soybeans. This being new ground for us, we really don't know anything about the fertility or physical characteristics. So we made guesses on pH, CEC, P and K levels. We have to make a game of everything these days to take our minds off of not being in the fields planting. But it is kind of fun making predictions.

Next we mapped the fields with the JD Apex software for future planting. One field is 13 acres and the other is 18. I guess these will be Farm 9 for reference purposes.

We now have lights in one of the new buildings on Farm 3. This is the future site of fertilizer, chemical and sprayer storage. So lights are nice for that sort of thing.

Here is our Master Electrician (literally) Ron A. making final checks on the control box. We are lucky to have him as he has done a great job with all of the buildings at the farm and the new plant in Ashley.

And the rest of the day was spent working on the tank control box for the new Hagie sprayer. Here Doug and Ron D. sort through the myriad of colored wires. It's getting close.

It's supposed to be wet the rest of the week, but we aren't the only ones it seems. Growing crops is a challenge in many areas of the country, either too wet or dry. It finally rained in parts of Oklahoma yesterday. My home town of Stillwater got 1.6 inches and SAM Jacob down by Shawnee got nearly 4 inches, but he said some of that was of the frozen type of rain. But either way, it was the first significant rain there since last October.

What to do on a cold and rainy day.....

2011-04-20T22:26:00.005-04:00

So the cold weather of early March continues, even though it is the second half of April. It rained 1.25 inches last night here at the NCRS, and off and on again all day. Temperatures barely reached 40 with a cold wind, so the planter did not come out again today. We did receive most of our soybeans today. Our forklift got kidnapped for use at the Ashley plant construction, so Doug used this one parked here by the construction crew here at the NCRS. This monster made quick work of unloading the seed pallets. The Bancrofts have been generous with giving the farm good equipment, but a forklift like this is probably out of the question. All of the rain brought out the earthworms onto the pavement. After surviving all winter deep in the ground, they are now driven to certain doom. Yes, I think of things like this and will occasionally toss them back onto the grass when no one is looking. OK, shrink session over, get back to work.
You may have seen the nice catwalk structure Ron D. built for the Ashley plant in Nick's Ashley project blog. Well most of it was sent out to be powder coated, but this piece was too big for their paint oven. So Doug had to spray paint it yesterday. But first the farm crew covered everything with plastic in case it got out of control, or too painty in the air. It turned out nice and was later loaded onto a trailer for transport to Ashley tomorrow. (Did anyone see the Mr. Bean episode where he painted a room by blowing up a can of paint? Still laughing at the silhouette of the guy who forgot his hat. Guess you had to be there.)

Here is a picture of the shop expansion. The water hoses for the floor heat were installed today by the construction crew. Now it is ready for the pouring of concrete, which will be someday soon if it ever warms up.
Follow the fun here at the NCRS as we impatiently watch the days pass by knowing we should be planting. But Mother Nature is clearly in control.

Haven't We Seen This Before?

2011-04-18T15:30:00.003-04:00

So just when we were looking to get rolling into spring fieldwork, Mother Nature threw us yet another curve. Here is the view from my office this morning. Already behind by the calendar compared to previous years, we were kept in by yet another snow storm. It started around 7 this morning and snowed pretty hard till noon. And the next few days don't offer much hope. But at least we didn't have terrible tornados like other states did. Those poor people sure need our prayers as they try to rebuild. I couldn't imagine seeing your whole life swept away, and in some cases, loved ones as well. So we will patiently wait for conditions to improve knowing it could be worse.

That Was The Week That Was

2011-04-16T16:58:00.005-04:00

So this past week was a mixed bag of weather, but there were some good days to get some things done, and so we did. Topdressing wheat was the first order of business. With year two of using our new technology of gps guidance and documentation, some refresher courses were needed. Instructor Stephanie reviews programming the monitor for spraying with Phil. We had some larger replicated field strip plots of different topdress fertilizer applications, and so we used Phil's Hagie with the 45 foot boom. And we also had some smaller 15 foot wide plots where I used the Old Hagie, as the new one is not yet ready for action (much to the disappointment of our leader Troy.) But it will be soon. Poor Doug has been very busy with all of the building projects. But here is a view from the drivers seat of another winter wheat plot being topdressed. This field was the last wheat we planted and is featured in the October 13, 2010 blog. So it isn't as big as the wheat in the above picture. Note the tram lines we use for driving in our narrow-row plots. Possibly one of the last shots (taken by Stephanie) of the old Hagie faithfully applying fertilizer for an experiment to aid in the knowledge of growing food for the world. No small task indeed.

Thursday the soil on Farm 7 was able to be worked in preparation for planting an oat experiment, which was done on Friday. Doug and Stephanie rode in the 7820 pulling the drill, with Stephanie helping Doug navigate the plots. When I saw Stephanie later, I asked her the same question I always ask: "Did you take some pictures?" Regretfully, she admitted that even though she had her camera, she forgot to take a picture till the very end and only had the picture below to show. I reminded her that there is a legion of fans of this blog that are depending on our full documentation of all activities on the farm. It won't happen again.

Finally, I thought I would show you what the south end of Farm 8 looks like. There used to be small scrub trees and bushes here along the road, but they have been cleared out and we will plant some fruit trees and maybe some more grapes here later. This will be a good location on this south facing slope. Brian and Dan are planning this and as always, as it happens, it will be shown here first.

Next week we will venture further in plot establishment as the 2011 growing season unfolds.