Halloween Vowel Movement from 2012

(So back when I used to actually do pumpkin carving, I had a great blog post on Halloween in  2012.  In fact it is heavily requested for a re-post, so here you go.  Kind of like It's A Wonderful Life at Christmas.   So enjoy it again and have fun with your own pumpkin.)

So Happy Halloween to all of you out in Blogland.  Last year I took a stab at LIQUID pumpkin carving with pretty good results.  Here is a re-run of the picture from exactly one year ago in 2011.  So how could I top that for 2012?

I know...instead of one pumpkin (which anyone could do), why not six!  After hours of careful carving and still having all my fingers and thumbs in place, I was finished.  Now to arrange them on the porch.  Hmmm, not as easy as I thought.

A little re-arranging....D'oh....still wrong.  I need a pumpkin spell-check.

Finally. That looks right. 

I suppose now all of the Trick-or-Treaters will be expecting a bag full of Pro-Germinator.  I better stock up.  Happy Halloween.

Thank You and Good Luck Tim B!

So today we said goodbye to one of our long-time NCRS employees, Tim Brussel.  After more than seven years, Tim is retiring and today was his last day at the NCRS.  So of course there was a cake.

 And a cookout.  Tim gives his parting remarks.  He enjoyed the time here and appreciated working with all of us.  Everyone likes Tim and hate to see him go.  But we all wish him well.

 And the obligatory group pic.

 Tim works hard at the farm, but has lot's going on away from work.  Ministry is a passion for Tim and his wife Pauline.  He has traveled outside the country on several Mission trips.  Here is a mention of the Brussel's upcoming two-week trip to Tanzania from the blog on May 25, 2010.  Check it out.

Tim mainly worked in specialty crop research.  Here he is spraying weeds in the new orchard.

 How many grapes  has Tim picked in the vineyard over the years?  Well it's probably quite a few.

 Tim is no slouch in the shop either.  He had a machinist background and built a number of things for the farm, including a sprayer for the hort crops.

Another passion of Tim's was growing giant watermelons and pumpkins.  But watermelons was his specialty.  Here he is back in 2012.  But he grew bigger each year and attained state championship last year.

So good luck Tim.  He has more Ministry plans here in St. Johns and probably elsewhere.  But Tim lives right next to the farm and we will certainly see him again.

"Equivalence" Explained

So I needed to get some new light bubs.  (When I was in high school I worked at the OSU health center as an apprentice surgeon.  Ok, as a janitor.  The older lady who was my boss pronounced light bulbs as light "bubs".  So 44 years later, I still call them that in tribute.)  For several years now they  have sold the low energy LED bubs that produce light that is as bright as the older bulbs with higher wattage.  So I noticed the label as saying that this low energy bub with 6.5 actual watts produces light that is "60 watt equivalent."  Hmmm.  Now where else have I heard this "equivalence" explanation used?  Oh yes!  As an explanation of AgroLiquid's unique carbon-based formulations being used at lower rates than conventional fertilizers, due to the lower rates being "equivalent" in performance to the higher rates, due to new technology.  Now consumers like me believe the light bub "equivalence" because we see it work.  So maybe AgroLiquid Retail Partners should carry around some light bubs to explain this "equivalence" concept to doubting growers.  (Note: this occurred to me as a light bub went off over my head, like in the cartoons.) 

In other news, it has been a wet start of the week.  It rained all day Monday and Tuesday.  I live South of the NCRS, and had 3.4" of rain in two days.  And this was after 3.2" on October 15.  So the combine is inside for the time being.  The goal of being finished with NCRS harvest by Halloween is getting to be a challenge now.  Scary. 

But the delay gives us a chance to get some experiments summarized and to prepare for who knows what.   

Lettuce Eat!

So again sorry for the long blog interval, but I've been on a Fertilizer Mission.  I've been meaning to post this feature from almost a month ago.  This summer we worked with a very large  grower that is one of the biggest lettuce growers in Florida, but is actually based out of Michigan.  They wanted to see if they could grow certain varieties of lettuce here in Michigan, and we crossed paths and set up some trials.  They planted this trial in July and it just had a sample harvest here in late September.  A dry base fertilizer was applied and supplemental AgroLiquid nutrition was applied through drip tape.  They had not used drip tape fertilizer before, but in the end were very pleased with the outcome.  It certainly was a pretty test.  (I borrowed this pic from Stephanie.  Sadly it was better than one that I took from the other end of the field.  It was too far to walk all the way down here.)

Growing lettuce and other vegetables is a lot of work with  hand labor for planting, weeding and harvesting.  But at least you can eat what you grow.  They packaged some of the Head and Romaine lettuce and if fed quite a few of us Liquid-ites both at the farm and the office in town. It looks like what you get in the store, but it's from the NCRS!  So we proved that you can grow good lettuce with AgroLiquid.  Who knew?  Well we did but it's nice to convince the growers.  We will see what happens from this next year.  By the way, I really liked salads with the Coeurs de Romaine.  Who wouldn't.

I was surprised that there was no damage from deer or rabbits, as we did not fence this.  I guess here at the NCRS they are used to eating corn and soybeans and stayed away.

California Wine Grape Research

So it was time to check on more California research. This time in wine grapes.  Wine grapes are grown in almost every state.  But California maintains the premium wine grape reputation.  AgroLiquid is already applied to wine grapes there.  But we wanted more.  So we have been working with a contract researcher on wine grape fertility on a large field of Chardonnay grapes.  This is the second year of this experiment, and the effects of the fertilizer treatment should be expressed now.  Here we see Dylan and the researchers looking at a plot.  The grapes were actually harvested a couple weeks prior to this visit.

Grape fertility is pretty much multiple applications through the growing season.  The method of fertilizer application to the plots is pretty ingenious.  Each plot is six vines, or individual grape plants.  Liquid fertilizers are commonly applied through the drip irrigation line.  So they have a cone tank that applies the plot fertilizer to those six vines of a plot only.  There are four replications, so they move around the site to make the applications.  I also notice that the West facing side of the vines are larger than the East facing side. You can see that in the picture below.  But it's nice that the research is placed in a real vineyard.

 The rows next to the plot rows had not yet been picked by the vineyard crew.  But you can see what the mature bunches look like.  They harvest the grape bunches from the middle four vines of each plot.  I was surprised that they were picking over 400 bunches from the four vines.  Wow.  That's almost as hard as picking strawberries.  They took weights and also a Juice Panel which tested the juice for various parameters.  Well I recently received the results, and the AgroLiquid had the highest yield.  There is plenty of data to review, so I'll get right on that. Look for these results in the Research Report.

Leaving the vineyard and headed for Fresno.  Passed by some dry, yet scenic landscapes.  No really.  It looked just like that.

Well that's pretty much it for my most recent California visit. I always leave anxious to return. And I will.

Strawberry Fields

So the next day Dylan and I headed South to Santa Maria.  It is actually on the Pacific coast, although didn't make it to the beach.  But in many ways it was better.  We met up with Frank who is a PCA with Retail Partner Santa Maria Valley Crop Service (www.smvalleycropservice.com).  Frank showed us some fields where AgroLiquid had been used on some strawberry fields. 

 Now if you are ever going to do some field checking on some strawberries, make sure it's when they are ripe and being picked.  That is the best way to check.  And I can say that the this field with AgroLiquid looked and tasted great.  The liquid fertilizer is applied during the season through drip tape under the plastic bed cover. 

 Strawberries are one crop that is experiencing a boom right now. As we learned, they are normally finished by this time of year.  But good price and demand has kept them picking still.  Heck, they are so good I'd pick every last one.  Here is an AgroLiquid field being picked while we were there.

 Now here is a field of organic strawberries.  We didn't know what the nutrient program was, but they sure weren't as robust as the previous field.

Well AgroLiquid to the rescue.  You probably know that we have C-Tech which is an OMRI listed organic product containing beneficial natural microbes plus organic carbon.  This field is on the other side of that fence on the left from the above field, and looks much better.  That's because it had 2 qt/A of C-Tech applied through the drip lines several weeks ago.  The plants were certainly bigger and had more pickable strawberries.  We had a research project during the summer on organic strawberries not too far from here and saw a similar response and higher yields with C-Tech.  That's why we do research on our products: to confirm performance before going to the grower.

The roots from the C-Tech treated strawberries on the left were also bigger which enabled the plant to feed better.

 After that we went to another set of fields.  This one was huge.  Dylan and Frank walk the line where fertilizer programs are compared.  They will keep track of yields.  Frank said that some of these strawberries are headed for Hong Kong!  That's amazing.  I wonder how they keep them fresh for that long trip?  As good as strawberries are, they aren't exactly good for very long.  That's why they should be consumed the day of purchase and repeat the next day.

 This field was also being picked by a crew that was really hustling.  The field pickers would fill baskets in a box and one person would run the box to the  packing operation line around a fifty to a hundred feet away.  Then run the empty box back out to the pickers.  And repeat over and over.  Now that's work.  I, on the other hand, was picking them one at a time.  But I wasn't running anywhere.  But God bless those field workers. 

Now we couldn't really see any differences from fertilizer programs, which is good I guess.  We will see in the end.  On another note, it's terrible all of the wildfires currently plaguing California.  We can only hope that they get controlled and soon.  And hope that the people and places affected get the help they need.

California Citrus Research

So my other purpose for the trip to CA was to check up on Research trials.  We have a foliar fertilizer experiment in citrus, or more specifically in Mandarin oranges.  This is South of Stockton, where AgroLiquid's California manufacturing plant is located.  Now who doesn't love a sweet, easy to peel Mandarin?  If your hand is  raised, please leave.  This is kind of a different situation as this is a sizable ranch with citrus and tree nuts, but the manager also does contract research.  

Well as luck would have it, there were Agro reinforcements. Here we see me, SAM Armando, the other CA SAM Dylan, chemist Chris and Agronomist JW.  Obviously this is overkill for personnel, but we were travelling on different missions, and met up here to see what's up in the research trial.  So it was a good thing to collaborate and exchange thoughts.  Which we did. I now see that the guys from Michigan are wearing short sleeves.  I guess we didn't exchange thoughts on that.  One of the research assistants showed us around and took this pic.

I was here last March to set up the trial and the trees were just about to flower.  Now you can see the oranges, although green.  They will be harvested in December.  I probably won't be back, but would love to take a bite of some sweet  Agro Fruit.  You can see the drip irrigation hose on the ground.  Without water and nutrients from that: no trees.  Very dry here.

We looked at the different tree plots.  Of course our unbiased eye thought the Agro foliar looked best.  We are testing two different foliar programs.  One simple and one more complex.  While simple is easy, is it as good as the complex one?  Time will tell.    

There were four foliar applications applied through the growing season, the last being in September as the fruit is gaining size.  Foliar fertilizer applications are quite common in citrus, so we look for a new market there.  Chris and JW wonder what Dylan is doing across the way in those other trees.  What do you think those trees are?

Those are pistachio trees.  I took this pic last March  from pretty close to the above pic.  Unlike the pistachios, citrus trees are evergreens, and keep their leaves.  The trees all look bigger now in late September.  Now who doesn't love to eat a handful of delicious pistachio nuts?  If your hand is raised, well you know the drill.

So we hope to have research in pistachios and other tree nut crops in the future.  There is AgroLiquid used on these crops, but research would be good support for wider use.  And who doesn't support wider use?

California Crop Visit Begins

So sorry the blog has been absent for awhile.  Lots of busy-ness going on at AgroLiquid HQ.  But to get caught up...a couple weeks ago I went out to The Golden State: California.  I flew in to Sacramento late on a Sunday night.  I guess the baggage handlers had already gone home and you had to sort your own luggage from this cart.  Whew!

The next day SAM Armando picked me up and we stopped by a grower south of Sacramento in the San Joaquin valley who has been using AgroLiquid on his wine grapes.  The grapes had been picked some time ago, and did quite well. They are mostly using Sure-K through the season by drip irrigation and foliar, as potassium is limiting in these soils.

Here are some olives that also have received AgroLiquid and mostly Sure-K.

They will be harvested later this fall.  Most of the CA olives go to make olive oil.  In fact this grower said that the processor has entered oil from his olives in contests and they have done quite well as well.  So when buying olive oil, make sure it is from California.  You likely have encountered the term Extra Virgin Olive Oil on the bottle.  What's up with that?  Well it is produced from high quality olives with no defects, and is mechanically crushed without the use of chemicals or solvents.  So it is just pure oil.  Further, it tests low in acidity (less than 0.8% oleic acid).  It also must pass a taste test.  Virgin olive oil has less than 2% acidity.  Extra Virgin olive oil is best used on food that is directly consumed like on salads.  So there.

Later that day Armando and I had a meeting with several PCA's from one of our Retail Partners: Mid Valley Agricultural Services.  They have several locations in the valley.  I reported last spring about a meeting in the Linden location.  But we were now in Livingston.  We went over products and recommendations for different crops.  Although mainly for dairy alfalfa and silage corn.  So I was comfortable doing that.    Visit their website at: www.midvalleyag.com.  Admittedly, you will see that they offer a number of crop nutrient sources.  But they have shown good growth in AgroLiquid in the past year and we hope to make it the first option for Valley growers in the future.

So there is plenty more to report on my trip to CA that will be in the Land of Liquid in days to come.

(FYI: California PCA's are Agricultural Pest Control Advisers.  This is a certification that must be attained by agriculturists to make pesticide recommendations.  It happens that PCA's are also the one's making fertilizer recommendations, as well as numerous other recommended practices.   So that leaves me out of officially making pest control recommendations.  But it was good to go over the AgroLiquid programs.)