Friend

I normally am a loner when it comes to Farm Science Review. I don't go in a group like some guys do, I like to set my own pace.

Today, though, I took a friend who wanted to farm when he was little but never had the chance to do more than raise a garden. He's a good gardener, too and helped save ours this year.

He told me the last bucket of tomatoes I took him reminded him of the old fashioned tomatoes and was as good as any as he had tasted in a long, long time. I said we can do better but yes it was the best crop I have had out of this garden.

They really liked the heat we had this summer and we got just enough water for juiciness and flavor. I think our crop is that way, too, really grew in that wet soil we planted into and just enough rain for a really good crop.

Seeing Farm Science through his eyes was interesting. After pricing lots of machines one crew said hello and asked if they could answer any questions. He popped off and said, only if you have a psychiatrist on hand! I thought what the heck, then he added I have watched this man price equipment and you have to be nuts to farm!

So we were nuts, and still are. There is some truth in what he said. Who would borrow a million dollars depending on Mother Nature to give you a good crop to pay it back and maybe make a little?

The lime and gypsum dealers were everywhere! I never saw so many. The importance of calcium is finally getting through to farmers after all these years! I mentioned gypsum in my first talk at NNTC in 2000 and 11 years later people are getting on the band wagon.

I showed my friend how planter row units have not changed since the first Max Emerge in 1968. It was designed for dried out cloddy soils after plowing and disking and we still have the same row unit, just some attachments hung on it. I showed him the IH answer that is superior in notill but they never got a good seed delivery system like the White.

We ate the popcorn and peanuts vendors give out and had my favorite sausage egg sandwich. We even had some free samples off the Holland grills they were pushing.

It was a good day, cloudy and cool and damp but by the time we left it was sunny and warm.

Another 22 growing degree days, just what this crop needs!

Ed