Clermont County Fair

I judged at the Clermont County Fair again today and like the other fairs, the drought took its toll, the heat took more but the entries were pretty good considering.  You could tell the cooler environments, even a degree or two on the plants and flowers and those who did a good job watering through the stress.

It was a 200 mile jaunt today to Chillicothe to Owensville to Wilmington and home.  The crops look better after a little rain but you can still see the record drought.  Still, we are one of the garden spots I have seen all summer.  It is hard to drive out Interstate 74 or across 70 where there is not much to nothing.  Parts of Ohio are no better, like south and east of here and north and west of here.  Butler County is burned up and Clermont to the south is pretty green but those farmers got out in March and planted early and caught more rain and tolerated more stress.

Thank you for the encouraging calls and emails, I have so many devoted readers.  I see this blog has over 100,000 page views so we might as well go for a million!  At least I can say that today but some days it just doesn't seem worth it anymore.  A new blogsite would help but then I would be starting all over again.

I am inspecting soybeans to be shipped to Asia for food.  One of my friends grew a bunch of them and I had to stop and congratulate him on the most weed free soybeans I have been in all year.  That is quite an accomplishment with a non GMO soybean but it will become the norm as GMO goes south and we learn how to control weeds again.

I have noticed a lot of burned flowers in Ohio beans.  That week of 104 really took a toll on the early flowers.  Now that temps have moderated and more are getting rain, the flowers are forming again and we are getting our first pods or R2 stage.  You don't see any volunteer corn in serious non GMO fields because they know they won't take them!

I would really like to go the tractor pull tonight and see the Super Farm class pull but I am too tired to go.  I better save up my energy for tomorrow.

Good Evening,

Ed Winkle