Tuesday, February 26, 2013

"Won't Be Missed"

LuAnn kept reminding me the world would go on without me when I was anxious to check email or Crop Talk last month.  She was right.  I got home and the world did go on without me as it always has.

I heard this great quote yesterday on Catholic Radio.  "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."  I put that quote on Facebook and Twitter and instantly got replies from people whom I know, know how much I care.

I taught my students all I know and all I could learn.  I learned from their learning.  It's a great growth process.  Yesterday I spent a couple of hours with a fellow who drove all the way here from Indiana just get more insight from the talk I gave in Indianapolis two months ago.

He is in charge of seed production for a company there and has the opportunity to turn a farm into a show plot area for his company.  He wants to do it right and what I showed in Indy spurred his interest.

He had sent me his soil tests and they were pretty good.  I tried to show him why he needs more calcium and more phosphorous and the perils of trying to get those on while increasing crop production.  If he gets this going, I told him I would like seed from his seed production because it will be superior seed.  He understood and that was another reason for coming here.

We talked about inoculation and how important it is.  I tried to show him how the calcium nitrate beside the row really feeds the soil biology that builds the nitrogen factory.  High Yield Beans need 500-600 lbs per acre!  I asked what would happen if we applied that much?  He said the rhizobia would go dormant.  Yes, and even more so it would just about kill the beans and break our checkbook!

He has been planting annual ryegrass ahead of his soybeans so he understood the biology of doing that.  There is so much in soil biota we don't understand, it is shocking.  We have barely scratched the surface!

I got to the doctor yesterday and feel better today with another antibiotic and inhaler.  This bug is serious.  Jimmy Winner, better known as Chief to his ag students at Fairfield Local told his wife Joan to get out the will.  He was sure he was going to die.  That's how bad this bug is.

Ed

5 comments:

  1. We never quit learning (or shouldn't). Glad you're feeling better.

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  2. Crop talk was not the same without you.

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  3. Thank you both.

    Crop Talk went on Budde and it will when I am really gone if it lasts that long. Do you think it will? I wonder somedays but it has had a great run now for 13 years! I wonder how much crop production has changed because of it? Not much, I know in the big scheme of things but I have seen many, many small changes in the way some farmers do things.

    I just added a good link to this blog today explaining a little why that fellow and all of us need to look at our liming methods. Our friend Doug sent it to me this morning and I had not seen it on notill farmer.

    It's pouring down rain here so the topdress keeps getting put off! Most farmers want this rain but I could have waited a few weeks for it.

    Ed

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