Clouds

We were just picking up around the yard and looking at green sprouts and the lack of the. We sat on the garage bench and I looked up above the house to see a cloud form right before my eyes. You don't see that happen every day.

"The formation of clouds relies heavily on the Earth's rotation and positioning with the sun. Water from the ground, puddles, lakes and other areas is released to the atmosphere and turned into a cloud. The first step in the process involves the heat from the sun. When sun rays hit the water, it slowly evaporates and turns into air.

Warm air is carried up into the atmosphere and rises. As the warm water vapor rises through the air, a cooling process begins that forms tiny water droplets. All of these droplets expand together and form visible clouds that we see in the sky.

Lower clouds like stratus clouds, cumulus clouds and nimbostratus clouds have the highest density and can mix with enough warm air to form fog at a ground level. Cold areas in middle clouds like Altostratus form with a mix of ice crystals. These clouds cover a large area and are often darker and stormy.

The clouds that form the highest include cirrus and cirrocumulus clouds. Cirrus clouds form in streak-like patterns and are composed of heavy ice crystals that are higher than the middle layer of clouds. The low amount of moisture in the upper section of the atmosphere make the formation of these clouds very thin.

All of these processes that form clouds is also known as convection. Convection takes place when heat naturally rises. You can re-create this process and see how a cloud forms in a bottle of water to fully understand the process. Place a little warm water inside a clear plastic bottle and then dump the water out so that water droplets are left inside. Light a match and drop it in the bottle. Cap and shake the bottle so that the smoke mixes with the water droplets. Squeeze the closed bottle multiple times and a cloud will form. "

I've done similar experiments in ag science class with students.

I always liked the study of weather and clouds I think a farmer learns most of it from experiencing it because we are outside so much and I like to look up.

I looked up and see these clouds forming and can see the rain coming this week.

Next Saturday there may be little snow left on the ground but we still have some big piles to melt down.

Here is a picture of clouds down under versus ours today on your left.

Ed

Spring Fever

My dear blogger asked me to write about my severe case of spring fever. After a month in New Zealand with fresh fruits, vegetables and flowers and a crop nearing harvest, coming home to snow banks was a shock to the system. But three days of sunshine has brought me out of a state of shock and into a state of anticipation.

Maybe it is noticing the longer days, the warmer sunshine or the seed catalogs. Maybe it is the NCAA basketball March Madness bracket announcement coming up next weekend. Maybe it planning for our annual St. Patrick’s Day dinner of corned beef and cabbage. Whatever it is, spring is definitely in the air and I have spring fever badly.

In NY I was not a big fan of spring. In fact, it was probably my least favorite season. Even after months of long winter nights, and snow on the ground since the previous Thanksgiving, I just hated the on and off, muddy, snow-when-you-thought-it-was-all-over days. It was a rare year that snow didn’t fall on or about Easter and I recall one Mother’s Day when we got 8 inches of heavy wet snow. That storm threatened to disrupt the children’s First Communion Sunday, a very important day at all Catholic churches. Imagine the little girls in their white dresses and veils…and BOOTS!

But here in SW Ohio it is different. Spring means spring. Since we don’t get nearly as much annual snowfall, the springtime is less muddy. We often have daffodils, narcissus, tulips, crocuses, jonquils, and other spring blooming flowers in SPINGTIME. When they are supposed to be here. Here in Ohio we don’t have to wait for Lake Erie to lose its ice pack to warm up our spring days. Here in Ohio we get our gardens planted before Memorial Day. Here in Ohio I love spring.

And I am ready for it right now! I can smell it. I can hear it. I can feel it. Next week I have a conference to attend in Orlando. By the time I get home it will be calendar spring. I usually undertake a number of activities that mark the sign.

I do an old fashioned spring cleaning. I move our winter clothes out of the closets and bring in a few spring items….gradually moving all. I wash the windows that have gathered their share of winter dust and grime from the westerly winds that buffet the house on the hill. I change out wool throws and goose down comforters for lighter cotton in lighter colors. I pore over seed catalogs and plan my garden. I start seedlings indoors and dream of the day when I will have a small greenhouse. I nudge my dear blogger to attend the Cincinnati Home and Garden Show to get ideas for my annual outdoor project. This year will be an overhaul of my water garden.

Can you tell I am full of ideas, anxious to get started and ready to welcome the move to outdoor living? I hope, wherever you are, that spring is at your doorstep. I hope you are getting those urges to clean, change, start, plan and plant. I hope that you are experiencing the annual malady known as spring fever that seems to afflict all of us who survived another winter! 13 more days until it is officially spring! Get well soon.

Topdress

It's time to topdress wheat. This will interest the farmers and the send the non farmers away. It is hard to write across a wide audience.

I bring it up because I have lots invested in cereal grains that need food real soon.

Grass loves N and lawns will need it as soon as my wheat does. Some people take real pride in their yards and I do too, I just don't need a lot of fertilizer in my good lawn soil to make myself mow all summer.

The number of emerged and surviving tillers indicate how much nitrogen farmers need to apply. I have no idea how many tillers I have under that snow but the little I have dug seems to be 5-7 tillers per seed.

This means I need more nitrogen on the crop now. The fewer tillers you have now means the crop needs more nitrogen to make bigger heads for the less heads per plant. The more you have, the less nitrogen you need now.

I had hoped to apply ammonium sulfate and urea as my form of nitrogen by now but it was too early I thought in January. Maybe I should have sold it all and fertilized it all right then, the years are different now.

Nothing has been applied around here that I know of. I talk to suppliers and they haven't moved anything yet.

Not sure what I am going to do now, maybe a plan by Monday. Our sales agronomists are busy and one is expecting their first child. I want the wheat to look even better than my May 2008 wheat picture.

The weather looks good next week but it will get what we call greasy on top like Kelly's pictures in the link. I think he did real well to get his winter crops rolling.

Ed

Class

I woke up at five with Mr. Moon hitting me in the eyes from the southern skies. I must have dreamed about school because I woke up thinking about what became of my classmates? I know one is a lawyer and one is a retired school superintendent and a few still farm but that's about it.

The class of 68 at Sardinia was a great one. The competition for grades, sports and music was fierce. When they mixed us up with Fincastle, Russellville and Decatur it got worse and not for the right reasons. School consolidation has been a failure in my experience.

Grades and music came easy for me, sports I liked, basketball in the winter and baseball in the summer. Wasn't great at either one but I could always outrun everyone.

I didn't take grades seriously enough to make the top ten. I learned what I wanted to know, emphasis on me. The poor old algebra teacher in ninth grade ruined me, that was it. I didn't care, I would rather help dad farm than write formulas and wasn't taught the difference.

Actually I think I liked lunch time best. Those old farm wives cooked pretty well, nothing like a cafeteria today. I hated the bus ride the most, too much on a bus and I had short route compared to some. Wasted time when the old school was in walking distance.

I wondered what happend to crazy Charlie Swagger, the band director? He was nuts but he made us play our hearts out. I remember the concert we put on in my ninth and tenth grade the most, I must say it was good for farm kids.

In the 11th grade I busted my lip in half in an accident and that was the end of my trumpet days, it never healed right until I graduated and boy did it hurt. Still music got me through Ohio State as well as biology.

Mr. Sam was a great biology teacher. He was also raised poor and got us prepared for college classes whether we made it there or not. I got A's in biology, it came so easy to me. Chemistry was only challenging because of the darned formulas.

Thankfully my English teachers taught me enough to express my thoughts and here I am using them today. Hello, am I getting through?

I write about things that will help you and no comments. I copy and paste a list of things your mother said and you comment. People are funny. I guess you few readers want to be entertained!

Actually I probably have a lot of readers like NewAgTalk. That is where I picked up many of you with the link to my blog on every post I make and boy do I like to post! Like my response to the question on high yield beans:

planting date notill balanced fertility inoculant weed control!-----http://hymark.blogspot.com/

AgTalk has become a pretty classy place to as long as the natives keep it civil. My friend Dutch in Texas made the millionth post around Christmas and there are over 15,000 registered farmers now. I wonder how many more just hang around but don't register?

I am glad my class had some class. Little Eastern Brown in little Brown County Ohio. I will always consider the Sardinia school a better school.

I don't have a picture so I will share one of the old Martinsville School.

Ed Winkle

Mother

Enough of the science right now, back to other things. I was going to write on Google, Kansas but you probably heard it in the news.

My sister sent this one and I am sure our mother wrote it:

"I Owe My Mother ....

1. My mother taught me TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE . "If you're going to kill each other, do it outside.. I just finished cleaning."

2. My mother taught me RELIGION. "You better pray that will come out of the carpet.."

3. My mother taught me about TIME TRAVEL. "If you don't straighten up, I'm going to knock you into the middle of next week!"

4. My mother taught me LOGIC. "Because I said so, that's why."

5. My mother taught me MORE LOGIC . "If you fall out of that swing and break your neck, you're not going to the store with me."

6. My mother taught me FORESIGHT. "Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you're in an accident."

7. My mother taught me IRONY. "Keep crying, and I'll give you something to cry about."

8. My mother taught me about the science of OSMOSIS . "Shut your mouth and eat your supper."

9. My mother taught me about CONTORTIONISM. "Will you look at that dirt on the back of your neck!"

10. My mother taught me about STAMINA . "You'll sit there until all that spinach is gone."

11. My mother taught me about WEATHER. "This room of yours looks as if a tornado went through it."

12. My mother taught me about HYPOCRISY. "If I told you once, I've told you a million times. Don't exaggerate!"

13. My mother taught me the CIRCLE OF LIFE. "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.."

14. My mother taught me about BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION . "Stop acting like your father!"

15. My mother taught me about ENVY. "There are millions of less fortunate children in this world who don't have wonderful parents like you do."

16. My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION. "Just wait until we get home."

17. My mother taught me about RECEIVING . "You are going to get it when you get home!"

18. My mother taught me MEDICAL SCIENCE. "If you don't stop crossing your eyes, they are going to get stuck that way."

19. My mother taught me ESP. "Put your sweater on; don't you think I know when you are cold?"

20. My mother taught me HUMOR. "When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don't come running to me."

21. My mother taught me HOW TO BECOME AN ADULT . "If you don't eat your vegetables, you'll never grow up."

22. My mother taught me GENETICS. "You're just like your father."

23. My mother taught me about my ROOTS. "Shut that door behind you. Do you think you were born in a barn?"

24. My mother taught me WISDOM. "When you get to be my age, you'll understand." And my favorite:

25. My mother taught me about JUSTICE . "One day you'll have kids, and I hope they turn out just like you !"

author unknown (probably someone's mother, I am sure it was mine)

Soil Testing

I received some good email on tissue testing so I might as well go into soil testing again. So many farmers and gardners don't do it. Some get along well and some get frustrated and quit.

All of the people I work with test their soil and apply nutrients based on these tests.

The beginning of these tests go back to 1845 with Von Liebig and others who are remembered for their work in this book at this link:

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf60108a001#

I remember studying these concepts as a young person, fascinated with science, chemistry and biology.

LuAnn was talking about the Turning Point garden this morning and I was thinking we didn't apply everything recommended on the soil test last y ear. Some of the vegetables tasted like yuck, I thought the flavor in sweet corn and green beans was lacking so I need to revisit that soil test result from a year ago. I really need a new one but we missed the ideal fall window. At least they got the radishes planted and the radishes will release a lot of nutrient at planting time.
Getting people on a soil sampling schedule is like pulling teeth. No one wants to do it. Most farmers leave it up to their suppliers but some do their own. My supplier won't use the test I want unless I pay extra for it because it does cost more.

Sampling is really quite easy. You borrow a soil probe or buy one for around $100 like the one I use from and pull soil cores out of an area of similar soils. That would be your garden or one fifth of your field. The 50 acre field behind the house has three major soil zones that can be easily broken into five for more detailed analysis.

You probe the topsoil in most cases whether it is 3 inches deep or 30 inches deep. Most top soils are at least 7-8 inches deep so that becames you probing target. My soils are good enough I probe 12 inches and I may probe separate samples at 2-4 inches to see if my notill practices are tying up any elements like potassium.

For many farmers I would be happy with one good random sample from the whole field though it would not show the zones. This field was farmed in 3 pieces for years so there are three major management zones.

You crumble and dry the samples if needed to fit into a school milk carton size sample bag so you always have soil left over. Thorough mixing determines the result of the random samples.

Let's look at Turning Point.


Phosphorous is VL, very low.
Potassium is medium.
Sulfur is low.
Zinc is medium.
Manganese is low.
Copper is medium.
Boron is low.

I would recommend at least 200 lbs of MAP, mono ammonium phosphate fertilizer which is 11-52-0 analysis and will give you 100 lbs or so of phosphorous on a per acre basis.

I recommend 100 lbs of Muriate of Potash or Potash which will give you 60 lbs of potassium per acre basis.

To get your needed sulfur, the cheapest form I have found is ammonium sulfate fertilizer which is about equal in nitrogen and sulfur, 100 lbs per acre.

You need a pound actual of manganese in manganeses sulfate and a pound actual per acre boron. Twenty Mule Team boron is granubor and I think Crop Production Services near you carries it.

Organic gardners wouldn't get near this recommendation but they would spend 10 times more trying to do it. We are farmers and this is how we farm. I don't think we have shortened anyone's life yet and I think we have kept billions of people alive.

If you can get manure for your phosphorous and little bit of everything else, great. You also add organic matter and humus. Takes awhile to turn organic matter into humus, thus all the compost bin advertizements.

Even though this will cost around a thousand dollars for your 3 acre garden, this is a low cost, bare bones recommendation for another good crop and better tasting vegetables this year.

I need a good Turning Point picture from last year to top this blog off.

Ed

Tissue Sampling

Today's blog is dedicated to my new corn growing friends from New Zealand and all farmers and gardners.

One tool I have been using for 30 years now is tissue sampling of the growing crop to see what nutrients are in the plant. There are 17 nutrients and most labs test for the 12 most important ones.

I have a personal interest too as it almost time to pull cereal grain samples. Basically you pull or cut the leaf tissue trying to keep soil out of the sample though you always gets some so Iron often comes back High on the tissue test. I never worry too much about Iron, soils are loaded with it.

For my corn growing friends in New Zealand and my North Hemisphere friends this July, I would like you to pull the ear leaf off a corn plant randomly over the field or paddock. Pull one sample per acre to hectare for a total of 10-15 leaves per sample. You can cut the bottom and top off the big leaf to end up with a central piece of plant tissue that can be easily shipped to the laboratory. The drier the better but don't put it in a microwave for quick drying, use natural air drying. I put them on my dashboard under my windshield in the summer and they are often dry by the time I get home.

No sense in shipping water, the lab is going to turn that leaf into ash and measure the nutrients in the ash. Each lab has a long term database of healthy crop tissue to compare to your result so they can tell you how your crop is doing compared to what it could be. Any nutrient deficiency will show up before you see visible signs on the plant. That is important for maximum growth, yield and net profit.

It's a tedious task pulling corn leaves in July in Ohio but February in New Zealand was a joy. My arms didn't break out like they do here. Cereal and oilseed crops are easy to pull compared to corn or maize.

If you want to improve your garden or crop, a tissue analysis will give you that next bit of information you need to decide what to put on your soil.

Here is a typical lab recommendation on how to handle samples from A&L Laboratories, one of the largest labs in the world:


BEST SAMPLING PROCEDURES
When taking a sample of any kind, there are methods and procedures that will lessen the chance of accidental contamination or that the sample is compromised in some way. We can only report on the information derived from what we recieve. Listed below are instructions on steps you can take to ensure that your sample is both representative of the whole, and that it does not contain unwanted materials that will result in a distorted reporting of actual variables. (Quick links are provided below)
If you have further questions or would like additional clarification, please contact either our local associate in your area or our lab. Thank you.
Soil Plant Tissue Livestock Feed Irrigation Water Plant Disease

SOIL - Procedures for taking good soil samples
Accuracy of the soil test depends on the sample submitted.
Divide your field into areas which have the same soil type, color, slope, fertilizer and crop history.
Take approximately 15 cores from each uniform soil area. Mix them thoroughly in a clean plastic or paper container. Fill the soil sample bag one-third to one-half full from this representative sample.
Scrape away surface litter, and sample to plow depth for all row crops. On permanent pastures, sods, lawns, and turf areas, sample four inches deep.
Several different tools such as a soil sampling tube, soil auger, or spade may be used in taking soil samples. See illustration.Label each sample bag with your name and sample identification. The label information should correspond to the sample I.D. listed on the information sheet. A map is printed on the information sheet for your convenience.
Avoid taking samples from areas such as lime piles, fertilizer spills, gate areas, livestock congregation areas, poorly drained areas, dead furrows, fertilizer bands, old fence rows, or any other unusual area.
Do not use galvanized, soft steel, or brass equipment if trace metal analyses are desired.
How to fill out the information sheet
Fill in grower's name, sample submitted by, and if charged to a third party list their name.
List sample identification and check analyses desired.
If fertility recommendations are requested, list only five samples per page using shaded areas only.
The accuracy of the fertility recommendations given will depend upon the detail of information supplied.
Packaging and shipping instructions
If samples are excessively wet, we suggest they be air dried to a workable condition before packaging.
Place sample bags in a sturdy, spillproof container and pack tightly to prevent opening and spillage in shipment.
Place completed information sheet in an envelope and attach to outside of the package.
Samples should be shipped by United Parcel Service, bus, or air freight.

RETURN TO THE TOP OF THE PAGE

PLANT TISSUE - Procedures for taking good tissue samples
Collection and preparation of the sample
Be sure to use a clean container. Never use a metal container as the metal may contaminate the sample.
Generally, two cups of lightly packed material provides a sufficient amount to conduct an analysis; one cup may be sufficient if gathering petioles.
If plant samples have soil, dust, fertilizer, or spray residues on them, they will need a light washing, as follows: With the aid of a plastic colander, immerse the sample in cool water containing a couple of drops of PHOSPHATE-FREE detergent, and gently agitate for no longer than about 10 seconds. Extended washing may damage the plant tissue and remove some of the soluble nutrients.
Remove the colander and quickly rinse the sample under flowing pure water. Blot-dry with a clean towel.
Either air-dry samples for one day (below 176 degrees F) or ship as soon as possible in perforated bags to allow air movement and a degree of drying in transit.
Never send fresh samples in sealed plastic bags unless kept cool.
Never freeze samples.
Do not include roots with samples for nutrient analysis unless required.
Specific sampling procedures are required for disease diagnosis. Therefore, please contact us for instructions before sampling.
Sampling Locations: When and where to sample
Before taking tissue samples ensure that timing and location of samples correlates with interpretive data. Instructions for petiole and leaf sampling may differ. Also, comparing samples from both a "good" and a "bad" area often helps in determining corrective action. If specific sampling guidelines are not given, collect recently mature leaves just below the growing point from at least 10 plants. A partial sampling guide follows, although many variations exist. Refer to the A&L Agronomy Handbook or contact us for further information.
More details are available at TISSUE SAMPLING TECHNIQUES FOR SPECIFIC PLANTS andDETAILED SAMPLE LOCATION FROM COMMON CROPS

Free tissue sample mailing supplies

A&L Laboratories will provide suitable plant tissue sample bags, as well as plant tissue submittal forms at no charge on request. (You may also download submittal forms from this website.)
The information you receive on our reports is as accurate as the information submitted with your sample. Please fill out all submittal forms as accurately, completely and legibly as possible.

If you have never pulled a sample, give it a try. If you have done it before, keep pulling!

My cost of $20 per sample at http://www.midwestlabs.com/ has been repayed many times over in better crops and better yields.

Cheers,

Ed Winkle