The West Goes Dry?

"SAN JOSE, Calif. — California's current drought is being billed as the driest period in the state's recorded rainfall history. But scientists who study the West's long-term climate patterns say the state has been parched for much longer stretches before that 163-year historical period began.
And they worry that the "mega droughts" typical of California's earlier history could come again.

Related: California says it won't be able to fill water demand
Through studies of tree rings, sediment and other natural evidence, researchers have documented multiple droughts in California that lasted 10 or 20 years in a row during the past 1,000 years — compared to the mere three-year duration of the current dry spell. The two most severe mega droughts make the Dust Bowl of the 1930s look tame: a 240-year-long drought that started in 850 and, 50 years after the conclusion of that one, another that stretched at least 180 years.

"We continue to run California as if the longest drought we are ever going to encounter is about seven years," said Scott Stine, a professor of geography and environmental studies at Cal State East Bay. "We're living in a dream world."

California in 2013 received less rain than in any year since it became a state in 1850. And at least one Bay Area scientist says that based on tree ring data, the current rainfall season is on pace to be the driest since 1580 — more than 150 years before George Washington was born. The question is: How much longer will it last?

A megadrought today would have catastrophic effects.( I really wonder if this is pending, it is closer than anyone wants to believe?)

California, the nation's most populous state with 38 million residents, has built a massive economy, Silicon Valley, Hollywood and millions of acres of farmland, all in a semiarid area. The state's dams, canals and reservoirs have never been tested by the kind of prolonged drought that experts say will almost certainly occur again.

Related: Water war fought underground
Stine, who has spent decades studying tree stumps in Mono Lake, Tenaya Lake, the Walker River and other parts of the Sierra Nevada, said that the past century has been among the wettest of the last 7,000 years.

Looking back, the long-term record also shows some staggeringly wet periods. The decades between the two medieval megadroughts, for example, delivered years of above-normal rainfall — the kind that would cause devastating floods today.

The longest droughts of the 20th century, what Californians think of as severe, occurred from 1987 to 1992 and from 1928 to 1934. Both, Stine said, are minor compared to the ancient droughts of 850 to 1090 and 1140 to 1320.

What would happen if the current drought continued for another 10 years or more?
Without question, longtime water experts say, farmers would bear the brunt. Cities would suffer but adapt.

Water and drought is the talk in the west.  Now it is making our national news, and for good reason.

What do you think is the solution to their huge, looming problem?

Ed

Truman Compared To Obama?

I know not to get into politics on HyMark High Spots because politics is not a high spot to discuss.  It's very controversial.  I need your help understanding this one.

"The below article entitled “Blueprint for Disruption” was published in Newsweek on January 19, 1948, in response to President Harry Truman’s State of the Union Address from that year. It was written by free-market journalist Henry Hazlitt, best known for his classic “Economics in One Lesson,” and excerpted from a collection of his Newsweek articles from 1946 to 1966 entitled “Business Tides.”

“President Truman’s annual message to Congress was primarily a campaign document. It seems to have been written chiefly in fear of losing extreme leftist votes to Henry Wallace. The basic philosophy it embodies is unmistakable. It is the philosophy of the welfare state, the doctrine of salvation through bureaucracy. Free enterprise, free markets, and free prices are no longer to be trusted to stimulate and guide production and consumption. Everything is to be in charge of omniscient and omnipotent bureaucrats.

Everyone is promised economic security, regardless of what he contributes to production. We are to have bigger job insurance, bigger old-age benefits, bigger survivors’ benefits, bigger education. The government is to subsidize our medical care and our housing. It is also to reclaim land, replant forests, build more TVA’s. On top of this, it is to spend in fifteen months on European aid alone as much as it used to spend in the same period before the war for all its purposes combined."

I don't see the comparison at all.  My parents and grand parents were tenant farmers.  Dad always said his best years of farming was when Harry Truman was President.  For me, I would have to say Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.  Nevertheless, how can the write compare Truman's speech to Obama's State of the Union address this week?

I think he can only in words, times are so much different.  Harry was a poor tenant farmer himself who rose to be President of the United States.  He had the awful job of deciding to drop the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima.  He took little from our government and only gave and gave and gave back.  He drove himself home to Missouri on his own dime after he had served.

Now help me readers, how in the world can this writer compare Harry S. Truman to Barrack Hussein Obama?  I don't feel our country was broken before and after Harry's presidency, I feel the presidency is broken now.

Ed Winkle 

More On Herbicide Resistance

Farmers have been asking many questions about herbicide plans for 2014.  I found a new quiz on herbicide resistance after watching a YouTube that was linked to me.  You might take this quiz first to generate some more questions.




What have you used?  Which weeds are getting more difficult to control?  What strategies should we use to attack this problem, not knowing what 2014 is going to be like?





Probably the biggest lesson I've learned is to spray more often.  Most herbicidal effects only last 30 days at most.  Many do not last that long due to poor spraying conditions or the many things that can make a spray application not effective.





There is no one magic herbicide or herbicide plan.  We must know our weed problems and our program to select the better products and apply them in a timely fashion at the right rate in the proper spray mix.  Application is so important you must have a license to spray for others.  I imagine we all need to study labels more and ask more questions, like this thread suggests.




Weed control is finally coming to the forefront again as old programs aren't working.  The Ohio State weed survey last year showed an increase of weed pressure every year since the study was started.  Out of thousands of fields surveyed, our local area only found 2% of fields weed free, the worst result since the study was started!




We really need to plan out our weed control.  What we have done the past few years is not working!


Google won't post my weedy picture this morning so imagine your worst weed problem, please!  I have to mention I saw the light of Christ in a man we met yesterday.  God bless Ramone!  Maybe we can talk more about that later.




Ed Winkle

Heavy Metals?

"Are the products such as 11-52, 18-46, 46-0-0, 21-0-0-4, contained with heavy metals?
If so are they what is causing the high Electrical Conductivity that we are seeing?
If that us true, then will organic fertilizers (better know as nutrition) help neutralize these heavy metals, or will they always be there? "
Thanks

"That's a pretty heavy question for late last night or early this morning!

https://www.google.com/#q=heavy+metals+in+farm+ferti...

There are some good answers above. Heavy metals have "five times the specific gravity of water." Lead has been the main one our country has went after. Arsenic is another but only produced by smelting metals so not as big a concern. Zinc, copper, manganese are others but needed for crop growth so pretty much a wash. Any mined fertilizer is going to have minute amounts, are tested and considered safe.

If I add "high electrical conductivity" to the above search, I get this:
https://www.google.com/#q=heavy+metals+in+farm+ferti...

Now waste water and organic comes up more often in the search.

I've worked with about every kind of situation that is out there in the last 40 years from granular to liquid to manure, sludge, organic. Sludge applied fields are among the highest yielding in this area and they do test higher in metals though I know of no real toxic ones from testing.

Granular fertilizer is what I use for most of my nutrient source and I will keep using it as long as it's the cheapest, most efficient way to fertilize my soils.

I hope this answers your question a bit, it's a vast topic. "

Ed Winkle

Lime Tests

Many farmers are applying lime this spring.  What exactly are they spreading and what is the best way to do it?

Here is the 2013 Ohio Department Of Agriculture lime results for quarries in Ohio.  You can see the Eagle Lime I use claims to be 31% calcium but tested 27% at ODA.  Magnesium is claimed to be only 1% for high calcitic lime but tested 3%.  I am not quite getting what I am paying for but it is in such high demand they can get away with this.

High calcium lime has cost more than dolomitic lime for several years here.  High calcium lime is in more demand because most of our soils were formed with higher magnesium contents than we need for farming.  Universities have said for years it doesn't matter what kind of lime you spread.  Farmers have answered with BUNK to that notion.  High calcium lime is over $10 per ton at the quarry where dolomite can be bought for $6.  Farmers are willing to pay double for high calcium limestone.

The popular New Leader lime body spreader makes a real nice spread at 2.5 tons per acre of Eagle lime.  You can see the sieve size on the report link.  It's hard to spread less than that amount with that body if you only want one ton per acre.

Soil life says not to worry and I agree, just get it on.  Neither one of us are up on GPS VRT spreading to only hit certain areas.  We learned how to do it with soil testing zones and applying accordingly.  There aren't many areas in any Ohio soil I've tested that doesn't respond to lime, so if you need it, get it on.

One reader asked me about spreading it on wheat.  His agronomist told him not to do that.  I've done it and this past spring, it really made a big improvement in my wheat quality and yield.  Some people just don't understand this.

Soil is physical, chemical and biological.  I try to address all three in harmony.

Ed Winkle

Hall Of Fame

" Engines roared and tires spun in the dirt as the tractor slammed forward.

Pulling thousands of pounds behind it, the machine started fast, straining as the weight behind it increased.

Thousands of cheering fans jumped up and down on the grandstands, drowned out until the tractor came to a stop at the end of its pull.

For John Lancaster, this was his life for more than 30 years.

The Trafalgar resident was a yearly competitor on the national tractor-pulling circuit, yearning for more speed, more power and more success.

Now, he’s considered one of the sport’s best.

Lancaster has been inducted into the National Tractor Pullers Association Hall of Fame, honored for his innovative turbocharging tractors. In the tractor-pulling arms race, his contributions help propel the sport into a souped-up new era during the 1970s, the Daily Journal reported.

He and two other Hoosiers — Whiteland native Norm Green and Indianapolis’ Al Koch — were voted into the Hall of Fame together, joining the elite of the tractor pulling world. "

I bet Matt and some of you remember those days.  Johnny, Norm and Al put the orange Allis tractors in the winner's circle many times when I was pulling.  Matt was born in 1977 so probably 1982 is some of his earliest memories but I sure remember the night the 460 Farmall flipped over, pinning the driver.

That's been 40 years ago so don't hold me to it.  I can remember it like yesterday.  I know it is a big honor to get inducted into any hall of fame.

John, Norm and Al deserve this recognition.  I watched them do it.

Ed Winkle

PS  I hope they would think these pictures are appropriate.  I don't have a picture of any of their tractors handy 40 years later, though I should!

Soil Stories

It's funny, I am more concerned about keeping, saving and improving my soil this year than I am about profit.  The profit comes from good soil practices.  I am not obsessed about money, but it does pay the bills.  I am obsessed about soil.  If I study my soil and take good care of it, it takes good care of me.

This lady goes on a journey to learn about the fragile layer beneath our feet.  It's an interesting story, a true soil story.  Her journey takes her past a soil scientist and his team who classifies soil types.  Did you know there are over 19,000 soil types mapped in the United States thus far?  Each one is so similar yet so distinct.

Farmers tend to call them good, average or poor, or maybe flat and black or rolling or hilly.  Most ag teachers do a great job of teaching the basics of soils.  We had some great soil instructors in my day and we passed it down to our children and their peers.  The FFA Soils competitions are some of the most important concepts taught.  It's one of the reasons I feel every school should have FFA.  Soil is that important and a necessary life skill.

Like this video, this instruction is very basic but most people don't have or understand this basic information.  It helps me as a farmer and gardener to improve my soil and get more out of it.  With this knowledge, soil test results and recommendations and tissue test results, it's pretty easy to provide the necessary nutrients for plants.  It seems like half the questions and posts I read show one or more of these are lacking in the poster's comments.

Take some time and view the video and look up some questions you have and don't know the answer to.  Let's discuss them here so we can pass our "soil stories" down to the next generation.

I have a question.  What can you do differently to improve your soil this year?

Ed Winkle