Wednesday, June 13, 2018

bi-polar monoculture in one field ( unless they spray )

the field by the supermarket has switched gears from corn to beans for 2018...mostly...there are acres of bean plants here...no mistaking that ..and, if the fertilizer doesn't overkill the micro life in the field they may actually set some nitrogen for next year's corn...
the detritus from last season's corn crop will slowly break down adding its small share of nitrogen...not nearly as much as the rhizobia bacteria could set but adding its part...
the corn detritus and all the clumps of dead plants i saw brought two things to mind...first, this is definitely a no til field...and second, they have already sprayed herbicide on what should be some monasanto round-up ready beans ( or, perhaps, some bayer beans genetically modified to be impervious to a specific herbicide )...
i thought they had sprayed until i began to find volunteer corn..singly and in clumps where the gleaners missed the grain, and realized the dead matter was simply annuals that had died back and not fallen yet...this corn is well located for continued observation being just a few rows in from the berm of the field and it will be simple to find..if it isn't sprayed dead ( which is what happened to all the volunteer corn in the field behind the big box stores last season...and, speaking of which, that should be a corn field this year but my last trip past it was still a weed field...unsown...as i recall it was planted late last time it was corn so we will see..perhaps it will just be fallow as it was in , i believe, 2016 )...there will doubtlessly be more trips to the supermarket so we will be watching.

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