over-wintering

most of the corn fields around here look like this in february...

however this one, about a mile down the road, has a crop over-wintering which is something i have not seen in a while...usually the field corn is all in by early december at the latest...there are nay number of reason why this corn is still in the field and there are pros and cons ( just like the rest of life )...it might just be that the farmer didn't get to it before the weather tuned wet and precluded harvesting...field corn is 35 to 40% moisture in the autumn...leaving it out to over-winter naturally reduces the moisture content obviating the need to use ( and pay for ) a grain dryer... it sems clear that the corn in this field is drying...i found more than these husks splitting open and revealing the kernels...

the cold would kill off pests and diseases...and, i am told, the roots releases nutrients beck into the soil...my figures are about twelve pounds of nitrogen per ton of corn cobs and i wonder how much the roots might contain...needs more research... and that is about the limit of pros i can find...on the downside the weather can be deleterious...specifically freezing rain...i've seen tree limbs and tree tops broken off by a coating of ice and corn stalks are not nearly as strong as wood...additionally, the cold is not the only thing opening the husks..

it seem sreasonable to assume that deer have been at work here...eating the corn off the stalk...

and leaving them , fully or partially consumed, on the ground...hungry critters in february...and that is what i could see from the roadside ( i did not wade out into the field...that would be bad manners...and trespassing )... when will this field be harvested? and how close to planting will that be? this will be a bean field next season and those usually don't plant until june...that doesn't mean a late ( or early? ) harvest won't interfere with planting some other crop in some other field...i believe farmers have more than enough to worry about in good times and that leaving a crop out in winter would simply add to that burden...than again i am not a farmer...just someone interested in the overall impact of the neolithic revolution.

sodden

it is the end of october and it feels like it...it was forty-two degrees ( fahrenheit ) at around one this afternoon and it has been raining since i got out of bed at 2:30 a.m....we had ten inches or better of rain in may which is what put a stick in the spokes of the dense yellow number two crop hereabouts...we have had half that amount in october..however the bulk of it has fallen in the last week or so and things are getting soggy again...i took a side trip around some fields on the way home today ...

and there is still some unharvested ( and unlikely to be harvested any time soon ) dense yellow #2 out there south on county line road...

there is a lot of water as well and some of those harvested and freshly turned bean fields are going to see some erosion...the fields that were left fallow...

seem to be handling the water in a better fashion...certainly not seeing the pools of water the others exhibit...

out back the northern tepehuan teocintli is sodden as well..the silks are matted...

and the seeds are still green...which is unfortunate...

while the zea mays mexicana ears continue to ripen and shatter...and with temperatures forecast to drop significantly below freezing through the day tomorrow ( halloween night forecast includes the possibility of snow ) the whole prosepect of more mature seeds dims significantly...i have wrapped the green ears in frost cloth...this won't prevent damage from temperatures in the twenties however...i have a fair harvest of zea mays mexicana seed...the northern tepehuan may not yield any this season...fortunately there are mores of those seeds in the freezer and i can try again next year...

ending with a positive, since i cleaned and replanted the ramp bed it has remained untouched by whatever was making the bed its own bailiwick...we will see what spring brings.

an atypical season winds down

meteorological autumn is twenty days old and the equinox is three days away so i wandered out into the fields for an end of season update...and things have not changed all that much...there are some fields of dense yellow #2 ( with saw-tooth sunflowers in the berm ...but not nearly as many as one would have seen in a "normal" year in the bi-annual industrial monoculture that passes for agriculture around here...

bean fields are far more common out there and they are clearly beginning to find an end to their season...the field corn may not be ready yet but the beans will be coming soon...they closed at $328.12 yesterday...down $34.57 a metric ton from the closing price at the end of last month...the harvest may be good...they prices may not...

fallow fields are as populous as planted ones...some have been left truly fallow and have become home to "native" plants like these...and to signs that farming might not be what it once was...

others have been turned to control the presence of those "native" plants...even though it has not prevented them from making an attempted return...

while the farm machinery has been kept busy freshly turning still others...this could be in order to plant small grain as cover crops for winter...although i haven't seen a farmer plant winter wheat or rye as a cover and turn it under in spring since we used to drive down rt. 231 on the way south to visit my grandmother when i was a child...this does not preclude a return to old ways...it does seem unlikely to me...that won't stop me from looking into it...i am due to plant small grain in my yard very soon...i may be in harmony with some segments of the industrial world...still...i am left wondering just how much fuel, time, and money has been expended in the process of this mechanized "weed" control...and how much in the way of green house gasses as well...the entire season has seemed futile to me in the face of the climate, the weather, and the political shenanigans, none of which helped the season...or will help the harvest either...things may be dodgier than the powers that be are telling us...their truths or distortions will come out soon enough.

industry takes a beating

an agricultural season is an iffy sort of thing...all sorts of variables...wind, drought, hail, locusts, too wet to plant...manifold paths to disaster...or success...it is what it is and this season hasn't changed all that much since i last wandered out into the industrial fields mostly because, beyond the possibility of weather related factors it couldn't..may was too wet to plant and that set the agenda...so, just like last post, most of the planted fields here are soybeans...

some dense yellow #2 did make it in and what was planted seems to be doing well...acres of corn cities with the residents packed in in ever increasing densities...i would be willing to wager those plants are no more than two to four inches apart in rows thirty inches apart...the gene wizards at monsanto can make the plants behave in clearly unnatural ways...buffalo bird woman would have none of that "if the corn hills were so close together that the plants, when they grew up, touched each other, we called them 'smell-each-other'; and we knew that the ears they bore would not be plump or large." [wilson 1917]...modern agriculture counts on it...

and there are still a considerable number of fields that went unplanted and have been plowed under several times seemingly to control the growth of "native plants"...basically an exercise in fuel consumption, greenhouse gasses, and erosion...and the natives keep returning...what has changed, remarkably from my perspective, is commodity prices...soybeans are down $40.78 per metric ton from their closing price for july...understandable given current trade policies evinced by the nation's leadership..more puzzling is dense yellow #2 is down $37.16 a metric ton since july and has been falling since the usda released its corn acreage estimate...something doesn't add up here...someone has a distorted view...either i have a very local anomaly going on or the usda has cooked the books...it will all shake out come autumn and the harvest...a month or two yet.