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.

corollary to "the beans are done"

the out of sync, two years in a row, bean filed behind the big bpox stores is pretty much done too...the green canopy has shriveled here as well...exposing pods...

although this field had been sprayed with herbicide at one point in the season there is green topping out above the beans and more than a little queen anne's lace in the rows...stubborn stuff it is not easily intimidated by humans or roundup...

queen anne's lace or not there is as large a multitude of harvest ready beans here as there are next tot he supermarket...and suffering from the same depressed prices...

the field has been for sale for a number of years ( in fact since i started writing about it ) an effort by the municipality to zone agriculture out of suburbia...keep them moving south..this may be bias...it may be aspiration...the results of over-extended aspiration will come up at the end of the post..but first...

the field across the street burdened with dense yellow #2 is for sale as well...more aspiration...

even though the majority of the plants were only three fingers ( which works out to two and a half inches by my tape rule ) they all produced exactly one large ear...

somewhat surprisingly, even when the planter skipped and the plants sprouted around a foot apart...

each plant still produced only one ear...limits to monsanto's engineering?

how long has the road to nowhere been in existence? i'd have to mine the blog...however i am inclined to say it has endured four years of patient waiting for the aspirations of sterling creek road to be realized...

it's still there...nicely improved...fire hydrant, double yellow line, an almost virgin sidewalk...waiting for the economy to catch up.

zea

a trip to the home improvement store to pick up materials for the trellis for the new grape vines took my way past the back of the big box stores so i had a look at the industrial corn..there are plenty of "weeds" still populating the rows ( especially along the berm ) which seems to be a peculiarity of some nexus fields...the filed is filling in though and the odd spacing of plants i saw last week seems to be disappearing...probably because not all the plants were up yet and as they come in the spacing becomes more regular if not rational...the field is moving its season along and, as a comparison, the last two photos are of bear paw maize and teosinte out in my yard...they are related and at least two have been modified by artificial selection...the "wild and weedy" ancestor may not be genetically pure either...but it is closer to the original form than the others

industry at work

out and about running errands took my by the field behind the big box sores...it was fallow last season...however this morning finds that it has come out in a case of dense yellow #2 field corn...it seems to have been tilled but judging by the number of "weeds" that are up in the rows it has not been sprayed with herbicide..and probably won't..like the field next to the supermarket last year it will be thoroughly colonized by season's end...i know field corn is constantly being engineered to allow the plants to be planted closer and closer together while still producing but the mechanical planter seems to be malfunctioning here because there is some very peculiar plant spacing...the plants in the second photo are a bit close to one another..the ones in the third are closer still...the fourth photo shows a traditional spacing of one foot ( and with the other spacing i am thinking the planter skipped here )...the fifth has a spacing of about four inches between plants which is what i was seeing last season..and the sixth shows to very close together again...the seventh is a graphic example of the "fence row to fence row" philosophy of industrial agriculture...the field is planted right up to the berm maximizing planted area...waste no space, no matter how marginal...lastly the vandalized realtor sign has reappeared in a truncated form...less to rebuild seemingly...it will be instructional to watch the growth and production of this field..if the maize in my yard takes we should have some morphology comparisons ( we have teosinte to work with already )...there will be more on this as the season progresses.

industrial agriculture

errands took me by the field behind the big box stores today...last year this was a fallow field that grew thistles and lamb's quarters and volunteer corn until someone took a bush hog to it...this year there has been machinery in the field again but it looks more tilled than bush hogged...corn would be mny guess but i will not be sure until something pops up...for now all i found was some bermuda thistle that had been turned under and reemerged roots intact...and someone has either bought the property or vandalized the realtor's sign...same thing happened to the sign on the other side of sterling creek road...that field has been plowed as well..so industry is on the move on the edges of suburbia...more as it comes up.