25% more per bean

the bean field next to the supermarket is booming along...

from ground level...

or from above there are multiple beans in a pod...multiple pods on a plant...and, if you refer to the first photo, you can see multiple plants in the field...a lot of beans which themselves are ignorant of political economy and they part they are playing in the current political inanity emanating from the political centers...i read that $23 million of tariffed beans were unloaded in chins this week...they grow soybeans in a lot of different places...how long will that be going on?

looking around the field i see some volunteer dense yellow # 2 just barley poking out of the beans as well...which tells me there has been no herbicide sprayed here thsi season...

most of them have grown in clusters where the gleaners missed an ear...or, ta least, part of one...

the ones in the above cluster and this one that is on its own have not produced any ears which is what i expected...

of course there is always an exception and this cluster of plants has produced an ear...the last time i saw volunteer corn produce an ear it had silks and a stunted cob...but no kernels...we will be looking into that and finding an answer soon...

moving along tot he maize in my back yard...the diminutive corn frog has returned to its perch at the base of the lowest leaf on the stalk...patiently waiting for a meal to pass by...and seemingly undisturbed by a human with a camera...didn't budge...perhaps corn perches are at a premium ( this one does seem to prefer this plant over the others ) and there is a line waiting...

federally subverted beans?

the no-til soybean field next to the supermarket is looking well in terms of growth...the rest of its overall health may be questionable...especially the economic part with a possibility of a twenty -five percent tariff that could be imposed on bean imports by china the economic return on this field is an open question...there may be far more bushels than the domestic economy can possibly absorb and a crash in the bean futures market could mean a tough winter for farmer brown...

the plants themselves, if not the market, look healthy and seem to be preparing to produce pods...

geopolitics and global trade aside ( if you want an editorial on the current administration see my other blogs...or read the new york times...the gist is much the same even if i feel i have a better contextural grasp than they do ) my real interest here is in the volunteer corn...whether it is hybrid or some monsanto/bayer gmo i haven't a clue...either way i will be looking into how its season progresses and what , if anything, in the way of ears it produces..the last good look at volunteer corn i had was several years ago and it went through all the normal phases of a season and produced empty husks...i am curious to see if that is a repeat here...monsanto says there is no "suicide gene" in its corn ( i am skeptical of this ) and hybrid corn does not reproduce well down the generations...so this could be a non-result...and if it is monsanto corn these volunteers are illegal...they license one crop at a time and do not allow seed saving...one wonders...we will see...if they spray herbicide the observations are off.

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.

july beans

a trip out to purchase a gallon sprayer for neem oil led me by the beanfield behind the big box stores ( first )...the rows are coming along ( second )...some of the plants are already evincing pods ( third and fourth )...the yellow leaves and drops of water on some of the bean plants ( fifth ) a indicative of the late burst of rainfall we had at the end of june...some of the plants in the rows are clearly not beans( sixth ) and, while searching the rows for some specific non-bean plants i found some detritus ( seventh and eighth ) to further remind me of the suburban setting of these fields...we are in the nexus of exurban ad rural and the exurbs continue to impinge...i found a decomposing cob with some kernels of dense yellow # 2 ( ninth ) a little more searching around the periphery of the field turned up what i was looking for...a surviving ear of field corn and a couple of volunteer plants conveniently situated to observe through the season...this cold be interesting...and enlightening.

the nexus advances a step

so much for tracking the development of volunteer corn...the field full of pioneer plants i was exploring last monday ( top photo ) has been rendered comparatively barren in the last four days or so...i was somewhat perplexed...it is certainly far too late for a standard monoculture crop and a touch early for winter wheat ( though not much ) which was the only possible planting i could think of...there are still corn cob around ( fourth photo as if i need to tell you that ) and there are still a few stubborn plants standing...but as i drove around the other end of the field stubborn plants weren't all i found standing...grades stakes with specific notations have cropped up along with little lags for buried cables and other underground infrastructure...add in the concrete drainage fittings and sumps and there is a fair indication that the suburban sprawl and subsumed yet another agricultural field and the nexus had moved a bit more south...i am a bit saddened by this...the corn filed across sterling creek road has a "for sale" sign up on it now too...i am becoming something of an afficionado of suburban agriculture and its constraints...this lessens my readily observable suburban agricultural space and sends me farther afield to find information and check conditions...the field behind the big box stores is no more..it was bound to happen...mindless "growth" won't have it any other way...here's to the eventual collapse and simplification...plant spuds as a subversive act.