Talking about corn...

In a previous post I talked about planting a corn plot to compare different populations of a variety of corn.  This picture shows the as planted map generated from the data gathered by the planter as we planted across the field.  You can pick out the population trial in the middle of the field.  We embedded these five different populations in the prescription for the field.  Each of the five populations is replicated three times to make sure we don't have a flawed experiment.  The darker green represents the highest population and the red represents the lowest population in the test.  Hopefully, this fall when harvest is complete, we will be able to draw a conclusion as to which population yields the most for this variety in this particular soil type. 

Moisture and sunshine make the corn plants grow rapidly.  Even after 2 heavy rain events since planting this crop residue is holding the soil in place and moisture in the ground for the young corn plants.  We will begin scouting the fields soon to check our stand counts and check for weed or disease pressure.

The Robertson County Chamber of Commerce Youth Leadership Class, from the Robertson Education Initiative, stopped by the farm on April 15th.  These bright young people were energetic and had plenty of questions about farming and food production.  We had a great discussion about the environment and how farmers are working hard to be stewards of the land and water.  The students were amazed to learn how the Geo-political situation in Ukraine affected farmers in Robertson County.  The Chamber of Commerce and the Robertson Education Initiative are to be commended for exposing young people in the community to the different industries across the county and the role they play in the local economy through jobs and output.  We had a brief soil science class and discussed the health of the soil while digging sprouted corn seeds and worms out of the soil.  With most groups the highlight is always the green paint in the shed! 

We had the opportunity to host the Robertson County Chamber of Commerce Leadership Group to the farm on April 9th.  We had a nice visit with local business and community leaders.  Robertson County is still very rural and agriculture plays a vital role in the economy.  However, many people living in our county are 2-3 generations removed from the farm and really have no idea why we do the things we do on our farms in the county.  This group was a pleasure to visit with and had many great questions about farming, technology and conservation practices on our farm.  We covered topics from preparing equipment, planting and harvesting crops, GPS technology, data collection and analysis, inputs, labor issues, agronomic crop practices, and producing commodities in an international market place.

Discussing the game plan while spraying wheat.  The water truck uses a 3" pump and hose to fill the sprayer.  It only takes a few minutes to pump 800 gallons of water or fertilizer into the sprayer.  This makes the sprayer more efficient by increasing the amount of time running in the field by decreasing the amount of time it sits waiting to be filled.  The sprayer tips (pink things on the sprayer boom) are Greenleaf Technologies - Drift Reducing Nozzles.  These nozzles create coarse (big) water droplets that keep the wind from blowing them away from the target crop in our fields.  They operate under lower pressure than older nozzles and still maintain the pattern required for complete coverage of the crop.  We have made a herbicide application to kill weeds like onions and broad leaf weeds tank mixed with an insecticide to kill harmful bugs that may feed on the wheat crop such as aphids and army worms.  The insecticides we use on our farm today are much less toxic than those used years ago.  The insecticides we use on most crops is derived naturally from plants.  These chemistries are much safer for both people handling the chemicals and our environment.  These chemicals have less tendency for persistence in the soil and plants.