Zucchini Pest

I went out to the zucchini yesterday and found that there were several plants that were cut in half.  The damage almost looked like vine borer, but there was no sign of the borer or the tunnels through the plants.  Some have suggested that cut worm is a problem, but usually we've seen that on the young plants but not the old.  The plants are otherwise very healthy and vigorous looking. I'm stumped. It's always something.  Just as production is hitting its stride and zucchini is going to the farmers co-op a couple times a week, bang! I get a crop issue.  Anybody know what this might be?

Haying Decisions - Weather

One of the hardest parts of growing hay is making the decision about when to cut the hay.  There are a few things that I look at when making the decision.  The first is when the alfalfa is ready to cut.  Generally I try to cut my hay just as the hay is transitioning from bud to bloom.  I start looking, and feeling, the alfalfa to try to determine when it getting buds set.  By just looking at the alfalfa plant it is sometimes difficult to determine if the tips have buds or leaf clusters on them.  But if I pinch the tip of the alfalfa plant between my fingers I can feel the bud on the tips.  Once the plant has buds it will generally open the buds to flower in just a few days.  So once I know that we are at bud stage I look at the weather.  I try to make sure that I have 5 good days of weather.  I use several weather services looking at the 10 day, 7 day, and even the 30 day.  I combine the forecasts to help make the decision.  Then I decide whether I should cut everything that is ready or only take part of it.  If I take part of it I'm hedging my decision in hopes that if the weather isn't that great, I don't take a hit on the quality across the board.  Of course the longer you wait to harvest the hay past bud stage, the hay quality goes down also, so it is kind of a sliding scale.  At some point it needs to go no matter, but one thing is for sure.  Hay that is well into bloom and past its prime but is baled when it is green and without rain on it sells better than hay that was cut in its prime but got discolored from rain, so really the weather decision is everything.

Rain

Good grief the rain has been ridiculous.  We have had so much rain that it looks like we just went through snow melt.  Unbelievable!  The fields look okay on our place other than a couple of wet spots that have been there since spring, but the Little Sioux River right down the road is out of its banks and is taking the path of least resistance overland.  Some of the farms had spots that were replanted once the rains ended in late spring, but now they're flooded again and this time it'll be too late to replant.  Not good.

LubeMinder by Suburan Mfr.

Great customer service.  I really hope that we provide our customers with great customer service because when I run across a company that provides it I know I really appreciate it.  The latest example is a company called Suburban Manufacturing.  They make a product called LubeMinder.  It's in my John Deere 567 large round hay baler.  It's a great product that automatically oils the chains that run the baler.  If you have ever popped open the doors on a round baler you would see several chains on each side that run gears that turn parts of the baler.  These chains need to be lubed before every use and even every so often during use.  What the LubeMinder does is put oil on the chains automatically every time the baler opens to kick out a bale.  The oil is routed to each of the chains via small plastic tubes.  Unfortunately during my winter maintenance I routed a chain over a tube and the chain cut the tube in half.  When I called Suburban Mfr. they said that rather than replacing the tube, they have a repair piece that can be used.  Great!  They asked for my address etc and said they'd send it right away.  I asked if they needed credit card info or something and they said no.  Just remember us when you buy another piece of equipment.  Wow!  That is great customer service and you bet I'll tell others about their great customer service and their great product.

Zucchini

We harvested our first zucchinis yesterday.  We were waiting to see what the growers co-op wanted before we took the first harvest, so we ended up tossing quite a few baseball bat size zuccs.   Even tossing quite a bit in terms of weight, we were just under the amount requested by the co-op.  Now that we've taken our first harvest we'll setup a harvest schedule which should give us more consistent sizes and a more consistent production over all.  The only factor is the weather, and the main factor right now is rain.  We've gotten more today and the fields have quite a bit of standing water in them.  Only time will tell how long the water will stand in the fields so there is no need to fret about it right now.  

Record Low Hay Harvest Projected for IA and MN

The USDA is projecting a record low hay harvest for Iowa, Minnesota and many other states for 2011.  Between the ground taken out to plant corn and beans, and the ground flooded by heavy rains this spring, Iowa is expecting very high hay prices due to a lack of supply.  For those of you who buy hay for your horses or livestock I hope that you have purchased your hay for the year because from here on out it sounds like the hay market is set to heat up.  Of course I'm behind the curve on this information as well since my first cutting of hay is almost all out of the field and was sold before it was baled so I'm pretty sure it was priced below the market.  I have about 54 acres of oat hay I hope to have baled today and I'll move the hay into hoop building to store.  It is tentatively sold already but it got rained on so I'll need to see if they still want it or if it will be held for winter sale. 

Everybody Likes Chicken

A couple of nights ago we had a couple of bats in the house.  Not sure how they get in, but we get a couple of them in the house every year.  They aren't a big deal.  The bats always end up in our bedroom and I catch them in a trout fishing net and release the bats outside.  I only mention this because Sharon happened to be awake from the bat catching activity (did I mention that Sharon has an extreme fear of bats?) and she thought she heard her new chicks in distress in the barn.  So she went outside at about 3:30AM and checked on the chicks.  Not finding anything she went back to bed.  Again the sound of distress a little later and again the same thing.  Yesterday when she went to do her morning chores she noticed that she had gone from 230 chicks to something very, very short of that number.  She came in for breakfast and said I think I've lost all but about 50 chicks!  So last night the chicks were placed into a cattle water tank for the night to keep them safe.  During the process of transferring them to the tank the count was 87 chicks.  143 chicks were taken in just a couple of nights.  From the research that we've done and from others it sounds like rats.  Rats love to eat chicks. We've had rats before.  When the kids were little they spilled a lot of feed on the floors when they were doing chores, and that created a rat problem, but we saw the rats then.  If rats are taking the chicks we haven't seen any, or any evidence of them.  Sharon just ordered more replacement chicks.  Luckily they were available.  This late in the year it isn't always easy to get chicks.  Hopefully we can solve this mystery.

Owls

We have a pair of great horned owl "chicks" growing up on our farm.  The first time I noticed them was when I was cutting hay.  As I came down past the house grove I saw an owl walking along the edge of the field.  Since I can't recall ever seeing this I stopped the tractor to get a better look at it and noticed that it had the telltale horns of a great horned owl, but the color was much lighter than a normal owl.  The next time I saw the owl was again during haying and I saw that it was actually a pair.  The pair came, first one, then the other, and crash landed into the hay field.  They came out of the grove swooping up and down pivoting on their wings and ditching like a hang-glider landing on their bellies and tilting over onto their heads with feet up in the air and wings wide open.  When they pulled themselves back up right they just sat in the field and watched me go around in the tractor.  I called up to the house and everyone came down to take a look at them.  They stayed put in the field even with everyone standing just feet away.  A couple of days ago we even had one get caught in the portable netting that Sara uses to pen her goats in with.  We attempted to free the owl from the netting but the fearsome talons and the popping of its beak kept us from getting too close.  It didn't take long though and the owl was out of the netting and flying.  Who would have thought that such amazing flying predators would be so clumsy when they are young.

Sharon just left to pickup the last batch of broiler chicks from the post office.  The chickens have been pretty much sold-out since shortly after the first batch was processed.  We're all very busy.  The hay has been going everyday but in fits and starts.  The ground moisture is still very high which keeps the bottom of the hay windrows high in moisture, and the top of the windrows are dry.  It has been a little difficult keeping the hay moisture right where we want it so I bale for a few hours and then have to stop once the humidity jumps in the evening or drops during the day.  Last night I tried to bale but only got about an hour in before the moisture monitor was telling me that the moisture was coming up.  I hope to finish the first cutting of alfalfa today but I still have about 55 acres of oat hay down that will need to get baled as soon as it decides to dry.