Raspberries Done for 2013

We opened the high tunnel to let the raspberries go dormant for the winter.  It's supposed to get down into the single digits F over the next couple of days.  My plan is to try to keep the high tunnel open for most of the winter, but I'm not sure if that is a good idea or not.  My hope is that the high tunnel can handle being open when we get high wind storms during the winter. I don't want to close the high tunnel and have the temps popping up and triggering the raspberries to break their dormancy too early, or not be dormant enough and damaging the raspberries with freeze thaw.  Time will tell I guess.  One thing is for sure.  We won't have any greens out of the high tunnel this year.

Berries Too Cold

I think I may have let the raspberries get too cold one night last week.  When I got up in the morning it was 27F at about 5am.  I didn't check to see how long it was down that low, but I figured it had to be quite a while.  I've only run the heater for a few nights this fall, so I turned on the heater in the high tunnel, but I think it was too late. The quality of the ripe berries is poor. I'm hoping that the berries that are still unripe will ripen well, but we won't know until we get some sun on the plants and see how they move forward.  Guess we'll know as the week goes on.

Raspberry Production Year 1

The raspberry plants are producing really well.  We had thought that the first year production would be light, but it turns out that our production is really good for our first year.  So much so that we are getting 4 to 5 pints a day, not including what we're eating (which is substantial).

Raspberry Heat Stress White Drupelet Disorder

We're currently seeing heat stress in our raspberries. It started showing up even before it got extremely hot, but it was limited to one here and there. But the past couple of days we've seen it really hitting the Heritage variety of raspberries.  What we're seeing are some white drupes within the drupelet.

1. Drupe - The fleshy fruit with a single seed. In a raspberry or blackberry, it would be each of the individual tiny round balls of fruit that make up a cluster in what is considered the berry.
2. Drupelet - The individual drupes that in composite are considered the berry on plants such as raspberry or blackberry.

So what we're seeing is called White Drupelet Disorder.  Looking that up I found that it can be caused by a handful of issues, but one being excessive heat.
Imagine that?  A plant that's in a greenhouse, even with its sides open and the end-wall door wide open, would show signs of heat stress in NW Iowa from this past week. The high tunnel weather station showed a hight temp of 109F two days ago.  I'd say that qualifies as excessive heat. The Heritage raspberry variety is more susceptible to the disorder, and the variety showing the most symptoms is Heritage, but the others that are producing right now are showing it here and there too. They don't taste any different, but they aren't very pretty.

Final Chicken Day 2013

The second day of 2013 chicken processing went great.  Our customers are a big part of making it a lot of fun.  Thanks to all of our customers and we look forward to seeing you again next year.  Enjoy your chickens!

Chicken Days August 2013 Today

Today starts the last chickens for 2013.  We caught the chickens last night and I started the scalder this morning.  So far so good. The scalder didn't go out like the July chicken day so I'm hoping that all will be smooth sailing.

July Chickens Day 2

Day one went awesome! The process went so smooth that we were amazed ourselves. The only issue we had was that the scalder flame blew out from the wind shortly after I lit the scalder. I knew I had a problem when I smelled the LP as I crossed the lane.  It really didn't set us back, we just heated water on the stove and on another outside burner, then combined it into the sclading pot and we were ready to go.  Hopefully we run as smoothly today.

July Chicken Days

Today and tomorrow we process the July batch of chickens. We setup for processing yesterday and we're trying a couple new additions to our processing.  We're always looking for ways to make the process better.

.5 GPH Emitters

Today we added additional emitters to the orchard waterline for each tree. Each of the emitters puts out .5 gal of water per hour. Based on putting an inch of water on the roots of each tree based on the number of trees per acre etc we determined that a single .5 gal emitter won't come close to putting out enough water if we don't get any rain. So we added the emitters. It was the perfect job for the day. With the outside temperature at about 90F, the water that sprayed out of the irrigation line from punching holes to push the emitters into was a nice way to keep cool. We finished the south side of the orchard. Tomorrow we'll finish up the north side.

Cedar Apple Rust (CAR)

I was out scouting the orchard today and noticed a few things of note.  A lot of the trees have settled into the soil and have pulled their rubber bands free from their trunks.  Another is that the grass seed is sprouting, but it is very, very thin. I'm sure we'll be over seeding this fall. A couple of the apples that we left on a few trees are maturing. The apples are mainly on the Wealthy apple trees.

Cedar Apple Rust (CAR)

And finally I noticed that several varieties of trees have cedar apple rust (CAR) which is a fungal disease produced by juniper trees, also known as red cedars in IA.

Wealthy Apple

We'll definitely have to keep an eye on the CAR to see if it is a yearly problem or just one that is an every once in a while thing.  My neighbor has a very nice grove of cedars a couple miles from the orchard, and since the spores can travel 2 - 5 miles, it may be something that we just have to manage.

Cutting Hay Crop 2013

We cut hay a couple of weeks ago and it was really nice stuff.  We only cut enough to get a rack or two of small squares up before the rain, and then hoped for dry weather to be able to take a big cutting and get the hay crop in for the year. This week NOAA said we would have a long stretch of dry weather so we cut a lot of hay. The orchard/alfalfa/clover mix looks great and based on the height and volume while cutting, it has to be 2-3 tons to the acre. Cutting it was slow going with the cutter-conditioner but I guess that's the price I'll gladly pay for such a bumper crop of hay. Today we'll spread the hay out to get rid of the wet spots, and if we're lucky we'll rake it up tomorrow and bale.

Grass Hay

Tom with Orchard/Alfalfa/Clover Mix

Zestar Issue

I talked with the nursery and they said that they thought the dieback is from how they are stored after were dug. They suggested that I cut the central stem back to where there is no dieback. I cut the trees back yesterday and it was heartbreaking. What were 6' trees are now a 3 foot something tree. In addition I was told to either create a new central leader, or to cut all of the side branches back below the cutback central leader so that the central leader is still dominant. For those trees that were tall enough and had short enough limbs I just trimmed back the side branches, but there were several that had very vigorous upright limbs which allowed me to choose one to be the replacement leader. The nursery said that in a couple of years I'll never know the difference.  I hope so, because when I walked the orchard today, the little trees mixed in with the tall ones really stand out.

Zestar Issue

I was walking through the orchard the other day looking at the trees and clipping off any branches that are broken.  As I walked through the Zestar trees I noticed a tree that was dead from the very top of the leader to about a foot down. The leaves and any flowers and blossoms were dead. As I kept going through the trees I noticed more trees here and there with the same condition. I didn't get a good count but I'd say that I have at least 10 trees have the problem. It almost looks like fire blight without the ooze.   I contacted the ISU extension service and they think it is winter injury or something with the roots from the nursery.  I guess I'll call the nursery on Monday and see what they think.

Chicken Days - June

Yesterday's chicken day wen't pretty well. We started around 8am with customers coming as early as nine and as late as 4ish. The processing went well and we had Nancy B. helping us on the gutting table so it was even smoother. We used to have a huge issue with our electric scalder not keeping up. Now we have to be careful about keeping the scalder temp from getting too hot. Our first batch was too hot and the first batch through the sclader ended up being set aside as stew chickens for our family for the winter. Today is a short day with not as many to process as yesterday so I expect that things will move along nicely.

Beans

We had the beans planted on Saturday evening. The Schwaller's finished up around 11:30pm. They were planted just before the rain hit at about 2AM. Since then it's been raining everyday off and on with a total so far of around 2.18" of rain in the last 3 days. Good thing we got the beans in when we did or we would be looking at the middle of next week some time before we could get back to it and the beans I have wouldn't have worked too well being planted into June. It will be close as it is being planted on the 25th.  Now we just hope for the best and see what the weather, pests, and markets do.

Orchard Fence

Only 3 more strands of the 8 strand fence to go today. Then we can apply power and hope that the deer decide that they don't want to jump 6' high to get over the fence.

Watering In Apple Trees

Note to self - don't water in trees in high wind without having your trees staked! I was watering in some of the trees in the orchard that weren't staked and the wind just pushed them right over. So yesterday we finished staking the trees and also finished running the layflat hose. Today I hope to run the irrigation tubing for the emitters. It was so hot yesterday (100.3F) that we had to stop at 3PM.  It was just too hot to continue.

Orchard/North

We completed planting the north side of the orchard yesterday. The wind blew the dirt into our eyes the entire day and sandblasted us relentlessly, leaving us squinting, red faced and raw. But we knocked out all of the trees that were planned. We have about 20 extra trees that we'll put in today to wrap up the planting and then we'll call the planting officially completed. We did stake some trees yesterday and used some special rubber-bands that have a T on them. It took us a while to get the technique down but I think we'll be able to get that completed over a few days without a problem. Besides the wind we did have the auger chain break while trying to dig out a rock. I had lots of repair links on hand, but no additional chain, so we were delayed while Sharon ran to town to get some more chain.  But overall, the day went well, even if by the end of the day everyone was very tired both physically and mentally and wanted to see the last tree go into the ground.

New Orchard!

We've been planing a PYO orchard for several years now, and after all of the prep-work, which started in 2011, we've finally started planting our trees.  This year we're putting in about 800 trees and we've left some space for some different planting techniques next year.  We put in 7 varieties of trees that are a couple years old and well feathered (have branches). The planting has been going great, but the weather has pushed us back several times and we haven't completed our fence or our irrigation system. But overall, the project has been going very smoothly - as Sharon said, "we never have projects that run this smoothly." We should finish planting today if things continue to go smoothly.

Calves

Good thing we sorted and moved the cows.  They started calving as soon as they were moved and the calves are coming one right after the other.  All of them look great so far, although one cow who has had issues nursing calves in the past is still having her issues. I'm about to go down and stand in the rain/snow and watch to see if her calf is latching on enough. The calf was on yesterday, but today that calf looks mighty tired so we'll keep an eye no him.  Her calf last year was given goats milk because she wasn't nursing it well enough, and then the calf stayed with the goats as she grew.  We call her goat-calf because she hung with the goats so long she probably thinks she's a goat, and lets you walk right up to her and pet her just like a goat too.  We don't want another goat calf though. Bottle feeding isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Sorted Cattle Today

I cut the bull from the cows this morning, then cut the steers from the heifers and sent them in with the bull.  We'll feed the bull and the steers together until the bull goes out with the cows and heifers.  Except for having to move through the mud, everything went easy and gentile... for a change.

Snow on High Tunnel Sides - What to do

I sure would like to know what others are doing when snow piles up on their auto-roll-up sides. I think for us the snow has been a much bigger issue than wind. We've had 2 issues with snow on the sides.  First is that the snow lays on the sides and when the sides open the snow makes the circumference of the pipe much larger.  This causes the opener to make fewer revolutions to open which then causes the sides to opens to the ribbon board which jams the motor until the fuse is blown.  The other is that the snow holds the sides closed until the motor blows the fuse.  Neither of these situations is good since they can damage the inserts that connect to the pipe and attach to the motor, and/or break other parts which we've had to fix.  Hard lessons to learn, but nothing catastrophic yet thank goodness.

Snow Storm Calf

We had our first calf of the season, born in the snow storm last night.  She (the calf) and the cow both look like they're doing fine.  We'll try to tag her today before she gets too much run in her.

High Tunnel's Warm

Trellis

We finished setting up the trellis and wires to support the berry plants inside of the high tunnel. We used old steel fence posts and welded on some square stock that was left from some other projects.  We're hoping that the plants don't put too great a load on the wires because the steel posts are spring steel and can actually flex under load.  We'll see as the season goes along.

Trellis work completed

We finished planting the high tunnel, laying the water lines and getting most everything finished.  We decided on raspberries. It was a snap to plant, and with a little extra help we had everything done in no time.

High Tunnel 2013 Prep

It's still a little cold outside, but in the high tunnel yesterday the temp was set to a nice 70F. The automatic sides were working to keep the temp fairly even and I can see how it would be nearly impossible to keep a steady temp without the automation to open and close the sides every time a cloud bank passes over and as the outside temp goes up with the sun light changes.  We've nearly completed the preparation of the high tunnel for planing.  We ran the water lines from the well and set the oval lines so that when the plants are set we just have to punch the drip tape lines into the oval line as we go to wet the plants in. We also tilled under most of the rye grass that was growing in the high tunnel so that we could layout our beds and we also spent some labor hours using a hand cultivator to pull rocks. We still have a little more to go on the rock removal but with the temp set to around 70F it is nice to be able to work without heavy clothing.  Today Tom will modify the CAD drawing of our bed layouts and we'll finalize laying out the beds with string.  After that we simply wait for the plants.  It's been really great working with my two younger boys.  George and Sara have been in Brazil this past week on a missions trip, which has given me the opportunity to really work with the younger boys a lot more.