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.