April Showers Bring Fall Corn?

If April showers bring May flowers, we hope May showers bring fall corn. (And those May showers sure don't hurt the wheat crop, alfalfa or pastures either!)

Randy started planting corn on April 24 this year, later than normal. I took these photos the afternoon of May 2, the second day when our part of the state had the chance of severe thunderstorms. Thankfully, we got 1.40" of rain, but missed the hail, tornadoes and high winds that other parts of the state experienced. It rained Randy out before he could finish the field, but he got done yesterday afternoon.

The rain certainly gave the newly-planted corn a boost. So does the nitrogen fertilizer Randy applies  to promote germination and early growth.

This year, we planted 280 acres of corn, a little less than last year. I'm sure that seems like small potatoes - or small sprouts - to anybody who has circles of corn. Since we are an all dryland farm, wheat remains our primary crop.

On a walk last Friday, we checked out the newly-emerged corn coming up in fields where he'd first planted.

Our walk also took us past a wheat field, where it was starting to head. The 2018 Wheat Quality Council's Hard Winter Wheat Tour was last week. And the 95 participants who traversed the state along six different routes found what we already knew: The 2018 wheat crop is behind schedule. Because most of wheat country has been in a severe drought since last October, the crop is shorter than normal and head size is smaller. 

Friday, May 4, 2018

The Wheat Quality Council's estimate for the 2018 Kansas wheat crop is 37 bushels an acre. Kansas Wheat reports that total production of wheat to be harvested in Kansas is 243.3 million bushels. If realized, this would be about 90 million bushels less than last year's crop and the lowest production in Kansas since 1989.

Monday, May 7, 2018

By Monday afternoon, many more heads were unfurled in the wheat fields.

My eternal optimist reports that the rains late in April and early in May should help some,  especially if we don't plunge right into summer temperatures. However, these days with 85-degree-plus temperatures won't do the crop any favors.

Rain, Rain, Come Again Another Day!

Rain, rain, go away,

Come again another day.

SAID NO KANSAS FARMER EVER AT THIS TIME OF YEAR!

Farmers much prefer:

Rain, rain, come and stay

And keep coming for another day!

It may not have the same "ring" to it, but it's accurate. 

The rain on Saturday was not the perfect atmosphere for K-State's spring football game. But it sure made two little girls happy.

The tags got removed from Kinley's new butterfly rain boots. Umbrellas were unfurled.

And Brooke was so excited to wear her new raincoat from Grandma Christy and walk through the puddles with her rain boots.

The rain made Grandpas and Grandmas happy, too ... especially those who needed some rain to give the 2018 wheat crop a fighting chance.

Last week's drought monitor put even more of the state in either extreme or exceptional drought. Two tiny corners of the state were the only areas not classified as dry. While the 0.90" of rain we received here on the Stafford/Reno County line won't put much of a dent in the extreme drought, we are thankful for what we did receive.

Before moving some pairs of cattle to pasture Monday afternoon, Randy and I stopped for a look at a wheat field.

There was some concern that freezing temperatures during the first two weekends of April could have caused damage. The first week of April not only brought the season’s first snowfall to much of Kansas, but some of the coldest weather of the year as well, with nighttime lows falling into the teens and daytime highs barely above freezing.

However, that cover of snow on April 7 helped blanket the wheat. But on April 14, there was no snow cover. 

A chart from K-State had shown there was high risk in our area for freeze damage to wheat after our sub-freezing temperatures that second weekend.

The top of the wheat plant shows some freeze damage, seen here in the brown and yellow on the leaves.

However, the Kansas wheat crop is well behind the five-year average for maturation at this time. So, the growing point wasn't too far out of the ground. Having only a small fraction of the crop as far along as jointing meant less chance of massive freeze damage as a result of those adverse events.

In the photo above, Randy uses a knife to point to the growing point - or joint.

He then used the knife to slice open the stalk at the growing point. Good news: It revealed a green head! If there had been freeze damage, it would have been more white. It looks like we dodged a bullet.

This year's Kansas winter wheat crop definitely didn't need another challenge. Kansas has had  one of the driest winters on record: Much of the state - including our farm - got virtually no moisture from early October to mid-March. So the adverse conditions had already taken a toll on harvest prospects.

The Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service found only 13 percent of the crop in good or excellent condition (just 1 percent excellent) in the first week of April's Crop Progress report. A whopping 74 percent of the crop is considered fair to poor, with 13 percent very poor.

Wheat is said to have "nine lives." This will be another year when that theory is again tested. My resident optimist still says that Kansas could still have an average or close-to-average crop in many areas. We just need more timely rains and moderate temperatures during the next several weeks.

There's some rain in the forecast again today, so I'll try my modified rhyme:

Rain, rain, come and stay

And keep coming for another day!

Million Dollar Rain?

"That was a million dollar rain, maybe even a billion dollar rain, wasn't it?"

The remark came from a neighbor as we were walking toward our cars following a funeral yesterday morning. And before anyone asks for a loan, that doesn't mean that we personally will rake in a million bucks from a timely rain. It means that the rain that fell Sunday night into Monday could make that much of an impact in our region.

We got 1.60 inches of rain. It was our first measurable precipitation since the first week of October. That's five months without moisture. Last weekend, the National Weather Service said if there was no precipitation during the weekend, it would be the driest winter in Kansas since they began tracking it in 1874.

Last week's U.S. drought monitor brought our area into the "extreme drought" category - that area in red. The new map will be released later today, so it will be interesting to see if the rain helped erase any of that bulls-eye. However, we know it will take more than one rain to begin recovering from this lack of moisture. 

The rain certainly "dressed up" the fields, kind of like adding a little color to your cheeks with some makeup. It may seem strange to city dwellers, but the vibrant green color in the fields has been a hot topic this week - whether at church choir practice, a PEO meeting or a stop at the grocery store.

The latest government crop report estimates that more than half of the winter wheat crop in Kansas is in poor or very poor condition. And we are the Wheat State, after all! The National Agricultural Statistics Service reported Monday that 17 percent of the Kansas wheat is in very poor condition with another 38 percent rated as poor. About 34 percent is rated as fair with just 10 percent in good and 1 percent in excellent condition. That assessment comes at the same time that topsoil moisture supplies were rated as short or very short across 81 percent of the state.

 

After we worked a group of baby calves yesterday afternoon, we stopped for a closer look at a wheat field. Randy didn't find the growing point, which is good at this time of the year when a freeze could "zap" the life right out of the tender plant.

So was it a million dollar rain? (Or a billion dollar rain? Inflation, you know!)

Mother Nature will ultimately decide. All the technology, all the college courses, all the passed-down knowledge means zip if the weather doesn't cooperate.

But the rain sure brightened some attitudes and helped inject a little positivity in small town Kansas!

The rain also gave a boost to the spring flowers outside my front door.

They say "April showers bring May flowers." Those March rains do wonders for early spring blooms, too!

Precipitation Woes

We were driving back toward home after an evening check of the cattle. I watched as the sun snuggled into the horizon from clouds like looked a big, down-filled comforter.

I asked Randy to pull over so I could get a snapshot of another magnificent Kansas sky. Ironically, we ended up parked next to one of our wheat fields. And as I watched the yellow sun get swallowed up by the blanket of blue, I knew that the clouds were just for show again. No moisture was lurking in the folds of the sky's blanket.

 

Yesterday, we scouted some wheat fields. We got a little freezing rain during a winter thunderstorm Monday night. But it was mostly sound effects - like the artificially-produced noises on a movie set.

Remnants of the sleet remain in the field, but we were hoping Wednesday night's forecast would finally bring us measurable precipitation. Instead, the bulk of the storm again skirted to our east. Some schools in the Wichita area are closed for the third day in a row because of icy roads, and TV reporters lament the slick slide to work.

While we'd prefer our moisture in a long, slow rain, an ice storm last January (2017) gave us our only round of winter moisture and made a difference in our wheat crop last summer. We need good moisture to STOP the drought conditions. (It seems the traffic sign held on to more ice than our fields!)

This winter has been dry. In fact,  November 2017 to January 2018 ranked as the driest (lowest precipitation) on record for Kansas, receiving less than 25 percent of normal precipitation for that time period.

For us, the dry streak extends back to October. We were interrupted with wheat planting because of some intermittent rains, but those also came after a dry summer. We are in the severe drought category on the Kansas drought monitor, and the red of extreme drought is creeping closer.

 

While parts of northern Kansas have received some snow, it's bypassed our area.

Our wheat crop is in dire need of a good, long drink of water.

The bulls got their drink after Randy broke the ice for them. 

If only we could shatter the drought as easily as Randy smashes through the ice with an ax. (Well, it was easy for me. I was just watching!)

Planting Wheat, Harvesting the Sky

The gas tank gauge on the car was drifting toward the "E" ... or as close as I ever let it get. As a country girl who grew up 15 minutes from town, I was encouraged to fill the gas tank when the needle neared the 1/4-mark. It was a habit that served me well as a teenager. When I ended up changing my "title" from father's daughter to farmer's wife, there was no reason to mess with a tried-and-true method.

Most of the last two tanks of gas have been "spent" running from one field to the next as we planted wheat. There was no fun trip to the homecoming parade and K-State football game last weekend in Manhattan ... just more trips to exchange the car for another trip to Zenith in the pickup, pulling the fertilizer trailer and refilling the 100-gallon diesel tank on the flatbed pickup. There were trips to deliver hot meals to the field and to help move the caravan of vehicles needed for wheat planting from one field to the next. A parts run to Hutchinson came after filling up a dwindling gas tank.

While I might be just a little sad (OK, a lot sad) that I didn't get to join Kinley and Brooke at the homecoming parade and get a preview of their butterfly Halloween costumes, I certainly have had some fringe benefits.

The sky! THE SKY!

It was like God was fingerpainting on the clouds, adding just a little bit of gold leaf ... like those fancy chefs on the Food Network.

I could almost ignore the mosquitoes the size of Piper aircraft to capture yet another image of Kansas beauty at its finest.

This wheat planting season has been a marathon - not a sprint. We started October 2, but we were slowed by some much-needed moisture interspersed throughout these past three weeks.(I told Randy that we can't complain about moisture after a dry summer.)

We finally got done with planting last evening, October 23. There are months of sunrises and sunsets until we'll harvest the 1,326 acres that will be Wheat Harvest 2018. (Let's hope it warrants the capital letters in 9 months time!)

Now it's on to harvesting another crop - milo. 

Life Through the Rearview Mirror

 

I try not to live life looking in the rearview mirror. As a Type A perfectionist, I can make myself a little crazy with my "woulda, shoulda, coulda" thoughts.

But here lately, I've done quite a bit of rearview mirror watching. Literally.

I had three men who taught me about driving on the farm. My dad, my Uncle Leroy and summer wheat harvest driver Ed all contributed to my education on driving pickups and grain trucks. They all emphasized watching the rearview mirror, especially when driving slowly, to avoid being a one-vehicle traffic jam.

During wheat planting, I make my fair share of trips to Zenith for fertilizer and fuel. And I try to watch my rearview mirror for those fast-approaching vehicles. (For the record, there aren't many on the Zenith Road, but I'll see them if one happens along.)

I've also needed the mirrors for backing up to loading docks to pick up certified wheat seed at Miller Seed Farm and at the farm store for more acetylene and oxygen for those ubiquitous welding repairs.

I watch the mirrors so I know when to stop when I weigh on with empty fertilizer trailers ...

... and again when I pull into the fertilizer shed to get the signal from the co-op worker when to stop. (That one's important: I don't want to have to back up a trailer if I can avoid it!)

 

I ignore the mirror when I'm filling up the 100-gallon diesel tank on the back of the pickup because I'm too busy reading my book. (Fringe benefit!) But I definitely use it as I leave the pumps to avoid anyone else arriving or departing at the same time.

Mirrors help me pull up to the right place so Randy can fill the drill.

I  needed a crystal ball - not a rearview mirror - to know that the rice I left on low on the stove would be incinerated by the time I got back from helping Randy. (I will definitely use past experience - ala a rearview mirror perspective - to influence my decision in the future. The rice was so bad even the cats wouldn't eat it. But I did manage to save the pan after a lot of scrubbing)

Not all the driving has been looking backwards. One morning, I looked to the side to check for traffic before I pulled out of the driveway and loved the play of morning light on the turning leaves.

 

And as I returned from Miller Seed Farm one morning, I watched a front roll toward me across the horizon. I couldn't resist a quick photo. (I had a little cushion of time before Randy was going to fill the drill, so my quick stop was sanctioned.)

Today, I have a meeting in Hutchinson this morning and one in Stafford this afternoon, so the guys are going to have to "drive" the day without me. I think they'll miss me. (Of course, I'll be back in time to make and deliver the evening meal, so they could be missing me more!)