The New Agriculture Network's on-line newsletter with seasonal advice for field crop and vegetable growers interested in organic agriculture.
Vol. 2, No. 11 - October 13, 2005
In this issue
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Last issue for 2005 |
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Feed the soil |
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Progress report on Illinois' agricultural research site in transition to organic production |
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NEW -- Beyond the harvest: saving seed |
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Reports from organic growers |
Next issue posted spring 2006.
Last issue for 2005
With this issue we conclude our second year of publishing at the New Agriculture Network. We would especially like to thank the farmers who participated in conference calls and submitted farm reports for posting at the Network. We also appreciate the feature articles written by university specialists and want to thank our colleagues for these contributions. To quickly access their articles from the past two years, follow the "search this site" link in our green navigational bar, or see the table of contents in the "calendar of issues" link.
Looking ahead, we have been successful in locating funding for the New Agriculture Network and will return with more information in 2006. Our goal is to continue to link up science-based research with the seasoned experience of growers and to foster the sharing of ideas. In particular, if you have comments or suggestions related to the New Agriculture Network, please send us an email at: newagnet@msu.edu. We would like to hear about suggested improvements for the Network, ideas for article topics, comments about how you've used the information here, research needs and other feedback from you.
Thanks for reading.
Dale Mutch and Joy Landis, Michigan State University
Deborah Cavanaugh-Grant, University of Illinois
Elizabeth Maynard, Purdue University
Feed the soil
Ed Zaborski
Center for Ecological Entomology
Illinois Natural History Survey
As a soil ecologist, I have long been interested in organic agro-ecosystems. Practitioners of organic agriculture often bring up common themes in describing their management philosophies, for example, an emphasis on "feeding the soil," or a conviction that "healthy soil = healthy plants."
These fundamental principles in the traditional knowledge of the organic farming community have been codified to some extent in rules for organic certification, with requirements for farm plans that protect and improve the soil resource, and an emphasis on the use of crop rotations, cover crops, manures and composts to build the soil rather than synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and other inputs.
How does our scientific understanding of the soil fit with this traditional knowledge? In this article, I will examine only a small part of this question - that which involves the community of living organisms in the soil.
Food webs
Food webs describe the feeding relationships between different organisms or, who eats who. More precisely, they show how energy and nutrients flow through the living community. The animals we are most familiar with such as songbirds, butterflies, dogs, cats and people, are part of a food web that gets its nutrients and energy either directly or indirectly from living plants. For example, on a farm, crop plants take up nutrients from the soil, carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and light energy from the sun to create new plant tissue and to fuel the plant's existence. We may eat those crops directly or feed them to farm animals that provide us with meat, milk or eggs to eat. But our crops provide food for other animals as well. Caterpillars feed on the leaves of cabbage and broccoli or bore into the ears and stems of corn. Robins pluck fruit from the strawberry patch or cherry tree, and bees forage for nectar and pollen among the squash blossoms. These plant feeders are eaten by primary predators, which in turn may be preyed upon by other predators. The caterpillar may feed a spider, which may feed a pheasant, which may feed a fox, a hawk, a hunter's family, or maybe even the family cat. At each step through the food web, a portion of the solar energy originally captured by plants in organic compounds is passed to the "eater" and used to build living tissue and fuel the activities of life.
The decomposer food web
The soil food web differs from the above-ground food web in an important way. Much of the energy that flows through it comes not from living plant tissue, but from plant residues and other dead organic matter. For this reason, the below-ground food web is often called the decomposer food web. The decomposer food web is composed of a remarkable variety of numerous, often tiny and often unfamiliar organisms: fungi and bacteria; protozoa and nematodes; soil mites; insect-like springtails, proturans and diplurans; millipedes and centipedes; potworms and earthworms. The living biomass of this food web is measured in tons per acre. At its foundation are fungi and bacteria that are directly responsible for most of the decomposition that takes place in soils, extracting food and energy from dead plant residues and animal wastes. Some fauna in the soil, such as millipedes, also get their food and energy directly from dead organic matter, but most get their nutrition by feeding on fungi and bacteria, or by preying on other soil animals.
Living organisms, food webs and system processes
In most ecosystems, only a small proportion of the solar energy captured in the tissues of living plants is used to fuel the activities of organisms in the above-ground foodweb; most of it enters the soil as dead plant residues or is secreted from living roots into the soil as simple organic compounds like sugars. In a typical meadow, Macfayden (1961) estimated the proportion of solar energy utilized by the above-ground food web to be only about 25 percent. Some 60 percent entered the soil as dead plant residues and an additional 15 percent entered the soil as wastes or dead bodies from above-ground consumers. Virtually all of the solar energy that entered the soil as dead organic matter - most of the solar energy captured by plants - is ultimately used to support the activities of soil organisms in the decomposer food web.
The activities of soil organisms, fueled by energy coming primarily from dead organic matter added to the soil, drive important soil processes that support plant growth. Soil organisms help build new soil by breaking up and burying plant residues and animal wastes, by mixing it with the mineral fractions of the soil, and by chemically transforming it into soil organic matter. Soil organisms help build soil structure by forming and stabilizing pores and aggregates, thus improving soil structure, water infiltration, gas exchange and root penetration. Soil organisms recycle nutrients from dead organic matter as they feed by transforming complex organic nutrients into simpler forms that can be taken up again by plants. Soil organisms protect nutrients from being lost from the system through leaching, gasification or chemical fixation by taking them up into their tissues; yet these nutrients are slowly released from the soil biomass and made available to growing plants as each organism is consumed by its predators. Soil organisms help control populations of pest organisms by competing with them for resources or by preying on them.
So what?
What does all this have to do with the functioning and management of agricultural systems?
In unmanaged systems, we see that most of the solar energy captured by plants is ultimately used by organisms in the decomposer food web. These organisms, in turn, mediate important soil processes that support plant growth. In agricultural systems, however, we do many things that change how plant residues are "fed" to the decomposer food web. Tillage and cultivation usurp the role of soil animals and rapidly fragment residues and incorporate them into the mineral soil, leaving the soil surface bare and accelerating decomposition. We reduce plant (and plant residue) diversity by planting monocultures in simple rotations and by cultivating or spraying weeds. This also leaves the soil devoid of living plant biomass for most of the year, and restricts fresh residue inputs to the soil to large, sudden "pulses" at harvest time. Finally, we harvest much of the solar energy captured in the plant biomass each year. Of course, the removal of biomass will always be a characteristic of agricultural systems. The diversion of solar energy from the soil food web could become extreme, however, if we develop the technology to use crop residues as feedstocks for biomass fuel production or for other products.Many of the management practices embraced by organic producers and called for in the rules governing organic certification help to increase the amount of solar energy captured by these production systems, increase the amount and variety of organic residues directed to the decomposer food web, and encourage the development of a strong decomposer community and its participation in important soil processes. Some of these practices include: 1) Diverse rotations that can include crops with different seasons of growth and rooting patterns, leguminous and non-leguminous plants, cover crops, living mulches and perennial fallow crops. 2) Use of carbon-rich materials, such as manures and composts, and "soft" mineral fertilizers to supplement crop nutrition instead of concentrated synthetic fertilizers that can have detrimental effects on soil organisms.3) Avoidance of broad spectrum synthetic pesticides for pest control, in favor of cultural and mechanical methods, with organic pesticides used only as a last resort.
The opportunities are great for traditional knowledge to help guide the application of scientific tools to better understand how soils function, how they respond to management, and how crop health and productivity are related to soil condition and management. Producers and researchers can collaborate with the goal of improving the management of organic production systems - better management of weed, insect and pest populations; better management of crop nutrition; better management of the soil resource. Since soil processes are at work in all production systems, the fruits of such collaboration could extend beyond the immediate benefits to organic producers; new knowledge could be applicable to improving the health and sustainability of all agriculture.
Progress report on Illinois' agricultural research site in transition to organic production
Cathy Eastman, Edmond Zaborski, Jonathan Lundgren, and John Shaw -- Illinois Natural History Survey
Michelle Wander, Darin Eastburn, John Masiunas, Leslie Cooperband, Deborah Cavanaugh-Grant, Dan Anderson, Carmen Ugarte, and Shin-Yi Lee -- University of Illinois
A goal of organically managed agricultural systems is to achieve balance of soil biological processes in order to increase nutrient availability during times of greater plant growth and minimize loss of excess nutrients into the environment. For agricultural lands transitioning from conventional to organic production, are there ways to structure the transition process to facilitate reaching this balance once the land is certified? How do biological systems in transitioning agricultural lands change as soil-inhabiting organisms become more diverse and as growers rely on ecological processes instead of synthetic inputs to build soil organic matter and reduced pests?
As we reported last year (New Agriculture Network 2004, vol. 1, no. 6; www.ipm.msu.edu/new-ag/issues04/06-24.htm), researchers and Extension educators at the University of Illinois and Illinois Natural History Survey are conducting a USDA-funded project to address these questions. Based on their individual farm operations, growers have several options to choose from in deciding how to transition their land for organic certification. The farming systems approach of our project compares nine transition schemes that differ in management intensity (i.e., frequency of disturbance through tillage, increased number of crops) and organic matter inputs. Three treatments (farming systems) represent different cropping intensities:
1) High-intensity transition (intensive vegetable production),
2) Intermediate-intensity transition (organic cash-grain), and
3) Low-intensity transition (perennial pasture mix).
Within these are three sub-treatments (types of amendments) representing different strategies for organic matter and fertility management:
a) Plant inputs only (cover crops providing all organic inputs and N fertility),
b) Plant inputs plus composts, or
c) Plant inputs plus manure.
Our research objective is to determine how different approaches to transition affect weeds; soil organic matter and nutrient availability; communities of soil invertebrates; and the linkage between soil fertility, plant health, and insect/disease pressure. Now at its midway point, the project has been quite a learning experience. We have consulted frequently with an organic grower advisory board to choose specific crops in each rotation, develop management philosophies for each farming system, and carry out field operations appropriately within the context of organic certification. Crops grown to date are Roma tomato (high-intensity system) and food-grade soybean (medium-intensity system), 2003; broccoli/cabbage (high-intensity) and winter wheat (medium-intensity), 2004; and winter squash (high-intensity) and field corn (medium-intensity), 2005. The low-intensity treatment plots of perennial pasture mix (alfalfa, red clover, timothy, orchard grass, and Alsike clover), planted in 2003, received compost and manure applications to appropriate sub-plots in spring 2004 and have been mowed periodically. Cover crops in the high-intensity system were Austrian winter pea planted in spring 2004 and hairy vetch/winter wheat planted in fall 2004. Cover crops in the intermediate-intensity system were winter wheat planted in fall 2003 and hairy vetch planted in fall 2004. Manure and compost applications were made to appropriate sub-plots in the high-intensity treatment in spring 2004 and in the medium-intensity treatment in fall 2003.
We have already noted some early trends or significant differences within a given season among the cropping intensity treatments and/or amendment sub-treatments. To illustrate this, here are a few examples from 2004. Populations of fungus-eating nematodes were stimulated by type of amendment application but were reduced by the level of system disturbance. Plant-parasitic nematodes were also reduced by system disturbance but were not affected by the type of amendment applied. Incidence of leaf rust on grasses in the low-intensity treatment (perennial pasture mix) was most severe in manure-amended sub-plots, but type of amendment did not influence insect pest populations in broccoli-cabbage plots. Density and diversity of ground-dwelling insect predators and weed seed-feeders were greatest in the low-intensity treatment.
For most of us, our most important data collections will be made after transition. We are following certification guidelines so that the field site can be certified for organic research at the conclusion of the transition period (2006). In 2006 and 2007, the same vegetable crops will be planted across all plots regardless of farming system history. This will allow us to evaluate how the transition schemes initiated in 2003 have affected soil fertility, crop productivity, weed communities, beneficial insects, and problems with plant pathogens and insect pests.
Acknowledgments: Funding for this project is provided primarily by grant number 2003-51106-02086 from the Organic Transitions program of the USDA's Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service.
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Research intern Juan Carlos Laso (L) and graduate student Carmen Ugarte (R) collect soil samples from broccoli-cabbage plots. |
Beyond the harvest: saving seed
Dan Egel, Southwest Purdue Agricultural Center
One of the satisfactions of gardening or farming is the knowledge that one has taken the plant from seed to fruit. Particular satisfaction comes from having grown a quality product and earned some money along the way! Many gardeners can't help but think, however, about the one part of the plant life cycle that they haven't experienced - seed production.
Along with the satisfaction of saving one's own seed, there are some more tangible benefits. Growers who have favorite hard-to-find varieties can be certain that they will have seed next season by saving their own. Some growers may want to improve their varieties by selecting the best fruit and saving the seed. Many growers will enjoy thumbing their noses at the seed catalogs in the spring.
There are some caveats to saving seed, however. One of the dangers to saving seed is the risk of saving the disease present with this year's crop with next year's seed. This article will discuss steps in minimizing seed borne plant diseases. (One also needs to understand a about plant pollination and how to preserve seed germination. However, that is a story for a different time.)
Seed borne diseases are those diseases for which the causal agent is in close association with the seed (Since a causal agent may be a fungus, bacteria or virus particle, I will use the word "pathogen" to refer to all types of microorganisms that might cause disease). When the seed is planted, the pathogen may be on the seed coat, between the seed coat and the ovary or in the ovary of the seed itself. However, the pathogen is associated with the seed, and when the seed is planted, the disease may become established in the planting if environmental conditions are appropriate.
Once established on the plant, seed borne diseases may be spread from plant to plant in many ways. For example, a disease may be introduced on seed, yet once the disease is established, the disease may spread by rain from plant to plant and from field to field. Once the disease is established, it is quite possible for the pathogen to over winter and become established in the field next year. For example, one might observe bacterial spot of peppers in one's field. This disease may be seed borne, however, there are also many other ways the disease could have gotten into your peppers.
It is difficult to determine whether the disease that one observes has gotten into your field by seed or some other way. However, there are some precautions that one can take to lessen the risk of harvesting contaminated seed and thus suffering the affects of the disease next year.
Avoiding seed borne disease problems
The most important rule for saving healthy seed is to avoid harvesting fruit from fields that have diseases that may be seed borne. Learn to recognize and diagnose diseases in your crops. Learn which ones may by seed borne. To be on the safe side do not harvest fruit from fields that have a disease that may be seed borne. If you feel it is necessary to harvest from a field with a low to moderate amount of disease, closely inspect fruit and plants for symptoms of disease before harvesting seed. Realize that it is difficult, if not impossible, to be certain that a plant does not have disease.
It might be useful to understand how diseases become seed borne. Although it is not always clear how pathogens get into seed, one could make two generalizations. Some diseases may become seed borne as a result of lesions that occur on the surface of the fruit. An example would be anthracnose of watermelon (see Table 1 and accompanying photos). When seed are harvested from a fruit such as shown in the photos, it is very difficult to avoid contaminating the seed with the billions of spores on the surface of the fruit. Other diseases become systemic in the plant, traveling in the plant's vascular tissue. An example would be Fusarium wilt of watermelon (see photo). Although the fruit may show no symptoms, the spores may travel into the seed through the vascular system. In either case, it is easy to miss the symptoms on the fruit or plant in which case the seed may become contaminated.
It may be a bit of an oversimplification, however, seed harvested from fruit with lesions often have pathogens of the causal agent on the surface of the seed. Therefore, the better job one can do of cleaning the harvested seed, the healthier the seed is likely to be. However, it is impossible to clean seed sufficiently to insure it is completely healthy. Those diseases caused by causal agents that are systemic in the plant often end up inside the seed. Thus, cleaning such seed would not eliminate the disease.
Seed treatments
Even though all precautions have been taken to avoid harvesting seed from fields with disease, some seed may still become infected. Seed treatments may include inorganic chemicals (e.g., salt solutions) coating the seed or disinfectants added to seed (e.g., bleach) or seed treatments (e.g., hot water) treatments. The difficulty in many seed treatments is in eliminating the pathogens without reducing the seed germination.
The space here is much too short to discuss seed treatments in any detail. However, let me offer some advice. It is possible to find many different "recipes" for treating seed. In your research, collect several recipes, ask others for their experience and decide on a few recipes to try out. When you start out, experiment on about 100 seeds for each recipe before treating the whole batch of seeds. After treating the seed, plant each treatment in a greenhouse or isolated field and note the percent germination compared to the untreated seed and watch for any symptoms of disease. Always keep safety in mind when using treatments such as hot water or bleach.
Transitioning from seed catalog browsing to seed saving may raise your productivity to new heights. Or the experience can cost your operation time and money. Start slow, read lots and ask plenty of questions. Hopefully, the experience will be both satisfying and profitable.
Useful publications
APS Diagnostic Compendia. These references discuss all aspects of plant diseases complete with color photographs. http://www.shopapspress.org/disease-diagnostic-series.html
Vegetable Diseases and their Control. A. Sherf and A. MacNab. Second edition. John Wiley and Sons. This is one of the bibles of vegetable diseases.
Bacterial spot, speck and canker of tomatoes. S. Miller, R. Rowe and R. Riedel, Ohio State University. http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/3000/3120.html This on-line publication gives some excellent 'recipes' for treating seed that are good examples of the treatments that are often used.
Melons for the passionate grower. A. Goldman. Artisan, New York. Although this book does not discuss diseases, it has a good discussion of the breeding aspects that have to be considered for cucurbits.
Reports from organic growers
Indiana report
Dale Rhoads - South Central Indiana
During the past month we have moved into mild fall-like conditions with late September high temperatures in the mid-80s to current high temperatures around mid-70s. Nighttime lows have dipped down as low as upper 30s, but are generally around 50 to 60 degrees. Along with this mild weather there has not been any rain. Consequently we have been watering regularly, but much lighter than in mid-summer.
With temperatures cooling we pulled all tomatoes out of the greenhouse several weeks ago as yield was dropping. That is now planted to salad greens with a harvest date around mid-November, depending on if we get some sunny days soon. Half of the greenhouse is still in basil. The outside basil still looks good, but not growing back much after cutting.
We are full in our fall salad green's peak. We have about 10 times the growing space planted all at once compared to what we would have in a typical summer week. We do this because re-growth rates slow as weather cools.
Kale and other leafy greens are growing, selling and tasting good. Cilantro is growing well for us again after summer and heat-related problems. We are considering trying kales, cilantro and other leafy greens under 40 percent shade cloths next year, along with using floating row covers on any crop cabbage that moths damage as our wasp and Bt control is just not adequate.
Last week we picked the last ripening of Asian pears. This is the first year we had a crop and averaged about $100 per tree on these young trees. We wholesaled most of the crop at $1.50/lb., but are building a clientele base that will pay $2/lb. The local food co-op sold them for $2.40/lb., selling 150 lbs./week.
Currently we are tightening up the greenhouses for fall/winter. We are beginning to till and winter rye the fields as they open up from crops. Also we are getting the hoops for the heavy row cover ready over the late field salad greens, kales and leafy greens. We just finished putting in tile in a field that we have not used for several years due to poor drainage.
Depending on the weather, in the next two weeks we will continue to harvest outside from mid to late November. We will continue to put fertilizer/chicken manure and plant rye on fields as they open up from crops. In a month we will be in the greenhouse doing much smaller quantities of salad greens until the ground freezes hard. Then the greenhouse goes into rye for a month to six weeks until we start the growing season for 2006 in early February.
David Swaim - West Central Indiana
Here in west central Indiana, growers are one-half to two-thirds finished with soybeans. Our skies have been heavily overcast the past couple of days and most of the standing fields have been too tough to cut. Yields vary from 30 to 65 bu./acre, probably averaging in low 50s; a pleasant surprise. Sudden Death Syndrome from fusarium fungus was a major concern. We are relieved that Asian soybean rust spores did not arrive with storms from the south this season. Although soybean aphids were found in increasing numbers, the populations did not reach treatment threshold on most farms. The results from using costly seed treatments seem mixed. Dealers have started promoting combined fungicide and insecticide sprays after flowering of soybeans, claiming up to six bushel benefits.
Seed corn harvest is in full swing and commercial corn harvest has begun on a few farms with moistures coming in below 16 percent. Yields are varying from 130 to more than 200 depending on soil type, planting date and rainfall pattern. Drought stress was much greater to the east, north and west of us. This year the fields with mid-season planting dates generally yielded best. Grain quality is poor in droughty fields due to increased fungal ear rot. I have heard reports of triple-stacked GMO hybrids showing poor standibility in test strips.
Alfalfa harvest is generally finished. September rains were adequate for bringing up August alfalfa seedings. Seeding of rye and ryegrass cover crops is in progress; ready for wheat planting.
Concerns over nutrient stratification in high silt soils in continuous no-till are surfacing again. There is some discussion of tilling in lime and fertilizer and seeding to bin-run wheat to return to no-till.
Livestock producers are trying to spread their manures over more acres to save on fertilizer as costs escalate. Demand for manure by neighbors to confined feeding operations is increasing. Some growers are asking how low they can cut anhydrous rates if they are using N-serve. Increasing nutrient and fuel costs are causing a rethinking of production strategies. The demand for concise but thorough explanations showing step-by-step how to convert to organic production should be increasing.
Gary Reding - Southeast Indiana
We are anxiously awaiting the harvest of our popcorn crop. It has had a tough year with the hot, dry July and most of August, followed by a soaking rain and then wind and rain. It is about 80 percent lodged, but still matured due to the fact that it was simply pushed over in the soft spring plowed ground. All of the fields were in grass for the past four seasons and therefore, were high in organic matter and tilth. With the soaking rain, the ground was soft and saturated when the next rain came with the wind. The stalks just tipped over to the east, roots and all, so they were not physically broken. The quality and ear weights are excellent still today, and if we can get it down to 17 percent moisture before the next rain, we could get the entire crop harvested.
Our soybeans are almost ready to harvest as well. One field is very clean and is estimated at 40 bu./acre. The other field has a lot of weed pressure and will not yield much over 15. They are both standing well and the quality of seeds is still excellent.
Our pastures are really growing rapidly and the cattle are gaining well at this time of year. We are still rotating quickly in the orchard grass and legume fields, and not at all in the fescue. We are stockpiling them for late fall/early winter grazing. We will also be grazing the stalks of the popcorn in some of those fields. After soybeans, we plan to plant some spelt or wheat. The wheat will be for cover only to be plowed down before planting popcorn next year.
In the next few weeks we intend to finish harvest and spread some of our leftover compost ahead of cover cropping. In the seed house, I am still cleaning some popcorn and we are receiving popcorn to store from the growers as well. If anyone is interested in growing popcorn next season, let me know. We need to double our production again next year to meet the demand. We grow a 112-day popcorn and a 105-day popcorn. These are variety specific to meet the needs of the buyer. You can contact me either by phone: 812-663-9546 or email, greding@direcway.com.
Again, this has been an interesting year on the conference call program and I am glad to have been a participant. It is always interesting to hear what other people are doing and see the various successes and challenges we face. Thank you to the organizers and the people that do all the behind-the-scenes activities to make it such a success.
Illinois
Dave Campbell - Northeastern Illinois
It still continues to be very dry. There is concern in my area about planting winter wheat due to lack of moisture. Buckwheat seed has reached maturity and is ready for harvest, but since there has been no frost this fall season, I need to hold off on combining buckwheat. The seed appears to be dry enough to harvest, although plants are still very green. No frost is forecasted for the next 10 days. It is very unusual to go this long without at least a light frost. The majority of beans have been harvested with only eight acres to go. We have been able to harvest despite no frost, due to this year's drought, which translates into very few weeds. What weeds we did have were cut by hand at a very low labor cost. My food grade soybeans are yielding in the 45-55 bushel range with gravel ridges yielding only 25 bu./acre and lower pockets yielding around 70 bu./acre. Yields have been quite variable due to this year's drought, although farmers in my area, including myself, have been very surprised to see soybean yields as good as they are, given extreme drought conditions throughout all of the growing season.
I plan to start drilling soft red winter wheat today and hope to finish by Monday, October 17. I am currently spreading gypsum (at a rate of 1,200 lbs./acre) on all ground going to wheat, as well as on hayfields. In the next two weeks activities will include combining buckwheat, sowing winter rye to my buckwheat field (which is the field that is dedicated to my Canada thistle research project), chisel-plowing the other buckwheat field as well as my oats/red clover fields (These fields will be planted to corn next year; red clover germinated well this past spring, but is very short due to the drought.), service combine and corn head in preparation for corn harvest. I am planning to sell some of my oats to make room for corn in my bin.
Jon Cherniss - East Central Illinois
Given that this is the last report for this year I thought I would say something positive about the weather and its impact on the crops this past month.or say nothing at all.
We are currently spreading compost and getting beds ready for fall garlic. Harvesting is still taking up most of our time. Winter squash harvest is almost complete. We are still harvesting most summer crops and most fall crops. This week's harvest list includes: field greens, arugula, basil, parsley, tatsoi, kale, broccoli, napa cabbage, regular cabbage, fennel, green onions, radishes, potatoes, winter squash, hot peppers, red and green peppers, tomatoes and eggplant. All outdoor planting ended last week. We are currently tearing out tomatoes in the greenhouses and planting spinach and kale. Next week we will plant garlic. Other than harvest, any extra time will be spent on general farm cleanup.
Dave Bishop - Central Illinois
Rain finally came-too late for the row crops, but a great help for the pasture. We baled the last cutting of alfalfa on October 1. It was pretty good and helped out the short supply, but we still plan to bale corn stalks for the brood cows this winter. The summer heat/drought took quite a toll on everything. Broilers that dressed out at almost seven pounds in nine weeks last year managed just over four pounds in the same length of time this year. Egg production nearly ceased during the hottest weeks, finally getting back to normal. Roughly, our 300 layers will consume about 500 pounds of feed a week on fresh pasture. When the pasture gets eaten down that jumps quickly to more than 650 pounds if we don't move then.
Currently we are harvesting corn and soybeans, planting wheat (on transitional ground) and garlic (this year elephant garlic and German white, a hardneck porcelain). After harvest, we'll begin applying composted manure with two tons/acre on row crops and 10 tons/acre on a four-acre area of high value crops. Since we don't follow the organic rules for composting-keeping temperature records, etc.-we apply in the fall and so fall under the raw manure rules. We'll also try to catch up on OG record keeping (always a struggle) and start moving the cows and poultry to winter quarters.
Our intensive grazing plan this year included stockpiling for winter grazing, but the summer drought modified the plan somewhat. Our layered grazing experiment for annual pasture completely failed in the drought. For our first trial we put out a mix of berseem clover, annual ryegrass, field peas and dwarf essex rape with an oats cover crop. Only the rape survived into July. Next year we hope to do another similar pasture trial rotating grazing with vegetable crops. The goal is to find the best mix for an annual pasture, provide a winter cover and be easily converted to vegetable crops the following year.
Stan Schutte - Southern Illinois
We have had some rains in late summer, so this will help the fall crops. I had to tear up some spring planted clover for cover crop because the dry weather killed out some areas. Plan B will be oats and alfalfa next spring. Regular field corn has dried at a record pace; this will be the earliest we've harvested. It's been so dry this year, our pond has about four feet of water in it.
We harvested our last conventional crop last week. The soybeans made about 45 bu./acre. We will start to transition this field in 2006 with spring red wheat. The only vegetables remaining are potatoes, peppers, watermelon and beets. Markets are easy to get ready for this time of year. We planted some oats and turnips two weeks ago, for feed for the cattle this fall. We have our last meat birds for the year on pasture; they will be butchered in a couple weeks. We butchered our first turkeys ever last week, looks like we will double production for next year. We plan to start on regular corn this week; I hope the yields are good. There is a shortage of organic feed corn this year, so prices are as high as ever. We will try to get our hard red winter and soft red winter wheat planted this week. Thanks for letting me be a part of this project.
Michigan
John Simmons - Southeast Michigan
Crops are generally mature and in various stages of harvest readiness. We are waiting for the corn to dry more. In our soybeans, we are waiting for the foxtail to dry more - the soybeans are plenty dry. Our sunflowers are nearly ready for harvest. Buckwheat will be ready for harvest later this week. The red clover seed will be ready for harvest when plants senesce and seed evens out.
Currently I am finishing planting spelt into plowed-down oat stubble/clover, rye into harvested crops and barley into oat/pea stubble. The pastures are still growing well. Clover fields harvested for seed earlier have re-grown 6 to 12 inches.
Matt Wiley - Southwest Michigan
We are waiting for a killing frost before harvesting beans. In the next two weeks we plan to combine beans.
