Midwest drought

[sparkles2307]

So apparently Minnesota is under moderate drought conditions. We've been learning how to water our garden but I've lost peas, beans, and squash because of not knowing how to water because MN is usually so wet. It seems that my eggplant and peppers are thriving right now though. My fish peppers were tiny on Monday after being like, 4 months old, and today they are 10 inches tall and just full of bushy leaves! It's so funny that while my tomatoes are afflicted with BER and my onions are even flagging that I think I'm about to have the best pepper harvest ever.

 

[seedcorn]

Here in NE INdiana I've never seen it this dry not even '83 or '88. Field corn did not pollinate

 

[Smiles Jr.]

Field corn did not pollinate

Yup, we're all set to cut 90 acres of corn tomorrow and 170 acres on Tuesday and Wednesday. The grinder-upper is a coop and won't be available until next Saturday. I don't think there are enough silos, cribs, or barns to hold all the silage this year. Beans are next. What a shame.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

not fun over here in the north east either. we had good berry crops so far into late June but the past couple of weeks i think are going to take their toll on the blackberries that will be ripening and just drying on the canes because of no rains.

i went out earlier to check my chickens and the air has been stagnant but you can feel the possible rain looming. i just hope it helps to drop the temps to something more enjoyable. it was starting to sprinkle but i don't think it will help anything in the ground unless we got a foot of it. (and then we'd have issues with floods)

 

[Carol Dee]

My heart goes out to all you farmers. It is a struggle to keep our gardenalive. As Sparkles noted a few things are not minding the rain shortage. But for the most part it is scary. We are under a burn ban. The .41 we got Friday was not much help with no rain again in the forcast in the near future. Praying for rain. (Relief)

 

[seedcorn]

Field corn did not pollinate

Yup, we're all set to cut 90 acres of corn tomorrow and 170 acres on Tuesday and Wednesday. The grinder-upper is a coop and won't be available until next Saturday. I don't think there are enough silos, cribs, or barns to hold all the silage this year. Beans are next. What a shame.

Unfortunately for this area, it doesn't take many silos or bunkers to get a lot of acres of 1' tall corn

 

[Smiles Jr.]

Unfortunately for this area, it doesn't take many silos or bunkers to get a lot of acres of 1' tall corn

Good point. Some of the corn here is about 6 ft. tall but, like you said, most is 2 to 3 ft. tall. The taller stalks are in valleys where the soil stayed a little more moist 8 weeks ago.

Isn't it amazing how nature works? When corn is in a dry condition the leaves curl to limit the amount of sun exposure. Then if no moisture gets to the roots after an extended period of time the leaves, while curled, stiffen out straight and raise up vertically to further limit the sun exposure. We call this "pineappling". I don't know about my spelling but all of our corn looks like tall pineapple plants. When the corn looks like this we pretty much know that the season is a disaster already and no amount of rain will make them recover.

Here's a link to some pix . . .Indiana Farm Bureau

 

[sparkles2307]

A lot of our corn in the area has reached the pineappling stage... the stuff next to any creek bed that held water longer is looking great, but thats a tiny percentage of the acres sown here. Our overacheiver neighbor planted extremely early and his corn looks good because it had passed the crucial stage before the soil got too dry.

It's 80 here but its clody and the breeze is actually cool! I think theres rain a'comin! But we only get 2 days break from the heat then back into the 90's. Almost every day has scattered t-storms in the forecast. Maybe enough little bursts will amount to something.

No one here is set up to irrigate because of the usual MN moisture-rich soil. And SO MANY farmers in the area ripped out their windbreaks last fall and this spring... they all regret it now like I predicted with the dry soil just blowing away. Morons are going to create another dustbowl for a few extra dollars.

 

[hiker125]

I too am from IN and was wondering if '88 was worse than this year. Scary to know that this year is WORSE. It was so hot in '88 that Lake Monroe felt like a bath. My garden is really struggling despite twice weekly waterings with the soaker hose. I am praying for all of you whose living is dependent on the weather.

 

[Smiles Jr.]

It rained today!
It rained today!
It rained today!
It rained today!
It rained today!

We had about an hour of good rain this afternoon. Now we need about ten more showers like that.
The chickens are outside walking around like "what happened?". Ewwwww what's this wet stuff?