What's this Guy Doing before Strawberries go in?

[digitS']

Like to take a guess?

Don't read any further, then.

Answer below.

Steve

He's fumigating the soil.

 

[so lucky]

Yuk! Or do you mean that the plastic film will naturally fumigate the soil?
Our big strawberry growers around here use black plastic to cover the soil, and poke the little plants through it into the soil. Man, some fresh strawberries off the vine would sure taste good right now!

 

[Ridgerunner]

That's what I thought they were doing there, getting ready to poke holes and plant, but it was not black plastic. My guess was wrong.

 

[majorcatfish]

since the driver is wearing a respirator my guess is that he is injecting a fumigation chemical probably <chloropicrin> to kill off the pathogens that infected the farmers soil.

 

[bobm]

This guy is fumigating the soil with methyl bromide to kill the bad soil nematodes that damage the strawberry plants' roots. The plastic is used to keep the fumigant in place. Later the farmer will use another machine to perforate the plastic and insert the strawberry plants into the soil. The commercial growers fumigate their fields with each new crop or there would be no strawberries to produce a crop due to nematode damage. After the Viet Nam war, near Fresno, Cal. , the immigrant Hmong people ( entire families work to produce cash crops ) that rented an acre or more to grow crops quickly learned to do this too as if they didn't fumigate, they had very few strawberries to sell the following year to the local grocers or their own roadside stands. If you plant strawberries in your own aback yard, you will get a very good crop the first year, then the yield will steadily decline in following years and you will need to change locations to a new area with new plants.

 

[digitS']

What prompted me to search out the image was this description and story:

"... a hulking metal tractor that looks like a Zamboni outfitted with a bunch of gigantic tattoo guns."

It reminded me of Bay's idea for NyBoy's self defense outfit ...

Steve

 

[majorcatfish]

if you look on the back of the tractor it has the companys name <trical inc>
http://www.trical.com/ they are based out of hollister ca salinas valley

if they were fumigating and preparing the soil for strawberries they would have been fumigating,hilling and laying irrigation lines at the same time. and not using a crawler track tractor
so being out of the salinas valley thats a garlic field that has come down with white rot...imho

lost 80% of my garlic to it this year....wonder if they service the home gardener on the east coast?

 

[digitS']

Actually, you may be right about the other equipment that would be on that machine, @majorcatfish .

I went back to the webpage where I found the picture. They don't seem to be talking about any crop but were testing the application of
1,3-D and chloropicrin because of the methyl bromide's phase-out. (Link)

The reason it came up in a Google search for strawberry soil fumigation was likely because of the references to strawberries at the bottom of the page.

It's hard to believe that they could have even more things going on with the operation of that machine!

Steve
good to have you around, Major

 

[baymule]

@majorcatfish !!!! So good to see you on here! You have been missed. Tried to send you a PM awhile back so it would send a message to your email. Catch us up on what's been going on with your garden!

 

[Smart Red]

Learn so much here! Love it!