Rust in Wheat

As reported in the last Farmland News, our tenant's wheat had a rust infestation. This is a fungus that can seriously affect both the yield and quality of the wheat. Our tenant had the wheat treated with Tilt, but the rust came back after it was too late to treat it again. The result was a yield of only 1.77 tons (59 bushels) per acre. This is the worst wheat yield our tenant has ever had, the previous worst being about 2.7 tons per acre. Fortunately, the quality was good enough to not incur any price penalties.

Cotton Off to a Late Start

This April's weather was very unfavorable for cotton planting. The air tempertures and soil tempertures delayed planting until the end of the month. Our tenant planted some of the new hybrid cotton developed by Hazera in Israel, but its cold weather germination was not vigorous enough to overcome the cold weather. In May our tenant planted the rest of the cotton land to Roundup Ready Sierra and Riata acala cotton and replanted the previously planted land to Roundup Ready Riata acala cotton. Consequently, all the cotton is late.

Cotton Irrigation Using Surge Flow Technology

Almost No Good News

We do have some good news to report, but not much. Due to our tenant's extensive (and expensive) use of organic fertilizer, he did not need to apply any more fertilizer to his cotton this past spring. "Organic fertilizer" is a polite way to describe chicken manure, an excellent source of nutrients for cotton. And due to the fact that our tenant doesn't have any Pima or Pima hybrid cotton, he isn't spending the extra money that a post-planting application of Temik systemic insecticide would cost. Furthermore, since all his cotton is Roundup Ready, he is saving a considerable sum of money on hand labor. This last item has become especially expensive in California because of the foolishness of the do-gooders in the state government. Despite these few bits of good news, the situation for our tenant's farming enterprise is extremely grim.

Robert Sturgeon
Publisher, Editor, Reporter, Ace Photographer, Newsroom Flunky, Webmaster
rsturge@inreach.com
http://www.vistech.net/users/rsturge

Have a comment? Send to rsturge@inreach.com

Back to the Sturgeon Farmland News Launcher

Back to my home place