The Cinderella Crop of the Prairies
Rapeseed. The crop with quite possibly the worst imaginable name to try and market as a health food source. A plant with undesirable components, such as erucic acid and glucosinolates,…
Harvest Still Feels Very Far Away
Fungicide season is over (mostly), insect populations seem to be on the decline, and our seeding equipment is cleaned up and put away. Our harvesting equipment is mostly ready to…
Summer Storms and Narrow Misses
By all accounts, there is a great looking crop out there. In some form or another, most farmers around here have said these words, with the makings of an excellent…
Why Do We Spray?
There was a time, not too long ago, that June and July were relatively quiet months on the farm. Once in-crop weed spraying was finished, work in the fields was…
Too Many Storms, Not Enough Time
It has been a summer of storms… and summer has barely started. I write this as yet another storms deluges us with rain, a raging downpour that changes our already…
The Farm Life is a Wonderful Life
If you have read my previous post (The Marathon Concludes… For Now), you know that seeding has been completed and we are well into in-crop spraying. This is a fascinating…
The Marathon Concludes… For Now
It was a long road. Sometimes exhilarating, often frustrating, and consistently exhausting, the 2013 planting season has finally drawn to a close. It is Thursday, June 13, and we “officially”…
Could’ve Been Worse
The rain event we needed came on Monday. The rain event we needed to avoid came on Thursday. Yes, the rain that was forecast reared its ugly head early Thursday…