Mother Nature is tricky

The scurs and Weather Eye underachieved in both the temperature and precipitation department. Will Old Man Winter take his foot off our throats or are we in for more in the near term? Starting Thursday, mostly sunny with highs in the mid-to-upper teens and lows around 5 above. Partly sunny on Friday with highs in the mid-20’s and lows in the upper teens. Mostly cloudy Saturday with highs in the upper 20’s and lows around 10 above. Sunday, partly sunny with a slight chance of snow showers. Highs in the mid-20’s with lows in the upper teens. Sunny on Monday with highs in the mid-30’s and lows in the low teens. Tuesday, mostly sunny with highs in the low 30’s and lows in the mid-teens. Mostly sunny on Wednesday with highs in the upper 20’s and lows around 10 above. We continue adding daylight daily at over two minutes per day. The normal high for January 25th is 22 and the normal low is 4 above. The scurs are wondering how we’ve already managed to burn up a good chunk of January so quickly, not to mention a pile of firewood as of late.

That is a good question. Aside from a few cold snaps, it’s been relatively smooth sailing. Precipitation continues to be minimal and road conditions have been good, despite a few frosty mornings and the like. The warm up promised in the forecast should help put minds at ease as we head into February. Not seeing the LP man frequently hasn’t hurt most people’s feelings. Anything to help keep a few more dollars in one's pocket as grocery and gas prices continue to be high. Some have wondered just where the frost depth is presently. The last reading on January 16th from the SROC in Waseca indicated the frost depth there to be 20”. Knowing we’ve had substantially colder days and nights since, one could guess it’s even deeper now. Some are wondering about the overwintering insect populations with the lack of snow cover. It takes some pretty substantial cold to make much of a dent in them unfortunately and factors other than cold temperatures also affect the overall population and economic injury potential.

For instance, western corn rootworm eggs begin suffering mortality at around 20 degrees soil temperature. However, it takes soil temperatures down to zero for 100% mortality. Mother Nature is tricky that way as the eggs are not all laid in the top 2” where the coldest soil temperatures will occur. And, as we discovered last summer, saturated soils were a major factor in thinning the herd so to speak when we started looking at rootworm beetle trap captures. Yes, winter soil temps are important, but they certainly don’t tell the whole story. Likewise with soybean aphids. -29 air temperature will cause mortality of soybean aphid eggs attached to buckthorn buds bracts. It’s probably done that in places in northern MN. However, if the lower limbs of buckthorn containing soybean aphid eggs become buried in the snow, it becomes much more difficult for the temperature to reach -29. Couple that with the remarkable reproductive capabilities of the soybean aphid and it becomes easy to see why they remain a formidable pest in soybeans.

We see a lot of the same dynamics come into play at the ranch. For instance, last week I mentioned I saw the maggots wriggling in the manure pack as I was loading it into the spreader. This recent spate of subzero cold should take care of them, right? The ones I saw before running them through the spreader, no doubt about it. The ones I couldn’t get to because it’s froze too hard outside? Probably not. Other garden insect pests such as squash vine borer operate based on the same principle. Unless all the vines are removed and the ground turned over, odds are there could be some that survive to infest the upcoming year’s vine crops. And, something I neglected to mention, many of these pests can fly as adults. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that even if you do everything to control the pests on your own turf, they can come from someone else just down the road or in some cases many miles away. As Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say, it’s always something.

Even as cold as it's been recently, it pales in comparison to some winters locally and for sure to those when I lived in North Dakota. My last residence there was only six miles from the Canadian border, so you can about imagine how cold it got. The difference in latitude makes all the difference between locations. At any given time, temps here can easily be 10 - 20 degrees warmer than it is there. The winters between Rolla and Rock Lake could be brutal at times. Where I lived was nearly equidistant from the two towns. My mailbox was 3 miles from my house as mail was only delivered on main roads, not on gravel roads. There were no cell phones or satellite TV, so one was left to their own devices. TV was interesting with only one US station available from Devil's Lake and several from Canada. Canadian TV schedules were predicated around hockey games in the winter. When a hockey game was on, programs would end abruptly, so you watched hockey. And you liked it.

Poppy fared decently through the cold spell, although one could see the limitations of those small feet that start to show up sometimes. Lifting a paw on the way into the house after chores provided a clue that perhaps it was time for a Corgi to get back inside to her warm floor heat. There has become a buildup of little Poppy grenades littering the yard due to the lack of snow. She’s become very good about not wasting time that way recently, giving some signals when she needs to go out, getting her business done and coming back in quickly. Even though the days have been cold, the sliding glass door has remained thawed, so it makes it easy for her squirrel chasing. There have been many “dog days” recently where one or both of us are around, so there’s greater opportunity for that form of exercise. It really does help keep Poppy in good condition. Even the squirrels look like they’re in better shape.

See you next week…real good then.