Ride to the danger zone

Jack Frost reappeared last week as indicated by the Weather Eye, much to the chagrin of the scurs. Does he make an encore performance this week or does Jack Frost head north with Old Man Winter? Starting Thursday, mostly sunny with a slight chance of rain. Highs in the low 60's with some frost and lows in the mid-30's. Sunny Friday with highs in the low 60's and lows in the upper 30's. Sunny on Saturday with a slight chance of evening rain. Highs in the low 60's with lows in the upper 30's. Sunday, mostly sunny with a slight chance of evening rain. Highs in the mid-60's with lows in the mid-40's. Partly sunny Monday with highs in the mid-60's with lows in the mid-40's.

 

Tuesday, sunny becoming cloudy with highs in the upper 60's with lows in the upper 40's. Cloudy on Wednesday with a fair chance of rain. Highs in the upper 60's with lows in the upper 40's. On May 9th we'll see 14 hours and 30 minutes of daylight. The normal high for May 9th is 65 and the normal low is 45. The scurs will be rationing their goodie supply. It's a long time until Farm and City Days for anyone with a sweet tooth.

 

Planting is coming down the homestretch. This week should about do it and conditions could not be much more ideal to finish up. Scant precip in the forecast and more of the same expected for much of the month after seeing NOAA's latest 30-day outlook. We have run into a very seasonal temperature pattern thus far in May, looking as indicated by the normal high for May 9th above. Some of the corn planted around April 8th has emerged. Even though it seemed cold, it generated enough heat to get corn out of the ground. GDU's calculated back to April 8th indicate there would've been roughly 120 GDU's accumulated by April 22nd. A rule of thumb is that it takes roughly 90 – 120 GDU's for corn emergence. Not that this is a perfect predictor, but it's better than nothing and oddly enough, it is usually fairly close.

 

The range is there as sunny days can warm dark soils well above the air temperature, particularly at the 2" depth where much of the corn is planted. That's easy to see looking at the soil temperature data from the SROC on days with sunshine as indicated by the high solar radiation. The amount of time on a given day the soil temps are above 50 degrees also factors in. GDU's tailed off dramatically, accumulating only 76 from April 20th to the end of the month. The warm 1st weekend in May has helped, but GDU's total just over 100. It explains why very little of the corn planted from April 20th - 23rd has yet to be seen from the road. Not a good sign when heating degree days far exceed GDU's. The positive side of this is it's given operators ample time to get their pre-emerge weed control products applied to both corn and soybeans.

 

So far armyworm moth flights have been light. The pheromone traps we use to detect them attract male armyworm moths. The traps do not work on male humans. The traps aren't uniformly distributed across MN and there are no clear-cut thresholds based on trap captures. Predicting damage from armyworms larvae is like using a magnet to look for a needle in a haystack. Better than nothing but not great. Blacklight traps help to make the info more usable.

 

Armyworm invasions can easily go undetected before the damage reaches critical levels. With more rye cover crop in particular, it potentially gives them more places to hang out. When the grass moves underfoot, that's a clue.

 

Sometimes they're discovered too late. When all that's left of the corn are the stalks, that's also a clue.

 

Frost last week led to a cover up at the ranch. Even though the temperature fluctuations put plant growth on hold, there has still been enough warmth in between for progress to be made. The peonies dodged a bullet earlier as did the bleeding heart. Forecast temperatures last week reached the danger zone, so makeshift stakes were pounded into the ground to support the blankets and bedsheets without damaging the tender vegetation. It worked and temperatures didn't threaten them, one of the perks of living on top of a hill. It was tempting to remove the stakes, but a quick look ahead into the next week's forecast put a stop to that. Maybe next week. Here's a link to an address that gives some insight into where our frost-date probabilities lie throughout MN:

https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/climate/summaries and publications/freeze_date.html

 

New birds continue to arrive as we say goodbye to others. The juncos that were with us virtually the entire winter and early spring have suddenly vanished. More white-throated and Harris's sparrows have appeared, although we await the arrival of the white-crowned sparrows. Usually that trifecta visits the ranch before the orioles and hummingbirds settle in for the duration. House wrens and a red-headed woodpecker were noted on April 29th with a rose-breasted grosbeak and tree swallows active on May 3rd. Another given is about the time this column is submitted for print, orioles and/or hummingbirds will make their appearance.

 

Last week was Naughty Poppy Week. This sometimes happens after a week plus of dog days and suddenly Poppy's people time gets pinched. The first incident was an accident in the house that hadn't occurred for a long time. Ample opportunity was made for her to use the great outdoors when we were home, but she dawdled and chose not to. The second incident of the week involved chewing a hole through a blanket. Not sure what that was all about, but it comes in handy if you're snacking while watching TV. The last one was when she was let outside for evening potty before bedtime. She found something stinky to roll in out in the yard. Naturally, afterwards she jumped up on the bed, so I could enjoy her new perfume too. Like we tell her, it's a good thing she's cute. Otherwise she could be on a one-way ticket back to Missour.

 

See you next week...real good then.