Is it raining with you?

Another week of real summer weather and the scurs will try to coax the Weather Eye to cool it a tad. Will they be successful or does Mother Nature have other ideas? Starting Thursday, mostly sunny with a slight chance of evening rain. Highs in the low 80's with lows in the low 70's. Mostly sunny Friday with a slight chance of a forenoon rain shower. Highs in the upper 70's with lows in the low 60's. Partly sunny on Saturday with highs in the mid-80's and lows in the mid-60's. Sunday, sunny with highs in the upper 80's and lows in the upper 60's. Sunny on Monday with highs in the low 90's and lows in the mid-60's. Tuesday, partly sunny with highs in the upper 80's and lows in the mid-60's. Partly sunny on Wednesday with highs in the upper 80's and lows in the mid-60's. On July 15th we see our loss in daylight increase to just over one minute and thirty seconds. The normal high for July 15th is 82 and the normal low is 62. The scurs will be noshing on their favorite onion rings at the Waseca Co. Fair.

 

Last week's rainfall was impressive across most of the area with some receiving 5" or more between several rainfall events. Some of the rain came extremely hard, so runoff and ponding were evident in areas, particularly in soybean fields. It didn't look like the corn even blinked. It remained as deep dark green as it was prior to the rain, and as of Monday, a few tassels were starting to appear here and there. Several more fields have the flag leaf emerged, so it will be a matter of a few days before we see wholesale tasseling, about as predicted a few weeks back. Had we not cooled down in June, we likely would've seen more tassels by now. A lot of the corn seems a little short and that's a good thing. Less leverage for a windstorm to flatten it. The drier early growing season should translate into a deeper root system and a more well anchored plant than we've seen in several years. It also should help to recover much of the mineralized nitrogen moving down in soil profile after these heavier rains. And the rains keep coming for most.

 

Speaking of nitrate, it is one of the catalysts for iron deficiency chlorosis in soybeans. In areas where soils contain high levels of free calcium carbonate, soybeans take it up and must exchange a nitrate ion with a bicarbonate ion.

 

Also, nitrate taken up into the plant must be converted to ammonium within the leaves, which increases pH in leaf sap and decreases the rate of reduction of Fe IlI to Fe II, which is necessary for leaf cells to have usable Fe, hence the yellowing. It disappears rapidly, however, once rainfall moves the concentrated nitrate out of the soybean root zone. There are some fields that bear watching, however. Areas of some fields can remain yellow and soybean cyst nematode has been found in recent years locally. Most of it has been cyst nematode resistant to the 88788 source of resistance, but there is always a chance we could see resistance to the Peking source. We've used it long enough that it is likely a matter of time.

 

It looks like the apple crop at the ranch will be another dandy. Both the Haralson and Honeycrisp are loaded once again. That should translate into good pie and good eating apples this fall, barring an unforeseen catastrophe. The Snow Sweet and the pear trees are a little disappointing, however. It's entirely possible that they might've been nipped by a frost back in May when they were flowering. There is some fruit on them, but it tends to be in areas where the trees were more sheltered and under the tree canopy itself where the temperature might've stayed a little warmer. Not surprising after covering and uncovering the peonies and bleeding heart as many times as we did this past spring.

 

As in past years, the ranch has once again been populated by large numbers of tiny toads. Right now they're a little larger than pencil erasers. When the road ditch stayed dry as it had for much of the spring, I really doubted we'd see very many of the small amphibians. I mowed it at will, not worried about getting stuck as I generally do. Usually when the culvert under the driveway remains full and the ditch stays wet, those are the years we see more of them.

 

Apparently the June rains were more to their liking. I could still mow the ditch through most of the month, even though we received 5.2" of rain in June. There was still a bottom then. There are some larger toads scattered around as well. One has set up shop in the barn where there is an ample supply of flies. It looks like it's tapped into it. The toad is so fat it's almost round. It's amazing it can even move.

 

Poppy has her duties fairly well defined as of late. It seems the turkeys have discovered the birdfeeders and must be making it one of their favorite stops. Poppy was settled in for a long nap recently after gazing out the sliding glass window. Suddenly I heard a deep, guttural growl emanating from the Corgi as she sprang to attention. The growling and whining intensified until 1 looked to see what was causing the commotion. Sure enough, there were two adult turkeys and four poults cleaning up under the birdfeeder. Once the door was opened, it didn't take her long to scramble down the stairs and scare them off. They all flew and cleared the fence, clucking and registering their displeasure. There's no getting by the Corgi alarm system.

 

See you next week...real good then.