August Newsletter

But... we just got started...

Another succession of lettuce getting started

I took the time to start the August newsletter on July 29 and took solace in the fact that we actually have two MORE days of July before we officially turn the calendar.  After all, it just doesn't seem like we should be in August already.  So many things haven't really gotten going like we're used to by now.  We still have more things we want to plant (we'd better hurry up!) and the clock on Tammy's farm availability is starting to tick (but do NOT tell her that - be kind!).

This July finally found our fields drying up after a much wetter than average June (9 inches, which is well beyond the 7.8" upper range for normal variability).  Thus far, we are running fairly close to an average amount of rainfall for July, with it getting progressively drier as the month goes on.  As a result, we have been fighting to catch up on the cultivating and weeding that just couldn't happen in June.  The month also closed out with some beautiful weather.   This helped us to keep plugging along and about the only complaint we have about it is that we kept working until we were very, VERY tired.  But, that's ok, because most of that work was productive - even as we wish we could have gotten even more done.


The other big focus in July was trying to deal with the specter of agri-chemical misapplication - both real and possible.  We realize there is still a heavy week of spray likely coming up, so it isn't over yet.  In fact, a helicopter was flying a field a half mile to our northeast Sunday evening.

We keep bringing this up because it is part of the reality that we live on the farm during this time of year.  It's on our minds enough that even the sound of the walk-in cooler's A/C unit kicking in will elicit visions of helicopters, airplanes and spray vehicles when we hear it.  Frankly, it's a good time for headphones and music.

The other characteristic of July for us is that we begin having trouble figuring out how many days have passed since certain things have happened.  The "wasn't that just last week/yesterday/this morning?" comment came up at least three times today alone.  Alas, it is all a blur!  Some people look at their phones to see what time it is.  Rob looks at it to figure out what day of the week/date/month it is.  Who cares about what time it is?  You can figure that out from the position of the sun!

Summer Fest at the Genuine Faux Farm is Coming

Our annual Summer Festival at the farm is scheduled for Saturday, August 18 this year.  We would like to invite all friends of the farm, family and friends of the farmers to attend this event.   The event will be preceded with a Tom Sawyer Day for those who might like to volunteer some time on the farm either prepping for the festival or helping do a little weeding or other farm work so things look beautiful when everyone else arrives.. If you would be so kind as to RSVP that you plan to attend, it would help us immensely with our preparations. 
 

While we hope for good weather, we will gather regardless of the weather.  This year’s festival will feature a GFF turkey or two (prepared by Tammy), good food, family-friendly fun, the annual Farm Foto Treasure Hunt, farm tours and other activities.  Additional food is potluck style, so think about what you would like to share!

We hope this event gives everyone a chance to celebrate the closing of Summer with us at the farm. Bring your family, kids and friends (but please leave pets, tobacco and alcohol at home). Our farm has open space for kids of all ages to run around, chase balls, meet the poultry, and share in the fun. We encourage you to bring lawn-games, blankets and chairs, table service would be helpful.  Leave the electronic devices in the car.

If you have suggestions for entertainment at our festival, please contact us.

Picture of the Month
Tammy thinks this may be one of our better farm pictures and I tend to agree, though I like another picture about as well (and we'll share it later).

Genuine Faux Farm at Western Homes in Cedar Falls
We are working with the chefs at the Western Homes Jorgensen Plaza for Well-Being in Cedar Falls to begin providing them with produce and poultry grown and raised on our farm.  As things develop, we hope some of our product will begin appearing regularly on the menus at the Gilmore Pub, Caraway Cafe and Table 1912.  We are also hopeful that some of the catered events at the Diamond Event Center.  

At present, the restaurants and center are just getting going (each of the restaurants are open and the center is holding events and taking bookings for events).  We encourage you to visit and patronize these locations.  Feel free to encourage them to use local produce when you visit. 

While we are playing 2018 "by ear" with respect to growing for Western Homes, we are hoping to establish some patterns that we can improve on for future years.   For example, our lettuce trials in 2018 will help us identify lettuce varieties that fit the needs of the various restaurants and the catering services.  Lettuce is one of the crops we can easily scale up to provide more product than we currently do.  Positive results in this endeavor can help us to continue to serve the community with local sales by helping to provide us with a solid financial base from which to work.


Weather Wythards
July was anything but average EXCEPT that the aggregate numbers will come out to be.. well.. average.  We have found this site gives very useful summaries of weather for the Waterloo area.  We adjust slightly for our area since we are a fair bit North of Waterloo.  Without further ado, we give you the weather summary from the Genuine Faux Farm:

July's Report
High Temp: 93
 Low Temp:50
Heat Index: 119
Highest wind gust: 29 out of West
 Rain: 3.06"
 Humidity Range:46%-99%
Barometer Range: 29.51-30.35

Year Through June
High Temp: 97
Low Temp: -20
Lowest Windchill: -34
Highest Heat Index: 119
Highest Wind gust: 46 mph
Rainfall: 21.74"
Barometer Range: 29.39 to 30.89


Looking Forward
There is a great deal to look forward to in August.  The first tomatoes start to roll in and the melons grace us with their presence.  At present, the melon crop is looking quite good and the tomatoes are looking passably good.  The latter got a slow start, but they are progressing in a way that seems positive to us.  We have our Summer Festival on the 18th and we also anticipate the arrival of our farm friends on the 12th for a work and food day at our farm.  We look for this August to be an affirmation of all that we work for at our farm and we hope you will join us in doing so.
 For those who might like to volunteer, we are willing to host volunteers in early August for work projects of varying kinds.  And, if you are reading carefully, you'll see that we also like to have some volunteers to help us with the Summer Festival.  We hear from several people every year that they have interest - so if you are one of those, now is the time to contact us and follow through!

We get to see some nice fireworks from our own home on August 3 with the Tripoli Days festivities going on.  Neither of us is fond of the noise, so this is a nice compromise for us.  Sometimes, we have considered going to the Irish Festival in Waterloo and the Bremer County Fair.  They all intersect this year, so we'll probably just stay home and read a book!  Anyone see that coming?

Rob, the katydid whisperer

The school year is also approaching, which means you will see less of Tammy at the CSA distributions and more of Rob.  We know that is a terrible disappointment for all of the Tammy fans out there.  But, please, give Rob a chance.  He spends so much time talking to vegetables, cats and poultry during the Summer months that he needs to practice his 'human' language now.

And, speaking of looking forward, we are already looking forward to 2019's growing season.  Tammy and Rob sat down for their own "Nota Conference" to discuss which way we needed/wanted to go with the farm in the future.  Working with Western Homes is one part of the equation and we anticipate other changes as well.  We continue to adapt to the changing landscape in ways that we think we can serve our customers best while working with the environment and keeping ourselves sane and healthy.  We anticipate that we will share more as this season progresses and the next approaches.

CSA Slots Open for the Fall
We have spots in our CSA open for those who would like to join us for the late Summer and Fall months.  We will gladly pro-rate our CSA share price for anyone wishing to join us for each delivery week or for alternating delivery weeks.  Do you know someone who is moving into the area that might like our program?  Point them our way, we anticipate that we could serve as many as 20 more customers.  Refer someone who joins us and make sure they tell us that you did so and we'll give you (and them) a nice new Chico Bag for picking up your produce!

Song of the Month
It Is What It Is - by Adam Again.   Probably one of the best bands that most people have never heard of.  Enjoy!

Veggie Variety of the Month
We've started harvesting the Boothby's Blonde cucumbers and they are looking good!  These small, white/yellow cucumbers have black spines and a very thin, tender skin.  They have a great taste and are well worth the effort of growing.

Pollinator Paradise in Crisis

Tammy and I have been growing at the Genuine Faux Farm since 2004.  Prior to that, we did our fair share of gardening.  We'd like to think that we have some idea what attracts pollinators.  We'd also like to believe that we know when pollinator numbers are lower than they should be.

Folks.  The numbers are low and they are declining on our farm.  We suspect this is also true throughout the state of Iowa and probably most of the world today. 

We have not seen this type of black honey bee on the farm before.

 While it is true that we do continue to observe many interesting creatures on our 15 acres of "Pollinator Paradise" (or so we like to call it), we have been alarmed that we can work so hard to provide habitat and NOT see certain flowers swarming with all sorts of pollinating insects.

Note the honeybee on the flowers.

For example, we planted several Swamp Milkweed, courtesy of K&K Gardens in Hawkeye, Iowa.  Monarchs should like them, as should milkweed bugs.  While we have had some monarchs on the common milkweed on the farm, we've only seen a couple of honeybees on these new plants - even though the plants seem to be doing well and blooming nicely. 







At present, the oregano is in full bloom.  Oregano and many other flowering herbs are known to attract bees of all sorts and coneflowers are often listed as a good pollinator attracting plant.  Everything you read (and our own experience) tells us that diverse blooms over a long period of time should provide plenty of habitat to keep the pollinators healthy and happy.  And yet, there wasn't much of a buzz going on with the flowers I found in this picture.

The wind was light.  It was mostly sunny with some clouds to keep things from being too hot.  The temperatures were reasonable and I took this picture during a time of the day when past experience has shown me that pollinators would really be out an about.

I stood still for a while and waited to see if I was just not being patient enough.  Yes.  There were some pollinators in the patch.  Perhaps it is just a small patch?  Maybe not big enough to elicit a response?

You decide.  Is this patch big enough?
  

Not seen in the picture are the clover mixed in with the Queen Anne's Lace, the Rudbekia to the left and phlox further back and to the left.  And, that's just what is flowering now.  It's a good area for pollinators.  We've seen more activity in this area in the past.  So, something is going on here.

A native bee in the zinnia.

 The zinnias are just getting going and we know by experience that they are also very good at attracting a range of pollinators from bees to bumblebees to butterflies. 

It's not like we don't grow enough of them to make a difference (see one of our rows at the right).  We are particularly disturbed by the relatively low numbers of bumblebees this year.  We are pretty friendly to bumblers since we allow active nests to remain in a couple of our outbuildings.  Frankly, we are so worried about their decline that we wouldn't think of evicting them. 

Perhaps we will see an explosion of activity in August.  In fact, August is usually the busiest month on our farm for bumblebees and other native bees.  But, we still feel there is a problem here.

If you are not sold that there is a problem, consider this:
Zucchini and other squash are pollinated by Squash Bees (a native bee) and other bees (who are less efficient at pollinating than squash bees).  A squash flower needs to be visited 6 to 10 times by Squash Bees in the early morning to set fruit properly (more visits by other pollinators).  Our zucchini and summer squash production have gone down per row foot over the years as we have seen more instances of fruit that were not fully pollinated.  These fruit tend to not fill out properly or will yellow and rot off.  We have seen much more evidence of insufficient pollination the past three to five years in our summer squashes.

We will grant you that weather conditions can prevent visits by pollinators, so it is not unusual to have a period of time every season where there are more cull fruit due to poor pollination.  But, there is a difference between seasonal variability and trends across multiple seasons. 

We have been convinced that there is a problem that needs addressing.  One of our responses on our farm has been to increase the pollinator habitat and maintain it as best as we can.  Even with all of this effort, we fear we are losing the battle. 

What are the observations on other fronts?  We would love to hear from you.

LilyPalooza 2018

 It is time for the annual LilyPalooza at the farm for 2018!  While the iris bloom was disappointing this year, the day lilies have picked up the slack and are giving us quite a showing.  It's interesting to note that certain day lilies are having a great year and others that had a great year in prior seasons are less happy.   Regardless, we're very happy with the diverse set of blooms we get to experience on our farm.

Some blooms have subtle coloring

While others are bold.

This is one of our largest blooms, much larger than our hand.

Some, like this one, stand out more when many flowers are open at once.  Though we won't say no to a single like this one.

But, the Oriental Lilies really prefer to show off all at once!

We've got some day lilies that have nicely ruffled petals.  They tend to bloom one to three at a time on a single plant.

We've added a couple over the years, that go all out at once.

 

This one may be the most stunning day lily this year.  I don't recall it blooming for us before.  Or maybe the light was just right?

Rocket City is having a great year and is one of our favorites.

It's actually unusual to find a coral pink day lily.  It had a great year last year and is a little off this year.

We like the idea of this one for a "mass planting" to show off from a distance.

And this one actually sparkles when the sun hits it just right.

Last year, this plant went insane with flowers.  This year, it wants us to know that it still cares, but it needs a break.  Overdid it a bit?

Thin petals?

Broad petals?

 

How about just some pink petals?

It's easy to overlook the coloring change at the throat of many day lilies.  Most seem to go to a yellow.

Speaking of yellow, it's hard to not like the traditional Hyperion.

What? More Orientals crashing the party?  Who said they could be here?

We hoped you enjoyed your virtual LilyPalooza tour of 2018.  For prior LilyPalooza postings, you can view our 2017 LilyPalooza and the 2015 Feast for the Eyes.  You might also enjoy this end of July Flower Tour in 2013.

Weed 'em and Reap

July is very much weeding season at the Genuine Faux Farm.  We certainly cultivate and weed in other months, but July always sees us pulling out the most volume of vegetative matter for our compost piles.  Some people might suggest that we should do better at staying on top of the weeds than we do and we would certainly agree.  However, if fields are too wet to work, then fields are too wet to work.  The net result is usually more weeds than you would usually like to see.  And, with a June that saw twice the normal rainfall on a schedule that rarely gave us time to cultivate, we were going to pay in July. 

A row of red cabbage (and napa cabbage on the far end), weeded and cultivated!

Typically, when we go out to do weed removal, we take one of our hayracks/carts out with various tools including wheel hoes, hand hoes, rakes and, of course, something to play a little music.  Rosie the tractor often makes an appearance with one of the cultivating implements and Barty (the BCS walk-behind) may come out to play as well.  The selection of tool depends on everything from the condition of the soil, size of the weeds, type of crop, available workers and inclination of the farmers.  Hand pulling always makes an appearance on the farm every July, despite our intentions to reduce that need.  All you have to do is look at the bed to the left of the cabbage.  There are supposed to be onions in there.  Ups.

There are always challenges in farming that have to do with the weather.  It's simply part of the job to deal with it.  But, sometimes you just look at things and ask if you even had a chance in the first place.  The fields above have melons and squash in them.  We had a small window in June to cultivate and we took it, using the Williams Tool Bar with squash knives to hit each bed as best as we could.  It was a hot, sunny day, which is usually a good time to cultivate as the weeds will die more quickly.  Sounds good, right?

Well, a thunderstorm popped up and dropped a whole lotta rain just after cultivation.  Yes, we knew there was a chance it would rain.  But, it rained buckets close enough to the point of cultivation that it just packed a bit too many of the weeds back on in so they could live.  This wasn't an issue for the between row weeds because the tines on the cultivator was able to work them all the way out of the soil.  But, the weeds in row?  Ya.  That's where hand-weeding comes in, I guess.

Even so, we continue to plug along and make progress.  Three of the six fields in the East are largely "under control" and the North and Southwest fields also fit the "under control" description.  Essentially, we'll get there.  Or we won't.  And, if we don't, we just mow it before weeds go to seed and tell ourselves there is always next year.  But, instead of letting that bother us, we go and look at some of these:

Yeah.  We feel better now.  And, we're looking forward to harvesting more from the fields we weed.

The Conehead that (Almost) Came to Dinner

One of the benefits of working on the farm is that we do get to observe all sorts of interesting things in the natural world.  Lately, we've seen lots of frog and toad activity.  There are some Garter snakes that we see once in a while and we will sometimes see fox snakes.  These are all critters we welcome on the farm in part because they do find some of the pests that cause us problems to be tasty.  Even if that were not the case, none of these animals do any harm to us or our crops, so we are happy to see them add to the diversity of what is around us as we work outside.

Our most recent encounter was with a katydid.  But, to be more accurate, we think this was a katydid that is called the Slightly Musical Conehead. 

Rob was harvesting lettuce and brought the tub in for soaking and he found this critter sitting on top as he unloaded the tub from the cart.  I do not suppose most of our CSA members would have enjoyed having it pop out at them when they went to put some nice lettuce on a sandwich.  It could also be disturbing to see it cleaning salad dressing off of its antennae while it is perched on a slice of cucumber sitting on your plate.

When we envision a katydid, this is actually usually what Tammy and I think of, though there are around 200 different types of katydids in North America.  It actually turns out that the call of the Oblong-winged Katydid is the sound the two of us associate with katydids.  We have plenty of audible evidence that that sort of katydid also inhabits our farm in some numbers.  In fact, we have heard several others on our farm as well.  If you are interested, you can go here to learn more about their calls.

After initially trying to get away from Rob, it calmed down and decided to put itself into a "I am a leaf or blade of grass" position.  It was actually pretty convincing.  When it came time to put it down, it didn't want to leave.  But, we eventually convinced it that there wouldn't be much for it to eat if it rode around on the tractor.

Tammy and I have to admit that we've always thought of katydids as a predator insect.  In fact, many tropical katydids are predators.  The coneheads in Iowa, however, are at best an omnivore, preferring to eat leaves and grasses.  They will eat aphids and they will eat dead insects - so we could just call them opportunistic.  On the other hand, they are not known to cause any sort of significant crop damage and they would prefer the grasses in the ditch to most anything we would grow. 

In the end, we'll accept any bonus aphid predation the coneheads and katydids can provide.  Even it isn't much, we still welcome them as another sign of ecological diversity on our farm.  Now, if we could get some praying mantids to thrive on our farm.  That would be something.

Shorts

The number of people who have actually seen Rob wearing shorts, especially since he became a farmer and stopped playing volleyball, is a fairly small number.  But, the title of this blog post has nothing to do with wearing shorts.  Instead, it has to do with the fact that we have not put anything on our blog for a while and we need to put some thoughts out there.  So - we'll do a bunch of 'shorts' in one post!  How inspired!  Ok.  It's a cop out.  The farmer just doesn't want to commit to one topic.  That's just the way it's gonna be.

Why the gap in blog posts?
There is really a fairly simple way to determine why there have been relatively few posts as of late.  Look at the weather and ask yourself if there has been a chance for Rob to sit down at a computer.  There was one such opportunity over the last couple of weeks, but it was spent on other important tasks.  Maybe there was a second?  Essentially, during Summer months, Rob tries to write posts ahead of time and schedule their release.  Once those posts run out...

Energy Vampire
The recent drift incident on the farm (see a couple of prior posts) encouraged us to do our best to get people activated to pay attention to chemical applications around them.  The problem with this is that it assumes we have 'extra' energy to spend on this task beyond what is needed to do all of the farm work.  We wish we could do more on this AND we wish we had more energy to get everything done on the farm.  As it is, we just do what we are able and hope it is good enough.

Here is what we have shared on Facebook and on our CSA emails this week:
Support your farmers during NEVER AGAIN Week on the farm. July 27, 2012. July 29, 2017. June 27, 2018. These were all confirmed chemical misapplication situations on our farm alone. Agri-chemicals are tools that need to be treated with more respect and caution than they seem to be given currently. Drift and missed targets threaten our health, our workers' health and your health.
Be prepared to call the Pesticide Bureau if you witness chemical misapplication on the road as you drive, on bike paths as you ride, near schools, rivers or by your home. Make the problem known by taking time to act.
Pesticide Bureau
515-281-8591
pesticides@iowaAgriculture.gov

Compost Builders
The picture you see above is actually 'old news.'  Sadly, we've fallen down on the picture taking job.  Interesting enough, the last pictures I have on the computer came from our documentation of ... take a guess... the drift problem we had on the farm. 

Nonetheless, you can see Mount Evermess, one of our compost piles, towards the back of this picture.  Our compost piles have been VERY happy of late as we have been pulling a significant amount of weed matter out of our fields and placing it into our compost piles.  In fact, we started a new pile in the northeast today.  We're looking for a new name for this pile - so suggest away.

Just so you know, we have Mount Evermess and Mount Brushmore.  We had one we dubbed Mount Rain Here, but it started raining and didn't stop.  So, we got rid of that one.

Lilypalooza 2018
The daylilies are putting on a show at the farm right now and we hope to get some pictures to share so we can make our annual Lilypalooza posting.  We've been thoroughly enjoying these flowers, though we wish we had the time to weed some of the perennial beds so they looked better.

That actually leads us to:

Tom Sawyer Week 2018
In the past, we would host "Tom Sawyer Days" to try and give people an opportunity to volunteer at the farm.  Over time, that idea seems to have faded with many people moving on in some fashion or another.  We are still quite willing to host volunteers who would like to help out at the farm and the time is ripe for it.  We have lots of weeding to do, but there are other projects as well.  So, if you would like to help us make one of our daylily beds look absolutely spiffy, let us know!

Trapped
One of the themes of our lives on the farm right now is that we are in the middle of pesticide/fungicide spray season for all of our soybean/corn growing neighbors.  That means many of our thoughts go to that topic - thus we can't escape it when we write.  I was tempted to apologize until I realized that people need to hear how much the threat of a misapplication can change my attitude and the day to day choices we make on the farm.

For example, we will not leave our farm unattended during this stretch of time.  In the interest of food safety, we have to keep an eye on applications of chemicals within a mile of our farm (sometimes further out on windy days).  This may well be a topic worthy of its own post someday.  But, think of it this way:

How many of you leave your house on a daily basis and think nothing about it?  What if you had a single neighbor who was infatuated with the color lavender and how it looks on stone bird baths?  What if they had a penchant for painting any stone bird bath lavender... whether they owned it or not?  You LOVE that bird bath, but you DO NOT want it to be lavender, so you re-consider that trip to the grocery store.  Or maybe one of you stays home to keep an eye on that lovely bird bath while the rest of the family goes to a movie.

Now, consider that we have multiple neighbors that like the color lavender....

Alas, now you see why I haven't been writing blog posts - I stooped to using bird baths and the color lavender.  What next?  I suppose I could tell you that I dreamed I was weeding the zinnias.  Or was I really weeding the zinnias?  Tune in next post and find out!

What We Ignore

You do this, I do this, we ALL do this.  Or should I say, we DON'T do this.  In general, we do NOT read labels.

Ok, we may be exceptions to the rule because we've put ourselves in a position where reading labels has a bit more consequence than it might have been if our lives had gone another direction.  But, here we are, reading herbicide labels yet again.  No, we have not decided to use herbicides on our farm - but that would have been the RIGHT reason for us to spend time reading an herbicide label.  That would have meant that we were researching a tool that we thought we might use on our farm.

These chemicals are poisons and are potentially dangerous if not managed correctly.

Warnings on the Atristar/Battlestar herbicide

Shown above is one of the chemicals that were recently used on a field near our farm.  It was applied with other chemicals on a day when the wind was strong and coming our direction.  You can read about those details here.

I will grant you that most every household is likely to have containers with warning labels that show at least as strong a warning as this label does.  I will ALSO grant you that there are numerous things that occur in nature that are every bit as (and more) dangerous than this particular herbicide.  But, in turn, you must grant me the good grace to admit that we do not want to see anyone coated with this product.  Fair enough?  That gives us a place to start.

Environmental Hazards from the Battlestar label

One responsibility that comes with using a tool is to use it in a way that it does its job without collateral damage.  Many agricultural chemicals are known to cause problems if they enter the water system.  If you don't think this matters to you, consider this: 20% of Iowa's drinking water comes from surface water.  While much of the rest comes from various aquifers, they too can be impacted by chemical run-off.  If it is not enough for you that allowing run-off harms other living (but non-human) beings, then maybe knowing it can get into our drinking water would be enough to encourage a person to be careful with the application of this item.  If it truly has to be all about you, then you are impacted if you like to boat, fish, swim and/or hike around Iowa's rivers and lakes.  But, it really should be enough to know that someone or something could be hurt to make you want to manage use of this chemical carefully.  I refuse to believe that many people willfully want to hurt others - though I know some people of that sort do exist.

Supposedly, it is against federal law to apply chemicals, such as Battlestar, in ways that go against the label requirements (see the first sentence under Directions for Use).  But, a law is nothing if there is no enforcement.  And, enforcement doesn't happen if people don't stand up and report when there are problems.  Frankly, I would rather not need to use enforcement because I'd like all applicators to take their job seriously and use these tools cautiously and well.  But, our experience tells us this isn't happening.

The other thing that everyone should notice is the 24 hour "do not enter" period for workers/humans.  This is called the Restricted Entry Interval (REI) on agricultural chemical labels.  If the chemical goes 'off-target' that increases the "Do Not Enter" zone to the drift area.  Applicators should be aware of who may be in the drift zone and they need to

1. Cease application if they witness people in the spray zone
2. Inform anyone who might enter the spray zone that they need to stay out and give them information about the chemicals used.

If it is hard to figure out whether or not there is a problem we want people to think of the "Loved Small Child Test."  If you are certain that little one you care for so much could be harmed if they are standing in a neighboring field, then all is well.  If you aren't so sure, don't risk it. 

The label says what should be common sense.  If the spray might go where it shouldn't, don't spray.  What else can I say about this?

Once again, the label is fairly clear.  Please note that the reference to wind speed in this is non-directional.  In other words, you just do NOT apply when the wind reaches these levels.  Prior to this, the labels indicate that if the wind is going in the DIRECTION of something that is sensitive, you should not spray.  But, once we get to 15 mph, you should NOT spray, period.  Why is this, do you think?  Could it be the chemical producers are aware that some of the chemical could go a LONG way in winds 15 mph and higher?  Now it may not be about the neighbor - it's the neighbors next to those neighbors (and so on).

There is more to this puzzle than just the current crops in the ground.  Chemicals that are applied can impact future crops.  After all, Battlestar IS an herbicide.  It's purpose is to kill or prevent the germination of anything except the cash crop currently in the field.

So, what happens when the chemical goes where it isn't supposed to be?  Take a look at the numbers at the right.  These are the number of months before you plant a new crop of certain types.

We lost our peas to a chemical application that included this chemical.  What options do we have to try to make something out of that space this year?  It looks like dry bean and snap bean are our choices.  Too late for potato (and they won't work in our rotation in that spot).  But, since the application occurred on June 29, we actually have to consider what we will plant next Spring.  It is possible there will be enough carryover residue that some seedings will have trouble germinating.

The labels include all sorts of nitty gritty, but not always details that will help if a crop that the produce was never intended for is drifted on.  In this case, we can see that Battlestar could potentially be used in snap and dry beans.  Apparently, this can be applied as pre-planting/pre-emergent or after the beans reach a certain size.  The beans could display some damage that they should 'grow out of' according to the label.


But, you still have to consider the set back periods for every crop.  Snap beans can not be harvested until 30 days after application and dry beans are 45 days.  These numbers are extremely important to people such as ourselves when drift occurs.  They are also one of the reasons drift can be painful.

If my snap beans are only 15 days away from harvest and there is chemical drift from Battlestar on them, that means that 15 days of what should be the production period of my plants are now not safe to eat.  I cannot harvest these and sell them.  Sure, I could sell them and pretend I didn't know.  But, if anyone gets sick, their insurance company will come to us for the money.  First, I don't want to make anyone ill.  Second, our farm certainly couldn't afford the results of illness due to sharing chemically fouled produce.

So, what do we do for 15 days of bean harvest?  Well, if we hope to harvest AFTER those 15 days, we have to keep the plants picked during those 15 days so they are encouraged to produce more beans.  And, of course, we would destroy the beans by composting.  We can't feed them to the chickens or other animals (note the additional information that you shouldn't let livestock forage on the plants).

Is that worth it?  Or should we plant new beans?  From a labor perspective, that's probably what we should do.  But, what do you do if you were counting on those beans in two weeks?


Why Did We Do This Post?
We believe part of the problem is that others do not understand exactly WHY chemical drift is a problem for us.  First and foremost, it is a FOOD SAFETY ISSUE.

Some might say, "hey, the leaves on your cucumbers had spots on them, but they look fine otherwise."  The implication is that we are over-reacting and that we should just continue as if nothing happened.  That's all fine until someone gets ill, I suppose.  But, you tell me, should we ignore it and give everyone cucumbers?

How would that be any more responsible than ignoring the label and spraying when drift is likely?

Second, and at least as important is that it is a PERSONAL SAFETY ISSUE.
These chemicals were not created with the intent that workers meander around in the fog of the spray without protective equipment on .  That should be doubly true for the family living on the edge of town in Janesville next to a soybean field.

Third, it is an ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE.
That environment includes any surrounding crops, such as our peas and cucumbers.  It includes the waterways and natural areas (such as they are in this state).  It includes your garden and that beautiful "Love Lies Bleeding" plant that looked so good until...

While I still believe that we over-use chemicals in this world, I do tend to agree that the bigger issue is that we use them nonchalantly.  We didn't see anyone get violently ill immediately during/after the point of spray, so it must all be ok?

Let's get this fixed.  It is time.  Read these posts.  Do some learning.  Act on what is learned.