Posted on 05/27/2011 5:16:22 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232
Yes, almost everything is irrigated. We water by two methods; pivot systems and polypipe, both are utilizing water from wells. The pivots are driven by diesel engine and the polypipe is tied to connector coming from a submersible pump.Here are some photos we've taken in the past couple of weeks. For some perspective, this particular pivot is 1/2 mile long.
I meant to ping you to #201 ... polypipe being used in the field.
I’m going to ask a dumb question that perhaps one of you could answer. Having grown up in CA in the great Central Valley California Irrigation District I am familiar with farming by irrigation. We had to study this stuff in school — even in the city — and my grandmother still had a “ranch” which she operated with an uncle where we would visit when I was a child.
All my life I have understood the philosophy of capturing rain water in reservoirs during the rainy season and releasing it during the dry season.
Why has the midwest and the south never adopted a program like this? When I watch the dreadful floods, and all that water going the wrong places, I want to see it captured and aimed toward those districts that really need it.
Since the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers seem to be the bad guys, why couldn’t there be dug a series of reservoirs the length of the river where the floods could be diverted and then released when the farmers were siuffering from drought? Is the elevation wrong? Is there some nosy Sierra Club group agitating for Wild Rivers (dumb idea, IMHO)? Do the folks in the Delta really need all that silt?
Considering how much money all those floods cost every year, I should think a program like that would be bought and paid for in 25-50 years.
Most of the Great Valleys of Calif are Deserts with the bulk of the moisture falling in the mountains mostly snow in the winter months. I remember a couple of floods in Fresno county when the snow melted too fast. I also remember the building of the dams on the San Joaquin and the Kings rivers for flood control and irrigation and many of the rivers north of Sacramento are damed with most of that water being hijacked for the cities to the south and the “Delta Smelt” and Salmon.
As far as the Corn Belt goes I always thought they got enough summer rain plus they have or had a mighty underground Aquifer to pump from but please don’t quote me on any of this as I haven’t had my first glass of wine...
Now that’s a big sand box! I can get a handle around the Polypipe but the pivots fascinate me and when we travel through real farm county I have been known to stop and stare at them. The cotton farmers use row siphons from a lateral ditch. My little sister and her husband flood irrigate their Thompson Seedless grapes from ditch water or a well south of FResno.
It Is Warming Up!
Meridian, Ms
Heat advisory in effect
At 5 PM...mostly clear. Temperature around 100. East winds around 8 mph.
At 6 PM...partly cloudy. Isolated showers and thunderstorms. Temperature around 96. East winds around 8 mph.
At 7 PM...partly cloudy. Isolated showers and thunderstorms. Temperature around 91. East winds around 6 mph.
At 8 PM...partly cloudy. Isolated showers and thunderstorms. Temperature around 87. East winds around 5 mph.
At 9 PM...partly cloudy. Isolated showers and thunderstorms. Temperature around 83. Light winds.
At 10 PM...partly cloudy. Isolated showers and thunderstorms. Temperature around 79. Light winds.
Do you fertilize through the pivot system?
How about I give you 25 degrees when we are at or over 100 and 20 when we are in the 90s.
Is there some kind of grommet or device inserted where the holes are punched in the polypipe?
Please sign in triplicate, have it notarized and send it to me by SledNext. Time is of the essence...
No fert through the pivot. Corn and cotton are fertilized by knifing liquid nitrogen (and sometimes amendments like zinc), into the beds right along side of the plants — this is done with a rig that attaches to a tractor. Corn is also fertilized at first with a starter solution that is put in the seed furrow by the planter. We also occasionally fly pelleted fert on corn with an airplane. There have been times when we applied foliar feed to the cotton with a spray rig.
I will require 10 of yours when we are below 40. Next sled is Monday.
Sure seems like a liquid fert and pesticides through the pivot would save on fuel, time and aerial spraying.
One of my short lived jobs as a teenager was flagging for a Crop duster applying something similar to DDT on cotton. I remember my dad applying DDT to his garden...
A Vegetarian's Nightmare or A Dissertation on Plants Rights
Lyrics to "A Dissertation on Plants Rights" (pdf. file)
Eat Beef for breakfast lunch and dinner.
You might want to post this on the new Weekly thread - Here -
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2729180/posts
Interesting. We had never seen polypipe ‘in action’ before...last year’s tater experiment is this year’s windbreak...keeping the breeze out of the sweet potato patch.
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