Outstanding In Their Field
Mother Nature has finally relented her chill. The asparagus is popping, and with warmer temps, the annual ritual of wild asparagus picking will be finding many with the spring delicacy on their plates when this paper arrives in their mailboxes.
Did you know the recent cold wave was probably a very good thing for farmers in the Midwest, at least the upper Midwest?
First, this spring planting season is almost a mirror image of last year. There is a common, but false, saying that lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice. We did not plant much of anything last year in April, and this year, we will not be making much progress until after the 5th of May as well.
I belong to a Facebook page called “Joliet West Class of 82,” and I am Facebook friends with many from high school. There have been many posts of classmates achieving the pinnacle of their career, retirement. As I complete my planting of my 42nd year of farming, I do not even contemplate retirement. Every year is a challenge, and I feel that I still have much to learn. Which brings me to Black Cutworms.
Black Cutworm is a serious pest that can eat and chew through young corn plants in the spring and kill the plants. As the weather warms, moths from earlier generations in the South migrate on fast-moving storm fronts from southern states and lay their eggs in fields around green plants or weeds.
When those eggs hatch, the larva stage of the insect chews corn plants off below the ground. Serious infestations of larvae can decimate a field of corn. I am hoping the recent colder weather with air currents from the northern plains have minimized the chances that this pest has been able to freeload into our area on storm fronts from southern locales.
Several senior farmers have also told me about a belief from years ago when most farmers raised oats for their horses (before the tractor did our fieldwork): Your oats will yield good if they get snowed on. I was glad to see snow flurries, sleet, hail and graupel in my field that was planted with oats.
The reality of the saying is probably only accurate to the point that oats are a cool-weather crop and need to be planted early if you want top yields before the heat of summer can burn the crop up and reduce yields.
Can lightning strike the same place, per se? Can farmers in Will County achieve the success of last year’s crop again?
Let me tell you, it is very pleasing to harvest tall-standing crops that yield well in a field absent of mud at harvest time. My year of farming in 2022 was about as satisfying as you could reasonably ask for. A repeat of last year would not be a disappointment. As editor Nick wrote last week, I feel very rich in life. I still enjoy my job, aced my recent colonoscopy, and tonight, I was able to celebrate my first anniversary of marriage, albeit the second time around.
I feel very fortunate and happy. Or perhaps it is only because my property tax bill has yet to appear in my mailbox. You be the judge.