Irrigating

Unfortunately, we are back to making rainbows as we haven’t had any rain since September 7 and since then we have planted 200+ acres of ryegrass/wheat/clover mix. The fields we planted in mid September had enough moisture to germinate but now are drying out. Hopefully we get irrigation water to these fields before the grass dies and we have to replant in October. Some of the other fields we planted into drier soil near the end of September haven’t germinated so hopefully they will start growing when the rains come.

We can irrigate about 50 acres in a week by running the equipment 24x7, it costs us about $40 per acre in labor and fuel to irrigate which is better than replanting and not having grass to graze this winter.

Frustrating growing year.

• March & April – wet and cold
• June – no rain at all
• July – 7^th to mid August – lots of rain
• Sept 3 – 5.6” in 2 hours, flooding
• Sept 7^th – 1” rain

Now 5 weeks later and no rain in sight….

I know it could be worse and many farmers didn’t have enough rain to grow a crop this year…. So I will stop complaining.

Also seeing the benefits of building the organic matter in our soils the last 20 years. Adding 1% organic matter holds an additional 1” of rainfall. Most of our fields we have doubled the organic matter from 2% to 4% and we can see the effects during drought.

With climate change accelerating we will have to accelerate our efforts in dealing with crazy weather.