Rain delays planting
Print- •
-
Share
- Share this item
-
Grab the link
Copy and paste the link:
- Blog about it
- Close
- •
-
Post a Comment
- •
Favorite- •
-
Report error
-
Thank you for your submission.Error report or correction
- Close
-
- •
The crop planting season is upon us, and although it is time to get some of our crops in the ground (except for cotton), the soil is once again too wet with Monday's rain.
Most areas received from 0.4 to 0.65 inch rain in Victoria County.
Soils were just beginning to get dry enough to plant within a few days and now, it is too wet once again.
At least one farmer, Clay Ohrt has fertilized and planted about 400 acres of corn on the northwest side of Victoria. The 0.4-inches rain he received after planting was just right and I'd imagine the corn will be up by this weekend.
Typically, we begin planting corn around Feb. 15 through Feb. 25, depending on the year and weather conditions, which dictate soil planting conditions in soil temperatures of 50 to 55 degrees at planting depth. Recommendations for sorghum and soybeans is 55- to 60-degree soil temperatures and 65 degrees for cotton.
Cotton is very sensitive to cool soils, so a relatively new way to look at the soil temperature has been devised to aid in good germination and growth.
It looks at the average of the daily minimum soil temperature at an 8-inch depth for the preceding 10 days, plus the five day weather forecast.
Although we only plant cotton at about 1-inch deep, the 8-inch soil is used to gauge soil temperature, because of its lack of temperature fluctuations. The five-day forecast is important to gauge whether a cold front or cold rain could impact germination and plant stand.
Besides it being too wet to plant any crop, it certainly is too cool to plant cotton and farmers are just dying to get their corn in the ground first.
The crop weather station located at http://cwp.tamu.edu has cotton planting program to assist you in deciding when to plant that cotton crop. As for now, it is definitely too early.
Spring Gardening Symposium
Fresh-cut flowers from your garden, plants that bring that "wow" factor to your landscape, growing grapes and reaping the benefits of them in jellies and wine will be the highlights of Saturday's "Spring Fever" Master Gardener Symposium. Held at the new Master Gardener Victoria Educational Gardens Pavilion, 283 Bachelor Drive, (across from the airport tower), the symposium will be from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and offers one hour of general TDA pesticide credit and three Master Gardener CEU's.
Registration at the door is $35 per person and includes a late-morning brunch. Attendees will have the opportunity to hear about, see and purchase many of these "wow" plants, brought in by Heidi Sheesley of TreeSearch Farms in Houston, that are typically hard to find.
Lunch and Learn Program
The Victoria County Master Gardeners will hold two training sessions this month of interest to gardeners and landscape enthusiasts. They will hold a training on "Butterflies and Bees: Their Role in Pollination," from noon to 1 p.m. Monday, at the Dr. Pattie Dodson Public Health Center, 2805 N. Navarro St., in Victoria.
Master Gardeners Frances Kanak and Brynn Lee will present the program.
On March 22, Victoria County Master Gardener Roy Cook will address "Propagation of Plants," highlighting the use of two- to three-liter plastic soda water bottles to propagate many common landscape plants.
He'll also show the newly learned technique used to graft tomatoes and other vegetables. This is beneficial, especially when grafting heirloom or disease-prone varieties onto disease-resistant rootstock.
Joe Janak is a Victoria County extension agent.
-
Print
- •
-
Share
- Share this item
-
Grab the link
Copy and paste the link:
- Blog about it
- Close
- •
-
Post a Comment
- •
- Favorite
- •
-
Report error
-
Thank you for your submission.Error report or correction
- Close
-
- •
