I am about to give up farming

[DonH]

No, I wasn't -- I was being sarcastic.

Yes you were being facetious. That's what it means, saying something you don't mean to be taken literally or as what you really think. Sort of like sarcastic. I had to look it up to be sure.

Now Boboro might not be able to spell but be uses the words right!

 

[marksctm]

Man Larry that just breaks my heart to see your field like that.
I'v been gone a few days and just saw this post.

For the last week or so, I'v been reading every ones post's on rain, and been wondering about you, and not hearing much about how it's been effecting you, but I was afraid to ask.
My fears were confirmed.

Knowing this is your bread and butter, my heart truly goes out to ya man, and hope you can salvage a profit this year.

Seems all the big business (insurance companies) have all the loop holes, and we have to jump through all those hoops to no avail.
Rich or poor, till there's no middle class anymore.

Hopefully the weather will break in a good way this week, we've had rain every day for the last 3 weeks, and later this week their calling for 3 or 4 days or more with NO chance of rain, Lets hope.

Farmers are truly the heart beat of America.

Best to you Larry,

 

[workhorse_01]

I got a better idea....http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=J8HsPTmeOeU And that's something I can help with!!!!

I hear about farm subsidies but I never see them . I have applied for a couple just for the gov to say I don't get any . The rich get richer and the poor stay poor .

If you have bad luck with your crop or anything on the farm the bills keep coming . Property Taxes , insurance , break downs , fuel ,electric , they are still to be paid somehow .

I won't feel the pinch until the end of the year when payments are due .

I think starting this Friday night I will get my old lady and tell her to get her high heels and lipstick and go to town .
That's right there is a place up there we can have a yard sale .Made you think ?

 

[workhorse_01]

The zimmer Spanish is dark green, it was planted the same day, in the same patch , same level ground, and they were the same height as the others, They all are living but three and half of the others look yellow and are dieing, the other half are gone. Point is I think the Zimmer Spanish can handle the water better. Maybe they are a water resistant variety?

I've heard of drought resistant varieties, but I'm sure I've never heard of flood resistant varieties....but that doesn't mean there aren't any.

Maybe hillier ground drains better. Maybe the plants were further along and were able to tolerate the wet conditions better.

 

[BarG]

That sucks! The plants in the first pics looked to be real healthy prior to flooding and in the video a couple days later they went from bad to worse. Sorry about the weather there BigBonner but it looked like you had a great start before the floods.

 

[BigBonner]

BarG

That's right plants will look like normal but with the water soaked fields and then the sun pops out hot , that make things worse . Hot sun on fields like these will drop tobacco faster and makes it worse .

Workhorse

I have plants like that to . Its not more tolerant to water it is just places drain or is higher than other plants .

I don't know if it shows it or not but there will be plants unaffected like the drowned plants . A high row in the field from where the field was plowed and left a high strip through the field may be good and the rest drowned out .

Here is a picture and the better looking tobacco is on slightly higher soil . I have seen single plants like this .

 

[workhorse_01]

I've been and still am praying for a week of just overcast with no rain for you. Good heat and no water with overcast.

 

[Chicken]

damn, im hoping they will prop up. and be o.k.

just a lot of sunshine,

 

[springheal]

And I remember reading that tobacco in the early stage requires plenty of moisture yet your result BigBonner is heartbreaking.

On the positive, you should still get a smaller crop where the drainage/height is better. I feel for you mate.

 

[driftinmark]

are your plants coming back yet Bonner? We are hoping for the best for you!!!! good luck!

 

[BigBonner]

They are not coming back . Most are yellow and dead some has greened up a little but they will just bloom on out premature .

If that field had a head , I would go ahead and shoot it between the eyes and put it on out of its misery .

 

[skychaser]

Man, I feel for ya Larry. Mother nature can be a fickle bitch sometimes. I wish I could have taken some of that water off your hands. The rain we had in June is long gone now. Been between 80 and 100 degrees in the last two weeks with a lot of windy days and humidity in the teens. It sucks the water right out of the ground. We can lose up to 1/2 inch a day just to evaporation, especially when it's windy. I put a good 3 inches of water a week on my tobacco field and we have another 3-4 acres of grass we water too. I'm running 5-6 sprinklers 24 hours a day.

So of course on the hottest day of the year so far, our pump motor decides to burn out. We had to wait a week for a new one to get here from Texas. That well is a shallow artesian well that supplies all our house and yard water and does about 1/4 of our irrigation. We can pull about 12 gal per minute from it but will pump it down if we try to run 24/7 on it. Most of our irrigation water comes from a deep well on my sisters place next door. We have a 34 gal per minute pump on it and our two places are connected by a 1 1/4" line. We can pull 200 gal a minute from that well if we wanted to put in a pump big enough to do it. In the last week we have noticed a drop in the pumps output. It is only putting out around 25 gal at 35 PSI now. It's been down that hole for 17 years now and god only knows how many millions of gallons of water it has pumped up. She uses it to water 5 acres of hay too. I think it is about time for a rebuild or replacement. We are just hoping it keeps going for the rest of the season. Can't afford to have it go down for any length of time or I'll be hauling water up from the creek in buckets to water our crops.

 

[Fisherman]

Get a trash pump like what we use to bail out old boats and run it to the creek. Harbor freight has some gas powered ones pretty cheap. And some of the old black pipe hose.
We have a week of rain chance and maybe I can get 2nd planting done. Heat was scorching anything I put out this last week.
Looks like a lil dry weather for east coast with the thing over Texas and Oklahoma.

 

[BigBonner]

Skychaser

You may make more money bottling that water and selling it . That seems to be a big seller now days .

That wind will suck the water right out of the ground especially when its a drought it will suck the moisture out of the plants to . If the ground is wet and you have half grown tobacco it stands more of a chance of blowing down .
In a wet year tobacco will not weigh as good per acre of dry weather tobacco .
We can't control the weather and things like this happen sometimes . It is just something we all have to live with it or leave it .

 

[skychaser]

Get a trash pump like what we use to bail out old boats and run it to the creek. Harbor freight has some gas powered ones pretty cheap. And some of the old black pipe hose.
We have a week of rain chance and maybe I can get 2nd planting done. Heat was scorching anything I put out this last week.
Looks like a lil dry weather for east coast with the thing over Texas and Oklahoma.

I have 2 creeks running through my property. One is pretty big but I have no water rights to it. The other smaller one comes from springs on my property and puts out about 150 gal per minute. I do have water rights to that creek that say I can pump up to 12 acre feet per year. I want to build a small damn on it and put in a centrifugal pump that can do 50-75 gal per minute. Then I can run 15-20 big impulse sprinklers and water a couple acres all at once. I just got back from my 3 times a day ritual of moving sprinklers. I must walk a couple miles a day back a forth moving them all. It gets old.

Skychaser

You may make more money bottling that water and selling it . That seems to be a big seller now days .

That wind will suck the water right out of the ground especially when its a drought it will suck the moisture out of the plants to . If the ground is wet and you have half grown tobacco it stands more of a chance of blowing down .
In a wet year tobacco will not weigh as good per acre of dry weather tobacco .
We can't control the weather and things like this happen sometimes . It is just something we all have to live with it or leave it .

We have thought about bottling our spring water and selling it. All we need is a good yuppie sounding name and a good marketing strategy. lol

Well, that pump motor just I replaced works great. But 2 days after putting it in, the shaft seal on the pump decided to blow out. Water was blowing everywhere in the pump house. Had to pull the whole thing out again, take it all apart and put in a new seal. Another day lost, but at least I caught it before it shorted out the new motor.

Deer got into one part of our field and ate 1/3 of our cucumbers and 1/3 of our cantaloupes and some of our squash. They have NEVER bothered those before. Probably just one deer who got a taste for them, but that's all it takes. All that effort lost in one or two nights. The other 2/3rds of the melons and cucs are inside our deer fenced area, only because we had extra space there this year, or they would be a total loss.

I've done a lot of things in my life to earn a buck and none of them have been easy jobs. Some days I'm out in the field doing this or that for 12-14 hours a day. It can get to be a real grind. Then weeks like this last one come along and you start to wonder why you bother to try. But like you said you live with it or leave it. But I could never leave it. I doubt you could either. This little piece of the Earth is part of me. Or I am part of it. Or both. I dunno. But I do know that even on the worst of days, I get more joy and peace and satisfaction from this little farm than I could ever get doing anything else. There is something magical about planting a tiny seed and seeing it grow. And in the sunset at the end of a long hard day, and in the light of a new dawn. Nope. I'll never leave. When my days run out I'll be planted up the road next to my family and neighbors who have come and gone before me. I find a lot of peace in that too.

Sky

 

[jojjas]

I have been reading this thread for some time now , and have to say that i know what you going thru .
I have been there and done that , i was a farmer once and nothing have change , not only fight against banks and bureaucrats some years weather gods are against you and that goes for all farmers around the world , in usa , europe africa and so on
I am whish you all the best and hope you can cope whit the problems and solve them

 

[FALaholic]

I think he was bein fecesus.

Shirley you're joking, why couldn't he just be Frank about it?

 

[BigBonner]

Well last nights wind storm has put another kink into my farming .
I don't know who it is not living right but someone sure isn't .
A lot of my corn blew down last night and I would say it will be impossible to pick .

 

[workhorse_01]

Dadgum man, You need a break! If I live through Tuesday I'll try and send you some.

 

[BigBonner]

Workhorse I will be thinking about you on Tuesday . Hope everything works out ok for you .


BarG If its corn for the hogs you need come and get it , pick what you want for free . I will watch

Good thing I didn't make a corn maze .