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The inverted springtime has brought many strange things. I have various versions of fungi/molds growing on the ground. Some fuzzy black, others a yellow/orange goo. Ideas on how to rid myself of this?
Yellow orange goo sounds like what mycologists call dog vomit. It is a slime mold fuligo septica. Most often found in wet years on mulch. There is no control that I know of. It’s harmless and won’t last long. Heat and dry take care of it.
Metsulfuron is generally bought under the cimarron label. Very good for broadleaf weeds in turf. We use pastora on Bermuda hay and it is metsulfuron with an additional chemical for better crabgrass control. Does have some burn, but works great for coastal. No clue on turf grasses.
Rthomas, have you done any tomato work with Frank Louws or anybody from his lab. Cary Rivard was spearheading some of his grafting work when he was getting his PhD some 8 or so years ago. Great folks both of them.
I was given a few Amelia seeds a few years ago from a friend at Clifton seed company. Decent tomato. I didn’t get any diseases on any of them that year, but a single sample size year is worth nothing. Viruses mutate fast so it’s just a matter of time any resistance will be worthless most likely.
The War Prayer
by Mark Twain
1904It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and sputtering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spreads of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country and invoked the God of Battles, beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpouring of fervid eloquence which moved every listener.
It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.
Sunday morning came – next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their faces alight with material dreams-visions of a stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! – then home from the war, bronzed heros, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation – “God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest, Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!”
Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was that an ever – merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory.
An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there, waiting.
With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal,”Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!”
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside – which the startled minister did – and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said
“I come from the Throne – bearing a message from Almighty God!” The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. “He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd and grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import – that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of – except he pause and think.
“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two – one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of His Who hearth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this – keep it in mind. If you beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
“You have heard your servant’s prayer – the uttered part of it. I am commissioned by God to put into words the other part of it – that part which the pastor, and also you in your hearts, fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory – must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle – be Thou near them! With them, in spirit, we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it – for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
(After a pause)
“Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits.”
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.
Bill, we are almost 100% strip till corn, cotton, and beans. No till on wheat except where it follows tobacco.
We have two 8 row planters with rippers strippers mounted up front. One for cotton, one for beans and corn.
Unless It? is before or after tobacco, a disk never touched the field. We have a 30′ field cultivator we drag around to get any ruts out in spots where it got too wet. The longer we use strip till the better it gets. And adding cover crop to the mix is even better. Soil structure improves annually, better fertility, and far less fuel burned tilling. But we could not do that without GMO herbicide tolerance.
Somebody find me a recently hired coach who went to a higher tier who was a loser at the previous level. I’ll wait.
Bill, we call the top one a breaking plow and the bottom a disk harrow about an hour east of Raleigh. We use them to break land and disk land.
I like msma for crabgrass. But If your neighbors don’t like Roundup, telling them that you are spraying arsenic may not be a good idea. You would be amazed how much of this stuff is used on hay off label. Never tried it myself, but I hear it can lead to some issues with planting livestock.
I’ve never seen an alkaline soil come back bill. Maybe from a deep hole?
Mac about 10 years ago Raleigh was so desperate to get rid of that stuff we got it delivered and dumped on the farm for free. We had it independently tested to make sure we weren’t agreeing to use something sketchy. If I remember right, it was a bit high in salts, but harmless every few years.
No arguments from me Bill. Nobody knows what they are doing with weather like this. Every year we have a few in the area competing to be the first to plant corn. Nuts to me, but I don’t have the cash flow they do. They can afford the losses we can’t. And most have an irrigation system they can turn on it the temperature drops to provide a little insurance against a mild freeze.
My idea is get the seed delivered the first of March. About the 15th start looking at the weather, make a judgement call based on the forecast, and hope for the best. Keep planting into April until you run out of land.
There are few careers as risky as agriculture. Take every dime you have, put it in the ground, hope conditions are favorable, all while your sales prices are dictated by weather in Brazil. The good years are good and you hope to keep going through the bad ones. Basically everyone has made enough the last ten to get them through the next 5. But lots of them spent it on big toys with green or red paint and are looking at trouble ahead. Especially the way the tobacco and sweet potato markets are looking.
False Spring? Or early yields?
Let you know in a few weeks…..
We won’t plant till mid to early March. The biggest benefit of planting early lately has been you beat the heat and drought. We can get the corn pollinated well before the hottest days of summer and have less risk of incomplete pollination.
Heck last year we had about 250 acres of early corn that was frosted on heavily 3 times when it was between 3&6 inches tall. Burned it to the ground but Never skipped a beat and averaged 170bu/acre. These modern hybrids are much more frost tolerant and deep planting means you need more than a frost to kill the plant since the growth point is still below ground. A deep heavy freeze is still a risk.
Soil temps in the Eastern part of the state hiding around 60. Freaky February. I know two big farmers planting corn in duplin and Wayne county next week.
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Earl Wernsman had it right when someone made mention of the demand for organic tobacco, “that’s for people that don’t want any nasty carcinogens in their nasty carcinogens.”
Damn funny.
McCallum
That’s my take too.
Bill, the deal with curing was mainly what was called tobacco specific nitrosamines (tsna) from mixing combustion byproducts with tobacco. In the 90s everybody had to retrofit their barns with enclosed burners and heat exchangers. It was mainly a liability defense measure for the tobacco companies. But it caused curing fuel costs to go way up so there was some backlash. But eventually everybody fell in line because they wanted a contract.
We now have our heat exchangers pressure tested annually and if leaking it is several grand to fix.
What is organic mh30. Is it still maleic hydrazide? I’D guess not. But if it works it works.
Heck, tobacco companies don’t even want conventional growers using it anymore. Though most still apply a small dose right around topping so it has plenty of time to dissipate, they would prefer you don’t. And they do test for mh residue on cured leaf.
As for me, we’ve sprayed 900 acres of burn down as of today getting ready to plant corn, beans, and cotton. Tobacco greenhouse is seeded and another few days and the burn down sizing will be done and we can start getting tobacco land ready.
Mr home garden has been sa do sadly neglected. But I’ll get the peppers and tomatoes in.
Organic is a marketing term. It is almost, but not quite meaningless outside of mood and group affiliation signaling
Having said that, there are things that elite practitioners in organic agriculture could teach conventional growers. Most conventional growers recognize this.
To my view your are much more likely to encounter a Ronald A Fisher in Williams hall. And he also had a dirty history with the tobacco companies as a paid expert denying a link between smoking and cancer.
I stock up on sodium all winter and sweaty it out in the tobacco field all summer. I think maggi is my preferred brand
Watching the game was there last fun I had.
The cotton crop blew away. Soybeans are rotting in the pod. Roof damaged on hog farm. I can’t count how many trees I’ve cut off fences. I’m glad we don’t do peanuts or sweet potatoes. They are rotting quick. I count 8 places within 5 miles of my house where the road completely washed out 10′ deep so getting parts to fix the problems is difficult.
I’ve still got 4″-6 water under my house. Thankfully it stayed below the door frames and didn’t come inside. But we have tons of work to do to fix the damage.
And I’m in good shape compared to our neighbors in Grantham and Mar Mac and seven springs. Small blessings. I had friends completely flooded out.
We will NEVER “build a wall around” NC, even if that were enough.
Maybe we can convince SC to pay for it. If we cut out the NC recruiting losses to the southern universities, maybe we can compete.
You guys are making me sad. First year in a long while where the garden is kinda weak and will remain so since I’m moving in early June. Got a few struggling beets, lettuce dying off, leeks coming on strong, and cilantro headed downhill.
Cowdog, you should hit me up. I’m moving back to the home of your Hatian Queen. I should have more sweet corn than you can shake a stick at by July 4.
