Row Crop Field Day!

Last Tuesday, we held a row crop field day at our farm. It was a very popular event because we had over 50 people attend!

Everyone met at our farm around 9AM. There were local farmers/extension agents/seed and chemical salesmen and others associated with the ag industry in attendance.

Everyone piled in the back of pickup trucks and went on a crop tour!

They talked about weeds in our cotton patch....

Corn in our corn patch...

And white mold in our peanut patch. (I thought there had to be rain for things to mold!)

But I think what most people came for was lunch! We had Mackie Sides, who works for Bayer Crop Science, cook steak sandwiches for everyone. They were so good. He has cooked for us before, and if he would work for free, I'd hire him to be my personal chef.

We pulled out our best trailer, and tada! Instant picnic.

After lunch, our County Extension Agent, Dan Porch, demonstrated how to put out a new type of fire ant killer around our chicken house. He used a spreader behind his four wheeler to apply it. We're supposed to only have to use it every six months, so hopefully it will cut down on our fire ant problem!

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It's getting closer to harvest time, so I thought I'd share some crop photos!

Here is some of the cotton around our house. The bolls have begun to pop open because it has been so dry. I think our house has some kind of vortex around it because it seems to rain everywhere else but here. When cotton is about 50% open that means it's time to defoliate (spray a chemical on the cotton to make it shed its leaves). This will probably be the first cotton we defoliate since it is popping open so early. The rest of the fields aren't this bad.

I'm very proud of myself for actually making it to the soybean field this year. There aren't any soybeans near our house, so I tend to neglect them. I should have kept neglecting them because right after I took this picture, my camera completely stopped working. That's really starting to affect my blogging!

I had to take this photo of the peanuts with Lance's camera, which will have to do until I fix mine or get a new one. We finally got our first rain in about three weeks yesterday, so our peanuts have perked up quite a bit!

Speaking of peanuts...if any of you locals would like to buy any peanuts, we are now taking pre-orders! They will be ready in about 2-3 weeks. We are selling a 20-25lb. bag for $20. We planted 2 acres, that are good for parching and boiling, just for selling to the public. Let me know!