 Our field is in great shape. The plants still have that dark green
color. There are no weeds, or at least very few and I can't see them now.
It's a cloudy day and there's a chance for rain.
 This plant is in the V14 stage and the whorl or growing point is about 22
or 23 inches above the soil surface. You can see holes in various leaves.
The grasshoppers are still around.
 This gives us an idea of how many plants per acre we have. After hand
thinning plants earlier in the month, we ended up with about 19,000 plants
per acre. This is a little lower than I wanted, but we should be okay.
You're probably wondering how I came up with that number. Because we are in
30 inch row spacings, if I measure 17 feet, 4 inches of a row, I know that
area (30 inches x 17 feet, 4 inches) equals 1,000th of an
acre. So, by counting the number of plants in that area and
multiplying that number by 1,000 we'll have our plant
population. I made several counts across the field and then averaged the
counts.
 Do you remember when I mentioned that farmers don't like plants too close
together or doubles? Well, here's a double and you can see the plants are
smaller and a little more spindly. These plants will develop smaller
flower heads.
 This is something else farmers don't like to see . . . big skips between
plants. The plants will compensate for the big skip by producing
larger flower heads. But given the choice, farmers would prefer that plants
are evenly spaced and they have uniform head size.
 This is something farmers like to see. Ladybugs are beneficial
insects because they prey on damaging insects. Of course, by the time you
find ladybugs the other insects may have already caused their damage.
Sunflower fields are magnets for attracting insects! As you might expect not
all those insects are ones we like to see. |
Our field is in great shape. The plants still have that dark green
color. There are no weeds, or at least very few and I can't see them now.
It's a cloudy day and there's a chance for rain.
