Category: General

So the ever popular “cover crop” saga continues…

^{September 11: Seeded
September 24: First measurable rain 🙁
October 10: Normal way way too late planting date after harvest}

Every year we go to the seed store and they concoct something different. A few years ago I fed the in-laws “au gratin tillage turnips” for Thanksgiving (FYI not a big hit).

Radishes, Rye (always a bad idea) and last year was Wheat with Curly Vetch, whatever that was, interesting if nothing else and although it looked like nothing, Bambi was apparently thrilled all winter.

BUT it takes FOREVER for nothing to grow after the late date of corn harvest, then drilling it in right before cold inevitably hits.

SO in the interest of more money down a rat hole (thank goodness just play time on 10-15 acres to prove this is not a viable/profitable carbon sequestering strategy) we got out ye old check book (it’s a bad year for farming, why stop now?) and called up “The Drone Guy”

Turnips+Radishes+Curly Vetch ($30+/acre) applied by a drone ($20/acre) all to feed wildlife (yes having a go fund me page for the deer is making a lot more cents as the “dear” is a bit strapped for cash all this foolish test farming)

Good news: I am not the guy flying the $30 grand drone packing 100 pound jags of seed up and down the hills around all the trees in my test plot behind my house. Bad news the seed and his risk don’t come for free.

…and I apologize, my choice of “Fly” theme music is as questionable as the expense of cover crop. Both I fear have a failure to properly “cover up”…still bad decisions lead to bad decisions? I am a child of the 70’s like it or not…

Maybe grasping straws and a drowning market looking for anything that “floats” to grasp hold of but…

I did find this an interesting concept: Cheap money (Interest rates going down) and an overbought stock market might entice some index fund cash buying way too low a priced corn that starts punishing normal shorts to somehow turn cash around?

AgriTalk on Wednesday

Nothing else I have to bookmark that link above and revisit it maybe a month or two down the road to see if I screw up hanging a hat on it or screwed up forgetting what he said… (and a lot has changed in the days that followed it already)