I am now approaching the 3rd month with no rain at my house and orchard. The cracks in the ground have reached up to 3 inches wide and 2 feet deep. This will be the third year where I have had 3-5 month droughts with zero rain.
This is an old reference but "Calgon, take me away".
Central Texas Rain Dance "feel free to vent"
Remember nature allows plants to go dormant in bad weather and wait for the season, gonna be long hot and dry again this year. I saw the fires burning across Texas, Colorado, be prepared, lots of those will sweep the plains too, am wishing us a GOOD hurricane season, all rains no blows, chuckle..
Problem is I have 300-400 fruit trees and if they go dormant, you lose an entire fruiting year.
I am watering them as best I can but the ground cracks snap the roots or dry them out.
Guh!
Hey guys we got 1.35" of rain here last night not nearly enough but sure did feel good and everything seemed so clean this morning ,The forecast calls for another front on Thursday
I don't know how much rain we got here, but the clinic I work at got hit by tornado in last nights storms :( **No one was hurt**
Our 50% chance of rain evaporated without leaving even a drop of rain. We are now at the highest drought level designation — Exceptional. Our pastures are not as bad as our neighbors mainly because last year, we seeded every open area we had. We had more grass come up than our neighbors did when we had an inch of rain in January. Nothing since. Last half of 2010 was also dry. I will have start feeding my girls hay soon if we don't get some rain soon. Another added expense. I sold half my Angus herd. That was hard to do. I fully expect the IRS to declare the ranch a hobby. I could have bought a lot of hay with the money we recently sent them so they can "redistribute" it.
Sorry, but I figured as long as I was ranting about the lack of rain, I thought I would slide in a little rant against the IRS. LOL
I decided to give minimum neccessary water to my trees that will not fruit this year and focus on my Jujube crop. They will be getting extra water tomorrow and this weekend. I pump from my ponds and they are drying up but I just gotta hope that May and June are going to bully their way in here with some rain. Even less than average would be better than this.
I am getting back to my optimistic self after the cruel trick that front pulled on us this morning.
Dry here in east TX too. Cracks in the ground but not as wide as Jujubes'.
We have been under an extended burn ban and still people strike a match.
Getting serious. How can we rainwater harvest when there is no rainwater...
Jujube is your orchard considered a business?
I can't believe cattle prices are staying up with no prospect of hay this summer.
With every promised "front", we get such hard winds that it actually takes
more moisture out of the ground. The pond is down by 2.5 feet and will not
recover without a good toad strangler.
C'mon rain!
Yes the orchard is a business. It is only 2.5 years old so this was to be the first harvest year.
Bummer.
I suspect that I am being tested by nature to be sure I am worthy. HA!
The water hookup it only 25 feet from my orchard but it costs 3500.00 for a connection. My wife says I can get one if the orchard makes money but it cant make money if I dont have water. I dug out two more ponds this winter that should be able to provide all the water I need in the future. I will be fine once we get a good rain or two or three. Please make it three!
I bought the land for the price of a car and have been buying trees every time I get spare change. This is a really low budget operation. I am the only worker and that is only after my full time job. I have been learning how to run an orchard as I go along. I thought it would be really easy. Just plant a tree and water it. I was so wrong.
Herds of wild boar trying to eat the little trees, plagues of millions of grasshoppers eating entire trees "bark and all", drought, flood, fire, super invasive weeds, drunk kids on the land, drunk adults "worse", Mountain Lion, packs of Pitbulls eating my chickens "grasshopper control", fireblight, Cucumber beatles, rats eating the irrigation hoses and more.
Out of everything, drought and grasshoppers are the most damaging. I used Nolo this year which is a bacteria on an organic feed. It only effects grasshoppers and when they die, the other grasshoppers eat the dead ones and it spreads. I am hoping to get my numbers below 100,000 hoppers this year. Last year, when I mowed a field, the ground was a solid yellow moving mass. Seriously! Millions on millions.
I hate grasshoppers. They eat more grass than our cows do. It hurts when they fly into you and if they should land on you, they bite.
Nolo is very expensive and only works on the really young nymphs. From what I have read there are at least a dozen species of grasshoppers in our area. I had been under the impression that a number of generations were born each year. Our local Agrilife agent said each new wave of nymphs represents a different species. They appear to have fruit tree preferences. Grasshoppers around here first attack citrus trees eating the leaves. twigs and the bark and cambium of older growth killing the trees. They will do the same to apple trees. They will eat the fruit off members of the prunus family, make some holes in the leaves, but in general they leave the tree alone. Must be the glycosides that turn into hydrogen cyanide.
Ju, you need a serious way to mulch bare earth, one that doesn't drag in the critters munching on everything, wish u luck... and better rains
I am a mulching fool. Thank god I have clay or it would have been over long ago.
I was thinking tax write off, but you gotta make money to need that. Have you possibly checked into the cost of 'crop insurance'?
It is too early. I will maybe look into crop insurance.5 years into it.
By the way, Nolo grasshopper treatment is a long term treatment. Although it doesnt effect adults, it can contaminate a large population. You will get diminished infestation the first year but the second and third year really look better. It can be spread to the egg sack of the young so the next year they are already infected when born. Right now I see about 15 babies jump for every step I take. I already put about 12 pounds out a week ago and plan to retreat in another 2 weeks. As these babies die, they will be eaten by adolescents which should also die. They will be eaten by adults which will be infected and not breed at all or breed and pass on the nasties.
At least that is what I hope will happen. I just hope they dont get a taste for human flesh. AHHHHHH!
I ran into a huge snake yesterday. It raised up like a cobra when I walked up on it. It stared me down for a bit and then took off at about 20 miles per hour. The speed freaked me out cause I cant move that fast and I am an ex-runner.
What did the snake look like? We have Yellow Bellied Black Water Snakes around here that can really move and they are aggressive.
The problem I see with treating one's property is that grasshoppers from neighboring pastures or fields will move in to fill the vacuum. I was told by our local Agrilife agent that everyone has to treat their property or it will be fairly useless. The best treatment is for everyone to till their land down to 3" in September. This desiccates and kills the eggs. What rancher in his right mind is going to turn over all his pastures?
Lee, You need to keep those grasshoppers in San Marcos. I've been all through our pastures and haven't spotted any grasshoppers yet. They normally show up in March. I'm wondering if the eggs froze this winter.
Birth control for grasshoppers ~ I love it! And hope it works...
The fastest of snakes in east TX is a blue racer and they are not really agressive. Friend of ours said there are only two kinds of snakes. Rattlers (which are easy to identify) and if they don't have rattles, they are a cobra. LOL Guess that was a 'cobra' you found.
The snake wasn't really aggressive, just not so afraid. Was it an Indigo snake?
The snake was a solid greyish color about 7 feet long with Nike tennis shoes.
I am treating about 11 acres. While my trees are on 6 acres. We have water on one side and low cut grass on two others. It is is the high grass field to the right that is the problem. I have heard that the Nolo infection actually leaves your property as the grasshoppers leave and it spreads it to surrounding properties. Heavy treatment at the border of your property insures that inbound and outbound get infected. I will use this year and next as a test since it has been pretty consistent. They are definitely here this year. I dont think the cold around here can effect them as we had 11F the year before this one and we had lots of babies.
Hog nose rattlers can flare their necks, no rattles, but, their diet is frogs. Am guessing frogs are scarce there right now tho. Most snakes are fast really unreal, chuckle, by the way, jumping up and down, vibrations from running feet, lots of noise? tends to attract snakes-they think they've come up on a meal, just saying.
50-60 percent chance of rain for two days = no rain and complete frustration.
We are approaching the 4 month mark with no rain with the hottest April in history, while finishing the 3rd worst Oct-April rainfall in history.
I am sorry Lee, we had been pretty much the same until now, we are finally getting rain now.
They said the summer is going to be bad too unless we get some really good tropical storms.
This was supposed to be the "summer of George". (Seinfeld reference)
I am finally biting the bullet and getting a water hookup at my orchard. It costs 3600.00!!!!!!!!
They said they can get it done in about three weeks and I can tell you it is going to be a long three weeks. Some of the 150ish trees I planted this year are showing stress already even with multiple waterings per week.
Sorry you have to wait so long to get the water hook up. I know what it feels like to wait for rain. Last time I saw rain was about 6 weeks ago.. about 20 drops that came down as mud.. yuck.. before that.. maybe a month it rained about 20 seconds ... I was soooo excited... it lasted long enough for me to pick up the phone to call my mother to say "its raining".. then it was over. Other than that.. nothing since last september.. REALLY! We have seen it to the south a bit and it does go north but no real storms.. just small showers, I watch it on the news about 60 to 80 miles east.. but NOT here! You know you are rain starved when you are flipping channels on TV and you stop if you see rain on the TV! LOL The plants are covered with dust.. so sad looking.
Once I get the water connection, I am going to hook up 500 feet of hose and water the trees one at a time while the regular inadequate irrigation runs too.
It really is nippy out today.
JuJU I am home, the rain followed me down here from the northwest, but I havent done anything but run east of Houston yet, am glad you guys missed out on the twisters that ganged up on the southeast, I'll keep tryin to wish us a good wet hurricane season...
bettydee For your grasshoppers I would say chickens and guineas but if you can catch em in Spring then I would say Semaspore Bait as it spreads through all grasshoppers like a plague. One hopper eats it and dies then other hoppers feed on the dead hopper and they die too and on and on. We wiped out 90% of all grasshoppers in a 1/2 mile area in 2005 off 1 5lb. bag of Semaspore spread around our 7.25 ac. land track. You can look at it at the link below. I've shopped a lot at Planet Natural over the years.
www.planetnatural.com/site/semaspore-grasshopper-bait.html
That is Nolo under another name.
I am doing my second Nolo treatment tomorrow. I did the first when they were tiny and now the second when they are juvenile. I hope I clear out a few this year.
Yeah but there is a distinct difference in use for nolo and semaspore as nolo is used for crikets too and semaspore is specifically for grasshoppers. I have used nolo and sure it takes out some hoppers but killed the masses of crikets in 1 week then nothing more. The semaspore was working in 2 days and continued for 5 months during which time we still had crickets unharmed but thousands of dead grasshoppers all over our land, the neighbors and surrounding areas.
So I would still choose Semaspore over NoLo any day just from my personal experience with both of them. I wish you the best of luck in your battle with grasshoppers.
I've got it! When the hoppers get so bad that the natural controls are having a hard time keeping up. Do what they did in Biblical times, mix them with honey and eat them...
I checked and Nolo and Semaspore are the exact same product under different names including dosage and other ingredients.
Both products should not take effect immediately but have a cumulative effect over time.
yup. I do know there are multiple products using the same ingridients but not sure they are as readily available. Where do you get your Nolo from if I may ask? Cause the only place I have really seen it is in homemade bags at feed stores. Of course semaspore has to be ordered online and I don't think I have seen it anywhere local either.
No I think the place cuts more bran into it and bags it up to get more money but that's just my assumption. It's the place we first purchased nolo from and it was not that impressive in the results. I can probably find a recipe for it since I know of several places to buy cultures, viruses, and bacteria from. I used some in my fish breeding apparatuses.
I ordered it online from Peaceful Valley (maybe?).
I just hope it puts a dent in the hoppers or at least curbs their appetites. It is supposed to stop them from eating very much and that in itself is good. My ambition is to hit them over a few years. I treated with 13 pounds a few weeks back and another 12 pounds tomorrow.
Good news!
The water hookup is going faster than I thought and I may have a county supply by late next week.
Happy days!!!
I suspect it will rain the day I get the hookup.
Are you on a Well?
Oh, I see, Perkos. Perhaps they are buying in bulk and repackaging, our co-op does some products that way. And Yes, If you want to do the leg work, I would love to know what medium nolo is cultured in.
I still see some grasshoppers, the difference is... I've yet to have complete annihilation of the garden since we starting using nolo. That happened once about 12 years ago...do not what to revisit that nightmare!
I wish I was on well.
However, I am not ready to make that gamble. It may hit water but one of the neighbors said it was bit saline. Also, I would need a powerful pump to send water to all the trees. Maybe down the line.
Salty really? Your down around Austin and Round Rock right? If that's the case then yes that would be a bit more expensive filtration. Well hopefully the city Co-Op does not drown out the water with ClO2 Chlorine cause it wreaks havoc on plant's and tree's over time.
Our old well for home use is 105' deep and recently had a new well dug on the other side of the ranch for a new home. That one is approximately 300' deep. There are always water wells associated with oil wells. The two oil wells dug on the ranch before we bought it were dry, but we reaped a bonus when we found 2 found water wells at about the same depth but out in a pasture. Of these, one is a recent find so we haven't done anything with it. Not even tested. The other we put a solar pump on it to provide water for the cattle. There should be at least one more water well at the second oil drilling site, but it's probably buried just enough to make finding it difficult. The only reason we found the second found well out in a pasture was that we nicked the pvc pipe with a trencher. That well was capped and buried under a foot of dirt.
A & M has a special water testing deal once a year. We had the 3 working wells tested. I don't really know which aquifers we've tapped into because we are over several. I do know that the 105' well has the least dissolved salts, but enough sodium to make the water naturally soft. That well has 490 p/m dissolved salts. I'm on a low sodium diet so we have a small reverse osmosis unit hooked up.
The well out in the pasture tests out at about 1500 p/m dissolved salts. Still OK for cattle and agriculture use. Even though the new house well is at the same level and about 1/4 mile from the pasture well, the dissolved salts for that one are 2299 p/m. That well is rated as having "excessive" amounts of salt. We are going to have clean the water for household use and set up a water collecting system to help leach out the dissolved salts deposited while watering plants and lawn. Clay rich soils will accumulate salts faster. Our soil is mostly sandy loam, but we do have some pockets of clay. The new house will be sitting over one of those pockets.
Has anyone ever tried digging for oil on your land? You might have a buried water well somewhere. Finding it would be the problem.
There is quite a bit of information on Texas aquifers available. You might be able to get some help through A & M about the water quality of the aquifers you are over.
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/geo/fieldguides/texasaquifers.html
http://www.twdb.state.tx.us/mapping/
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/texas.html
You can also look for information on specific aquifers. Because much of Texas' geologic history was spent as a shallow sea, there are all sorts of salt pockets and domes underground.
Bettydee ~ I learned from another DGr that all wells have to be GPS'd in TX.
The quote was from Sapphirestar19 ~
Quoting:
General location, depth, casing info, date drilled, owner at the time of drilling, general lithology. They do not usually test for water quality unless they've drilled into a gasoline plume or something and in older wells, the driller just tasted it to make sure it wasn't sulfurous. The TCEQ maintains the database of the older wells and was where I found the records on the well drilled on my property in the 80s. The Texas Water Development Board has the database of new ones. The TCEQ has been requiring that all existing water wells be GPS marked and submitted to the database. I've marked quite a few older wells while doing surveys for contaminated property assessments. These databases are public record, so I'm not giving out any privileged info or anything. No one just cares about them and therefore they are not widely known about outside of industry.
You have probably checked into that but it should help folks access wells on their property. In the days of good water, that would have been an asset. These days, water quality is questionable all across the state. Thanks for your links also.