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East-Central Ontario | OK had a good steady half-hour hailstorm Wednesday. We've been farming some of this ground (East-central Ontario) 180 years now, Dad doesn't remember hail damage in his lifetime and never heard his father or grandfather talk about it either. Could have been worse though, it cut across a corner of the farm and only hit about 20% of our acres, and some of the corn and beans look like they'll come back.
However, the soft red winter wheat was JUST ready to combine. Hardly knocked a stem of it down, it just shelled 60-70% of the kernels out of every head of wheat. Original plan, since these are fields close to the barns, was to go in with some clover after getting the straw off for a cover crop and hit it hard with dairy manure next spring, put corn on it. However, there's now probably 1800-2000 lbs/acre of wheat on the ground that's had 4" of rain on it and it's sprouting fast. I don't like the chances of getting clover established into that, think we're going to just run the harrows over it lightly and let the wheat take off. Even the harrowing will probably just be recreational with all the water it's already had on it.
So, with all that seed sprouting, how do we keep it from turning into a big matted mess? What else to watch for? | |
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Wheat - hail damage - ideas
