Dry dry dry...

[animal1x]

After almost 2 months with temps of 95 and above with no rain we finally got a break this weekend with some cooler temps and little bit of moisture today here in Central Miss. You could dig down as far as you wanted and come up with nothing but dust. Food plotting is way far behind, at least right around here. Most people I have talked to haven't done anything as of yet for their cold weather plots and green patches.

Weatherman says about a 40% chance of more rain to come this Friday evening then starting next week it looks like scattered chances of 20% on up to about 60% on until the end of the month. I just mowed two small plots this past weekend but held off discing to see if we would get any rain at all before I wasted any more fuel. Seeing as I have already bought the seed (mix of forage oats and dixie crimson clover) and with cooler weather and at least a little bit of rain in the not too distant future, I'm gonna go ahead and disc this week and put seed in the ground.

I know I'm not the only one in the same predicament here in the South. So what are ya'll doing that have had the same weather pattern this summer and fall? Are you still planning on putting in fall plots or are you writing it off for this year?

 

[seadonist]

Southeastern zone here. As soon as I saw any decent chance of rain in the forecast, I put seed down. We had a little rain on Friday night but none of my plots had any sprouts on Saturday. With bow season starting on the 15th, I had to get seed in the ground. Hoping to get rain this week; looks like our best chance in about 6 weeks but I’m not confident that we will see much.

Might have to top dress with WR




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[bigbendmarine]

In the panhandle of North Florida and still holding off from even discing at the moment, as we haven't had a measurable amount of rain in at least ten weeks or so... and despite forecasts that have hinted at slightly increased odds of rain this past week, still haven't gotten more than a few teasing drops.

I've planted before as late as Oct 18 or so, and thanks to rains had plots with some green showing in them by our gun opener the first of November. That said, we have a long gun season and I'd rather plant a bit late by waiting for ideal conditions than I would to plant in still Hades hot dry weather and risk wasting time, money, sweat and tears.

Going to try and buy seed tomorrow so I'm at least ready to run and gun the moment conditions look a bit more favorable.

 

[Baker]

After almost 2 months with temps of 95 and above with no rain we finally got a break this weekend with some cooler temps and little bit of moisture today here in Central Miss. You could dig down as far as you wanted and come up with nothing but dust. Food plotting is way far behind, at least right around here. Most people I have talked to haven't done anything as of yet for their cold weather plots and green patches.

Weatherman says about a 40% chance of more rain to come this Friday evening then starting next week it looks like scattered chances of 20% on up to about 60% on until the end of the month. I just mowed two small plots this past weekend but held off discing to see if we would get any rain at all before I wasted any more fuel. Seeing as I have already bought the seed (mix of forage oats and dixie crimson clover) and with cooler weather and at least a little bit of rain in the not too distant future, I'm gonna go ahead and disc this week and put seed in the ground.

I know I'm not the only one in the same predicament here in the South. So what are ya'll doing that have had the same weather pattern this summer and fall? Are you still planning on putting in fall plots or are you writing it off for this year?

WE are in the same shape as you over here in central La. Has been upper 90's to over 100 for months and no rain since late July. When I thought we would get good moisture out of Emilia...the storm that dumped 40" on parts of Houston I jumped in and started planting. We got 1/2" . I had planted all but 2 fields leaving about 25 acres to go.

Here is what is interesting. I no till into thatch and even with the extremely dry conditions have germination and growth. Certainly not the growth good moisture would have produced but wheat, rye and radishes are up and growing. A little front came thru yesterday and we missed the rain by about 1/2 mile. I'm going to finish drilling this week irrespective.

It is amazing how no till with ground cover vs. conventional discing preserves soil moisture.

 

[SwampCat]

I am going to start planting this week. Seed can lay in the ground a long time and be fine. What you dont want is a light rain, germination, and then dry weather. Just had a cold front come through - 54 degrees this morning. Cooler temps wont dry things as fast. Still plenty of time to plant in the south. Farmer next to me doesnt plant wheat until mid Nov - by his choosing.

 

[SD51555]

WE are in the same shape as you over here in central La. Has been upper 90's to over 100 for months and no rain since late July. When I thought we would get good moisture out of Emilia...the storm that dumped 40" on parts of Houston I jumped in and started planting. We got 1/2" . I had planted all but 2 fields leaving about 25 acres to go.

Here is what is interesting. I no till into thatch and even with the extremely dry conditions have germination and growth. Certainly not the growth good moisture would have produced but wheat, rye and radishes are up and growing. A little front came thru yesterday and we missed the rain by about 1/2 mile. I'm going to finish drilling this week irrespective.

It is amazing how no till with ground cover vs. conventional discing preserves soil moisture.

Moisture managers always get the winning cards when the precip gets extreme.

 

[Turkish]

I’m in Central MS, too. Have waited to plant, will probably do most of it this weekend. It’s nowhere close to too late to plant here.

 

[Belchertown Bowman]

How has that affected food crops or cotton crops down there?

Curious northern food plotters want to know,..

 

[Turkish]

Not much. Plenty of rain through most of the growing season.

 

[Boll Weevil]

How has that affected food crops or cotton crops down there?

I'm a few miles from the TN/MS line and it's the first time in awhile I've seen the soybean crop dry down this fast. Here's a pic of one of my beanfields taken the 2nd week of Sept. Prior to this past weekend, didn't have a drop of rain (no exaggeration) for 2.5 months. Planted turnips at the normal time and they're doing ok, but nothing else went into the ground until a few hours before the rain this weekend.

 

[animal1x]

Looks like here in Central Miss. we finally have a chance to get a little moisture and some cooler temps coming by Fri. I got around and got two small plots disced today and hope to get them seeded tomorrow. I don't have much room to play with here, most of the place is in planted pines but what openings I do have something is growing in it. Really would like to learn how to do the no till/throw and mow method. But for this season I went with traditional disc and plant.

Anyway, I hope some of this rain and cooler weather gets to ya'll that need it. I know we are needing it bad.

 

[ksgobbler]

Id like to send you some rain. Getting sick of it.

 

[davidhelmly]

Same here in West GA, we are at 90 days with no significant rain and have broken record highs many times in the last month. I have my planter on the tractor and seed in the barn ready but I'm not going to plant anything until we get a couple inches of rain, I may wind up planting in November.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

Total opposite for me. The mud is even so saturated, if I get a tenth of an inch, it puddles up. But looks like I may get a little break, instead of rain, looks like some snow.

 

[bigbendmarine]

Same here in West GA, we are at 90 days with no significant rain and have broken record highs many times in the last month. I have my planter on the tractor and seed in the barn ready but I'm not going to plant anything until we get a couple inches of rain, I may wind up planting in November.

Right there with you Davidhelmly... out of curiosity I looked up our weather history just now and if doing the math right it's been 95 days since my place saw enough rain to actually get the ground wet.

On the flip side of things, if I were retired and could stay at home all day I could be putting a BIG hurting on the local feral hog population... brutally hot, dry weather has multiple sounders visiting my pond every day so they can cool off in wallows they're dug in the shade of my dock. Problem is I'm so busy between office and yard work when home I'm watching them while working more than I am shooting at them.

 

[davidhelmly]

Right there with you Davidhelmly... out of curiosity I looked up our weather history just now and if doing the math right it's been 95 days since my place saw enough rain to actually get the ground wet.

On the flip side of things, if I were retired and could stay at home all day I could be putting a BIG hurting on the local feral hog population... brutally hot, dry weather has multiple sounders visiting my pond every day so they can cool off in wallows they're dug in the shade of my dock. Problem is I'm so busy between office and yard work when home I'm watching them while working more than I am shooting at them.

It does sound like we are having almost exactly the same weather, I'm almost scared to type it but we are showing 50%-80% chance of rain Mon-Wed and if we get a decent amount I will be planting Thur-Sat!!

I am so happy that we don't have hogs, sounds like you need to sneak away from work and do some sniping!!

 

[SwampCat]

Right there with you Davidhelmly... out of curiosity I looked up our weather history just now and if doing the math right it's been 95 days since my place saw enough rain to actually get the ground wet.

On the flip side of things, if I were retired and could stay at home all day I could be putting a BIG hurting on the local feral hog population... brutally hot, dry weather has multiple sounders visiting my pond every day so they can cool off in wallows they're dug in the shade of my dock. Problem is I'm so busy between office and yard work when home I'm watching them while working more than I am shooting at them.

Sounds like priorities in wrong order

You do have a beautiful place, though!

 

[animal1x]

At least feral hogs is one thing we don't have to worry about. Although there are feral hogs around this part of Miss, knock on wood they aren't right here on us. At least not yet anyway but it wouldn't surprise me to find sign at any given time. There's plenty of other vermin around though...gray fox, coyotes, and bobcats. And the swamps and sloughs are full of beavers.

On another note and in line with my op, I got my two little patches seeded yesterday morning just in time for 4/10 inches of rain yesterday afternoon with more to come in the forecast. Hopefully I will have a little bit of green coming up in a few days. Main thing I gotta get done around here is to get someone in to get this timber thinned so I can actually get on a more proactive approach to managing this property. Kinda hard to manage anything when most of what you have is pine straw!!

 

[MN Slick]

WE are in the same shape as you over here in central La. Has been upper 90's to over 100 for months and no rain since late July. When I thought we would get good moisture out of Emilia...the storm that dumped 40" on parts of Houston I jumped in and started planting. We got 1/2" . I had planted all but 2 fields leaving about 25 acres to go.

Here is what is interesting. I no till into thatch and even with the extremely dry conditions have germination and growth. Certainly not the growth good moisture would have produced but wheat, rye and radishes are up and growing. A little front came thru yesterday and we missed the rain by about 1/2 mile. I'm going to finish drilling this week irrespective.

It is amazing how no till with ground cover vs. conventional discing preserves soil moisture.

Are you drilling into live green thatch then spraying or was the thatch sprayed prior to drilling?

 

[Turkish]

I'm a few miles from the TN/MS line and it's the first time in awhile I've seen the soybean crop dry down this fast. Here's a pic of one of my beanfields taken the 2nd week of Sept. Prior to this past weekend, didn't have a drop of rain (no exaggeration) for 2.5 months. Planted turnips at the normal time and they're doing ok, but nothing else went into the ground until a few hours before the rain this weekend.

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Hail State!