Whats your "Windy" story? :)

[JohnHuff]

Dang, the first pic looked like it was from the Mars rover. I have a lot of respect for American citizen farmers.

 

[addy1]

Neat information! Thanks Charles. When I fly to arizona get to see those huge circles of the farms, it is really neat.

 

[Dave 54]

I did catch a documentary Charles that basically said that Vast areas of farm land in the US needed to be turned back into its natural state because of water aquafrers running all but dry due to excesive use of water by farms using the sprinkler system's in place....
I remember thinking OMG not only is this land the bread basket of America but also the world.
I caught another yesterday about algal blooms in US/Canadian Lakes due to excessive use of Ferilizers ec , the nutriants are good for crops thats for sure but its the run off into rivers feeding these lakes causing humongus algal blooms that can be seen from space
So how are the surviving farmers regulating their water consumption and regulating these nurtients which basically said even if you stop useing them now it will take over 100 years to completely wash out .
The same can be said for river esturies which are now dead zones please dont think I've singled you out for thi because its not just the US/Canada its the UK Europe basically anywhere where the world is developed .
he only thing that appears to profit from this is the jellyfish which are reaching epidemic proportions causing untold damage to the fishing industry fish stocks lost due to red tides Nuclear pwer plants with clogged intakes .
With one in the US coming close to meltdown because of this, are GM crops the answer to all our problems who knows but herein the UK we have a great distrust of them.
Bees seem to be in terminal decline aroundthe world because of pestisides and without them well ......need I say more.
Your Great Grand dad saw the effects of mans interferance with the dust bowl but was steadfast enough to stay put ad reap the rewards.
Just what is the answer to all this

Dave
PS. you use chains as windsocks m'mmm that gives me an idea for all our defunct nuclear submaines we have moored up in our dockyard here in Plymouth great big windsocks

 

[Catfishnut]

I don't have any pictures, but I did see a full sized pontoon boat plucked from Woodcliff Lake and tossed three lots away against someone else's home (cabin). Miles of power poles snapped off at the bottom like toothpicks, metal grain silos wrapped around trees and trees wrapped around cars. Barbed wire fencelines so full of debris that they looked like a solid fence. Acres of farmground which were full of green corn one day before appeared as clean, bare and smooth as a flat sand spit.

This was NOT a tornado. It was straight-line winds.

Below is the article from our local newspaper.

http://fremonttribune.com/news/loca...cle_70eaa52f-5b5d-52c8-b36d-dbed223a4615.html

Gordy

 

[Nepen]

I've been wondering about those circles when I flew over them. What benefit is it to have farms in circle? I didn't even know it was a farm, is it because the sprinkler system? If so, it started to make sense. And how did you make such a big perfect circle?

 

[Catfishnut]

I've been wondering about those circles when I flew over them. What benefit is it to have farms in circle? I didn't even know it was a farm, is it because the sprinkler system? If so, it started to make sense. And how did you make such a big perfect circle?

Nepen,

Those are "center pivot" irrigation systems. A well is drilled somewhere on the property and the water from the well is piped to a "center pivot point" where it carried out to numerous and very large "garden sprinkler heads" through a pipe that is about 15-20 feet off the gound. These sprinkler heads are attached to a long pipe about 4-6 inches diameter and could be 1/4 mile long. That pipe and these sprinkler heads are on top of "towers" which are triangular frameworks with sets of wheels at the bottom.

Electric motors drive the wheels in sync and the entire "sprinkler" turns around and around in circles and irrigates the crops.
From the air, that is why you see the big circular items, because the irrigation systems revolve around a center pivot thus the pattern is a circle.

They were originally developed in Nebraska by Valmont Irrigation systems in Valley, Nebraska and have now spread world wide with many companies manufacturing them and many people using them.

Gordy

 

[j.w]

Our bridges around here in Western Washington are not the place to be when a windstorm picks up:

Here's are 2 really old ones from 1940 of the same bridge before my time and winds were only 35 mph:

The Eastern part of our state on the other side of the Cascade mountains is drier than our side and does get the dust storms:

I remember one year when my hubby and I and our kids were going camping over in Eastern Washington when the wind kicked up and we had just pulled over to a dirt parking lot before dark as the camp grounds were all full. We tried sleeping in lawn chair lounges as the tent would have blown away out in the open and could not stake it down. When we tried to hold a sleeping bag up to lay it on the chairs it would fly like a flag. My hubby got all snug as a bug in his bag in the chair and 2 minutes later the chair collapsed.................oh what a night..................but I remember it being such a fun time w/ the family even tho it was a disaster. We laughed so hard for so long we had stomach aches

 

[crsublette]

I did catch a documentary Charles that basically said that Vast areas of farm land in the US needed to be turned back into its natural state because of water aquafrers running all but dry due to excesive use of water by farms using the sprinkler system's in place....
I remember thinking OMG not only is this land the bread basket of America but also the world.
I caught another yesterday about algal blooms in US/Canadian Lakes due to excessive use of Ferilizers ec , the nutriants are good for crops thats for sure but its the run off into rivers feeding these lakes causing humongus algal blooms that can be seen from space
So how are the surviving farmers regulating their water consumption and regulating these nurtients which basically said even if you stop useing them now it will take over 100 years to completely wash out .
The same can be said for river esturies which are now dead zones please dont think I've singled you out for thi because its not just the US/Canada its the UK Europe basically anywhere where the world is developed .
he only thing that appears to profit from this is the jellyfish which are reaching epidemic proportions causing untold damage to the fishing industry fish stocks lost due to red tides Nuclear pwer plants with clogged intakes .
With one in the US coming close to meltdown because of this, are GM crops the answer to all our problems who knows but herein the UK we have a great distrust of them.
Bees seem to be in terminal decline aroundthe world because of pestisides and without them well ......need I say more.
Your Great Grand dad saw the effects of mans interferance with the dust bowl but was steadfast enough to stay put ad reap the rewards.
Just what is the answer to all this

Dave
PS. you use chains as windsocks m'mmm that gives me an idea for all our defunct nuclear submaines we have moored up in our dockyard here in Plymouth great big windsocks

Yep, and the growing precision farming industry along with gmo crops have made tremendous improvements in solving those problems. Suffice it to say, it is nice for us to have these " 1st World " concerns.

 

[crsublette]

I've been wondering about those circles when I flew over them. What benefit is it to have farms in circle? I didn't even know it was a farm, is it because the sprinkler system? If so, it started to make sense. And how did you make such a big perfect circle?

Yep, Gordy (catfishnut) summed it up quite well.

There is really no benefit to farming in circles. Correct, farming in circles is the result of the irrigation technology. There are actually pivot irrigation systems that have corner systems where there are folding apparatuses while the system operates from a center pivot. Here is one of these systems, with pictures, of a Zimmatic corner system. Once you know the diameter of the circle and location of the center pivot, then we pre-water the ground to make the sprinkler tracks and then create the circle from there. The other way is to use actual surveying and gps equipment.

When my grandfather farmed, he used gravity flowing flood trench system called "row watering" and this is incredibly wasteful since there is no control of water output and it allows fertilizer leaching much easier to occur (which is not good at all). My father started using pivot irrigation in the 1980s. Pivot irrigation was around before the 1980s, but it was crazy expensive back then and it was designed quite terribly, with water driven gear boxes, and these systems required much more maintenance and were not reliable at all. However, pivot irrigation is still wasteful due to misting. Now, with the new pivot irrigation systems, the nozzles are quite low to the ground with a different spray pad that creates less streams thus less mist and some use "dribble" pads instead of spray pads. However, the type of spray on a pivot irrigation is also determined by the crop being grown. The new pivot irrigation systems are still quite expensive, but no where near as expensive as agricultural underground drip irrigation.

Agricultural underground drip irrigation is quite nice but the price tag is the equivalent of almost buying new farmland. Also, when using underground drip irrigation, it can be tough to get plants germinated due to the top soil drying out too fast in these large open fields. To give ya an idea on the cost, including all of the necessary equipment, an agricultural underground drip irrigation system is $1,200~1,500 per acre while a pivot irrigation system is only around $200~400 per acre. I know this because, around 3 years ago, I was very interested in doing an agricultural underground drip irrigation system; I bet now the price tag would be even higher. Unfortunately, the NRCS has so few funds that they can not help out either.

Agricultural underground drip irrigation systems are quite amazing in water savings, but the cost makes it fantasy, at least for a fella farming in my area.

 

[Nepen]

Thanks Gordy and Charles, it's quite amazing and interesting information on farming, which I know nothing about. Now that circle thing that I've been wondering why it's circle is solved thanks again for sharing!

 

[Dave 54]

Yes thnx for a very imformative look into farming US style however what ou didnt say was how did you tun the dust bowl back into workable land which I wfor one would find very interesting as it may have great usage in the third wrld where they are experiancing the same problems ss your ancestor#s did .
However westill have this problem of high nutrients in the great lakes abnd the dead areas around estories ?

Dave

 

[crsublette]

Yes thnx for a very imformative look into farming US style however what ou didnt say was how did you tun the dust bowl back into workable land which I wfor one would find very interesting as it may have great usage in the third wrld where they are experiancing the same problems ss your ancestor#s did .
However westill have this problem of high nutrients in the great lakes abnd the dead areas around estories ?

Dave

Agriculture is regulated and quite heavily regulated in some states more than others telling folk how to farm, which some is common sense and some was created as a fundraiser for government instead of the welfare of others that is leading to the disappearing of the family farmer. So, it is quite unlikely the high nutrient problems are due to agriculture, but there will always be cheaters out there.


During the dust bowl, moisture was still in the ground to grow crops, even in their drought conditions, but, as post#1 explains, "Dirt acts like sandpaper that literally burns the plant's leaves and crown. If the plant crown can be save, then there is a significant increased chance that plant will be saved. The tractor implements described above essentially are trying to save the plant's root crown." Also, during the dust bowl, the blowing wind would either drown the seed into too much sand and dirt or the wind would blow the seed out of the dirt. Also, back then, most of their plowing techniques involved shallow plowing implements and this created "hard pans". A "hard pan" is an extremetly hard layer of soil that harm's plant growth and can make planting nearly impossible.

The problem was the type of equipment required for a solution did not exist back then, even though the big equipment manufacturers like John Deere, Caterpillar, International, and others were still around. Hoe drills did not even exist back then; hoe drills, which are still used today, were planters that used knifes to plant the seed and created some nice "wind block" clods and rows, which most drills just used discs back then. During the dust bowl, farmers built their own tractor equipment. My grandfather was one of the first farmers who started building hoe planters before they even existed. My grandfather also was smart enough to build "robot" tractors, which used low tech hydraulic levers along with guide arms that followed ditches in the ground, and these tractors plowed a field, that is driving them self. "Robot" tractors were around back then, but my grandfather's robots had murphy switches that he built so that, when the tractor would "run loose and crazy", then the guide arms would know this due to certain inserted levers and would turn the tractor off.

Even during the dust bowl, there was still moisture in the ground and it does not require much moisture to germinate seed. The problem was the farmer had to plant the seed quite deep so the seed was touching the moisture while hoping the wind would not bury the seed under too much dirt or the wind would dig too much exposing the seed.

Then, if you were lucky to get the seed to germinate, then the farmer had to hope the dirt would not kill the plant due to the wind sand blasting it.

The problem the third world countries have are their corrupt governments and tribal mindsets.

What saved the Dust Bowl farmer? The farmer's ability to build proper equipment, a very big factor was irrigation, and to not over farm the land. On an acre per production ratio, agriculture is not farming nearly as much land as there used to be in the past.

 

[Catfishnut]

Tornados don't like trailer parks

 

[Catfishnut]

Yes thnx for a very imformative look into farming US style however what ou didnt say was how did you tun the dust bowl back into workable land which I wfor one would find very interesting as it may have great usage in the third wrld where they are experiancing the same problems ss your ancestor#s did .
However westill have this problem of high nutrients in the great lakes abnd the dead areas around estories ?

Dave

Dave,

To add to what Charles stated regarding the farming practices of that era (the era that we call the dust bowl days or the "dirty thirties"). The main problems of the era were an extended drought coupled with improper soil management practices.

Everyone at the time had no knowledge of irrigation systems and they had no idea that the largest single source of freshwater in the world was right below their very feet (the Ogalala Aquifer). This underground lake covers part of the US states of South Dakota, Much of Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and parts of Texas. It is enormous. If it were an oil reserve, everyone in the US would be driving a gold plated car.

The problem at the time was that there was a great deal of political hype to get people to come to these lands which were deemed "The Great American Desert" in the early pioneering years. It was a boon at first and people thrived. But, then the climate of the area reverted to the arid and dry conditions which are normal for this region and the farming practices of the old times did irrepairable damage to the land and the topsoil. Hundreds of millions of tons of valuable topsoil "flew the coop" and actually was blown all the way out into the Atlantic Ocean and even beyond.

There was probably no way to stop this snowball effect from continuing (should be referred to as a dust ball) until the weather finally changed. If the weather patterns had not changed, there would have been no way to recover by mankind's intervention. It truly would have continued to be a wasteland and a barren desert.

Fortunately, the weather did change enough and rain fell and a project was begun to plant trees in rows to break and stop the wind. Windbreaks and shelterbelts were planted to protect and conserve the soil that was left. The Arboretum society was began in Nebraska City, Nebraska and trees and shrubs were planted everywhere. Man made forests were established all over and they were kept alive with water from the aquifer. Our country has a day referred to as Arbor Day. That is the day in which you go out and plant a tree. That started here in Nebraska. It is a great concept for any place on earth.

So, basically, we got very lucky when the drought of that time dissapated and the rains returned. If it weren't for that stroke of luck, these areas might still be a wasteland today. Then the government and the farmers adopted newfound land and water management practices at just the right time.

I learned of a project where a semi-paleo scientist researched the patterns of the droughts in our area here (Nebraska expressly) and from petrified trees he was able to track the past droughts as far back as 6,000 years or a bit more.

There were records of droughts in this region which spanned as long as 37 years. These were long before any human intervention and the BS regarding global warming at mankind's hand. These droughts were so severe that they would have made the "dirty thirties" or the "dust bowl days" seem like a normal season in Seattle, Washington.

From some of his research, I extrapolated that in one particular period, if you lived back then and lived to be 99 years old, that 66+ years of your life would have been spent in the worst droughts imaginable.

That is a LONG time to live through such climates. Two thirds of your live, at least.

Thought you might find this interesting.

Gordy

 

[crsublette]

Yeah, since dust pneumonia was really bad back then also, you were lucky to live that long if ya stayed around to farm.

I think it was mainly the winds that finally settled down is what gave the farmers a chance. It still rained back then, although it was not much at all, but the wind would evaporate it quite fast. This is what I have come to learn from personal experience while farming. Wind significantly increases evaporation, removes the beneficial humidity, and drys out the crop. Even still, there are years where the winds would constantly blow starting from March until August, and then there are years where the winds would not blow at all. During some years, this area will have weeks of constant 20mph winds with 25~30mph gusts from morning and all throughout the evening. It would calm down some nights, but, then, the next night there will be a front coming in with 45mph (sometimes higher) constant windows and 60mph (sometimes higher) gusts and this might last for 2 or 3 days. Now, the wind patterns these past 2 years since early 2012 has been quiet, a little too quiet, which the crops have enjoyed it. I am just waiting for the windy years to come back since i know it is going to be inevitable.

Also, after heavy rains have pounded down on open flat fields that have been plowed too often due to terrible equipment abilities, then the soil would become loose and the dirt would blow, even dry very hard ground still blows due to wind shear and other soil hitting the flat ground when the wind speeds are high enough. It is as Gordy describe like a "snow ball" effect.

Poorly designed equipment, lack of irrigation, lack of grassland, and not properly doing field rotation management between fallow and to-be-harvested ground is why I think the Dust Bowl happened. The weather is the weather, it is just how it always has been around here.

The equipment designs / technology and managing techniques is what was terrible back in those days. Today, in my area, there is still quite a bit of dry-land farming, from fence row to fence row like it was back then, but today's field management and today's equipment does not require the dryland to be "plowed to death", which plowing fields "to death" is a major reason why they blow.

Even just a few years ago, when I was a kid, I had to plow a field around 6 to 8 times over before planting it due to the dirt clods and due to using old disc planters with terrible down pressure abilities causing this equipment to require quite clean ground. Equipment lasts forever just about, there is 70 year old equipment that we can still use today, except the hassle is just not worth it.

Nowadays, I only have to "plow" a field 2 to 3 times before planting. "plow" in quotes since even conventional tillage farming techniques do not disturb the ground too much. Again, this is mostly due to better designed planters along with stronger tractors that pull an implement that do like 3-5 jobs in a single rig. On my conventional tillage farm, I ; 1) angle shank deep till (only to 9 inches) in the Fall 2) pre-water (depending on soil moisture probe) 1-4 inches of water in March; 3) apply liquid and/or anhydrous ammonia (if we use it depending on price) down to 6 inches with simple knifes that does not "plow", nor disturb, the ground at all; 4) pre-water (depending on soil moisture probe) another 3-4 inches in April or May; 5) lightly sweep plow the field only 2 inches that has various crumblers to break big clods and, if needed, straight discs to cut trash, depending on the previous crop's plant residue, there is still alot of plant trash after finished; 6) plant the field with special "trash rippers", which moves over plant trash so to plant seed, that also has over the top liquid or dry plant "starter" fertilizer along with an optional additional weed pre-emergence spray. On some fields, we skip step #3 and other fields we sometimes skip step #1, since these steps are not always necessary.

There is equipment that has been around for a while, that is a few decades, called "strip till" and "no till", which today's equipment is designed better and requiring quite strong tractors, but, due to other concerns I have seen with them, such as properly pinning down plant residue and other chemical application concerns, I have not been impressed by this equipment. I think the "strip till" and "no till" equipment still needs improvement. With "strip till", there is no deep tilling and they use a special fertilizer rig to break the ground and then a special planter rig that plants the ground. With "no till", then the planter it self "breaks" the ground before laying down seed and then fertilizer is put down on top as dry or through irrigation; however, around my area, "no till" is treated more like it is "strip till" due to this areas very heavy plant trash residue (due to high yields) and soil is quite terrible here.

It is funny how bad our soil here is... Many tillage equipment manufacturers actually use their experimental rigs around this area to test the stress tolerance of the rigs since our soil is incredibly tough to work and the heavy plant trash residue makes it difficult. The ground here is nothing like it is in the mid-west.

Also, now, we have irrigation that is this improving as well. With improved equipment designs and better irrigation, this area has not seen anything like the dirt blowing while I was kid nor like it was during the Dust Bowl.

This year is actually the first year, out of the past 6 years or so, where the dirt has finally started to noticeably blow, except the blowing dirt is nothing like how it was when I was a kid. Personally, although there are many variables, I mainly contribute this big change to the improved equipment and irrigation.