100% homegrown

[drummstikk]

Planting is finished!

Rain came early this morning, and the sky was clear by the time my partner and I got out to the field. We practiced a bit with the seeder full of malt, then switched over to seeds. We followed up each seeded row on foot to press the dirt down around the seeds, and to cover up any seeds that were left exposed.

The rows were fairly straight, but the mounds I had dug actually made it very difficult to keep the seeder going in a straight line at any speed. I'd say most rows deviated 3-4 inches within the 14" row. I'd suggest to anyone else trying this to forget about digging mounds and trenches, and just seed into flat tilled earth.





The estimates for the seeding rate of the Earthway with plate 22 were pretty accurate. We seeded two 33' x 33' plots with single passes of Conlon seeds in 14" rows, and one 33' x 33' plot with double passes. I reserved a few grams of seed to play with later on, and the five pound bag ran out just shy of finishing up the last of the second-pass rows.

Enough room remained at the ends for one row of Golden Promise and four rows of bere, a Scottish six-row. Those seeds were obtained from the National Plant Germplasm System, which will send you a few grams of seeds, about enough for one 30 foot row. I expanded the bere last spring in my backyard, and was pleasantly surprised to have enough for four rows!

The whole job only took about two hours, and then it was off to enjoy the rest of Saturday. Now that the seeds are in the ground (a few weeks too late, most would agree), some time pressure is relieved. Whew! But now I'm afraid a battle with weeds, insects, viruses, and fungi is about to begin. I'll keep my eye out for the weeds first. I have a hand cultivator and plenty of Roundup -- let's hope the rows were straight enough to allow for some weeding!

[Cody]

Nice work! And thanks for the pictures and commentary.

[drummstikk]

It was a cool and wet holiday weekend, but apparently enough sun came through to grow the barley to about an inch tall.



I'm completely psyched. I've had a lot of help from the field managers and my planting buddy to get to this point. I've had some luck too, with weather and tools. But now comes what most people describe as the hard part. For example, check out these weed seedlings scattered among the barley



You can see the small sprouts with two leaves. Here's a better feel for how many weeds there are overall.



I can imagine far worse -- the field managers have been diligent about planting cover crops to prevent weed buildup. In fact, these could even be seedlings from the legume cover crop that was planted here in the past. (Pure speculation -- any plant people have an idea what these little two-leaved seedlings are?)

Well, this is why you plant in rows, right? The first thing I did yesterday was to cultivate between rows with a tool that looks like this



which was able to dig up (and hopefully kill) all the weeds that weren't too close to a barley seedling



I could have also sprayed between rows with Roundup, but I'd still have the problem of what to do with weeds that are mingling with the good stuff. Does anyone know how harmful the remaining weeds will be? Is it worth plucking them by hand?

You can also see in the previous photo how the seeder deviated from straight lines. Not too crooked, because you can still walk between rows. But surely an experienced gardener looks at these rows and winces!

Maybe, though, the bigger problem is how non-uniform the seedlings are within a row. You can see clumps of seedlings followed by gaps with no plants in every photo. Buying a better (and more expensive) seeder seems to be the only solution. Earthway just doesn't make a plate that will drop one barley seed at at time. Let's see if the non-uniformity negatively impacts growth over the course of the season.

I also fertilized with a Scott Basic spreader



You pour granular fertilizer in the bin, and adjust a dial, which in turn adjusts the width of a gap in the bottom of the bin that you can open with a handle. You have to take a guess as to the proper setting (some fertilizers will list the application rate you'll achieve with different Scott settings -- check the package -- but mine did not). Weigh the fertilizer before and after application to know how much you actually put into the field.

I put down one pound of a 16-16-16 fertilizer mix. These numbers are always percent N-P-K by mass (16% Nitrogen, 16% Phosphorus, 16% Potassium). I also put down 5 lbs of urea, which is 46% nitrogen by mass. This works out to about 33 lb/acre nitrogen and 2 lb/acre phosphorus, a little under half of what I had calculated the field might need over the course of the season. I'll fertilize again before the plants get too tall.

To get the slightest idea for how much of these nutrients to apply, I used this excellent tutorial provided by the Queensland government. Does anybody have experience fertilizing malting barley? I'm currently shooting for 70 lb/acre nitrogen and 7 lb/acre phosphorus, and I'd like to know if these are in the ballpark.

You can see some chunks of fertilizer (and a few damn weeds) here



Since the seedlings have only one leaf, I don't need to worry about fertilizer chunks getting stuck where the leaves come off of the plant -- this can be lethal.

We've got nothing but sun in the forecast now -- the field is being irrigated just a little, and I'd say it's perfect -- the soil is moist enough about a half inch below the surface that you can squeeze it into a clump with your hand, but not so moist that the clump won't fall apart with a little poke. Some website I read somewhere along the way described this as the correct soil moisture.

Grow!

[drummstikk]

Ouch! Those barley plants have been chopped by some animal, probably a squirrel or chicken. In fact, I think predation may be the most significant reason the upper third of the field hasn't grown. This is the shadiest part of the field, so I previously thought that light was limiting this area's growth. But a closer inspection reveals entire rows of chopped leaves.



If I can stop whatever is munching away, these damaged barleys should be able to recover and reach maturity. Yield will be affected, but it should still be possible to save the plants.

There are two solutions: the first is to call out a groundskeeper. My field is right across the street from athletic fields, which don't get any sort of rodent management. It could be that squirrels are expanding their territory -- they can simply be trapped and taken away.





The other solution is to put a net over the hardest-nibbled sections of field. If the problem is chickens, (not unreasonable -- chickens freely roam the area) the nets will stop them. Here, you can see the stark difference in growth between the upper and middle sections of the field.



Like the seeder, these nets and stakes belong to the corn genetics lab that uses the field in the summer. I am extremely grateful to have access to these essential tools! It only took me about an hour to install the netting, but for now I'll just put it up over the section that has taken heavy losses -- the upper third. Nets prevent weeding and fertilizing, so the more I put up now, the more I'll have to take down when it's time for field maintenance. If the animal problem does expand to the rest of the field, I should be able to set up more nets quickly.



Before I put up the nets, I needed to finish cultivating between rows to uproot weed seedlings. The process doesn't do anything to the weeds that are right up next to the barley. These weeds are currently competing with the barley seedlings, and there's not much to do except wait to see which plant wins (c'mon, barley!). But cultivation will kill weeds in the spaces between rows. Later in the season, this soil should be weed-free so barley roots can grow into it.

Here, I've cultivated the rows on the right, but haven't gotten to the ones on the left side yet.



There was one more unrelated problem -- the lower field (which is mostly immune to predation so far) is a bit too dry. Even when you dig down an inch or two, the soil is dusty and does not form a clump when you squeeze it. The barley plants are right on the edge of health, and depending on the day, can show some signs of water stress -- on a dry windy day, their leaves are a little droopy, and not stiff with turgor pressure as they should be.

So the field manager and I adjusted the sprinkler heads on the irrigation posts. Now that I know how to adjust them, I can tweak them as time goes on to make sure the entire field is getting properly irrigated.





Despite the predation setback, I've been extremely lucky with the crop so far. Temperatures have been high enough at the right times to get the plants established, and so far, there are no signs of disease. Most plants have developed two leaves, one large one and one small, which you can see in the first few rows here:



Please let me know if you have any experience getting rid of vertebrate garden pests, or if you have experience dealing with weeds growing right next to the plants you want to keep. Hoping the first problem will soon be fixed, and that the second turns out to be insignificant.

[Dirk McLargeHuge]

While I admire your dedication and vision, at some point you gotta say, "There's a convenience store up the street that sells beer."

Keep us posted on your progress!

[drummstikk]

While I admire your dedication and vision, at some point you gotta say, "There's a convenience store up the street that sells beer."

Haha damnit, good point.

It takes a lot of good store-bought beer to grow beer!

[spiderwrangler]

I'd say that it isn't chickens, since they don't have teeth that would allow them to crop them short like that. If chickens were after them, it would be more likely that they'd be uprooted. I'd say rodents most likely, woodchucks perhaps?

[drummstikk]

I'd say that it isn't chickens, since they don't have teeth that would allow them to crop them short like that. If chickens were after them, it would be more likely that they'd be uprooted. I'd say rodents most likely, woodchucks perhaps?

Hmm, gotcha. I'm wondering then if the netting will do any good against rodents. There are little gaps here and there -- something smart (not a chicken) could find a way in. Maybe it will at least keep fuzzy bastards from coming in en masse...