Corn in the backyard, 2015 -- week 2

May 17

The plants sprouted to a height of about 5.5 inches for our second measurement which is about average by our experience, and the green covering of the field was noticeably thicker.  We had over 38% more growing degree days than the historical average for the seven days prior to these photos, which extended the warmer-than-normal trend started the week before.  After 11 days of growth above ground, the crop appeared to be making good use of the excellent conditions.

This looks promising...

I don't want to count my cherries before they ripen, but our little tree appears to be ready to bear another large crop this year. Like any crop, lots of things can happen before harvest, but our biggest concern now is probably wind or pests. We've seen previous crops survive freezing weather without much damage at this stage, and the closer we get to summer the smaller our chances of another freeze.

We were blessed with a beautiful show of blossoms about a month ago, which was our first indication that we may get a good crop this year. Less than a week after this photo was taken on April 18, however, we had a couple of consecutive nights in which our thermometer recorded temperatures below freezing. The blossoms wilted and disappeared within a few days, but it wasn't obvious to me at the time whether the flowers were frozen before they were pollinated, or whether they faded because they had been pollinated. Within a couple of weeks the fruit was visible thanks to the diligent work of the bees in the neighborhood, and most of it appears to be faring well.

We'll continue to watch the tree, pray for good fruit ripening weather, and will try to report back here when harvest begins.

Corn in the backyard, 2015 -- week 1

May 10

We noticed evidence of planting in the field behind our house on April 28 this year, and by May 6 the first of the plants were emerging from the soil.  That's not the earliest emergence we've seen here, but it comes pretty close.  Although the temperatures were near nomal around the end of April, warmer weather in the early half of the month had evidently warmed the soil enough to make planting viable by the 28th.  The plants shown above measured 2.5" tall by May 10 when these pictures were taken, and since we've enjoyed plentiful rain this spring, I suspect they'll get a good start.

Farewell, Old Spruce

Our observant readers probably noticed something unusual in the photo accompanying the last post. As is my custom after the first mowing, I included a photo of our yard that showed an empty spot where we used to have a spruce tree. I had to make the painful decision recently to remove that tree, and I hope my experience can help someone else avoid the loss we've endured.

About a year ago I noticed some brown spots on a few branches of the tree, but since they were high in the crown and limited in number I didn't give them much thought. The brown sections grew in size and number over the next few weeks, prompting me to investigate more closely. Although the image below was taken this spring, the general appearance of the tree approximates what I observed early last summer.

On closer observation I found small clusters of dead needles hanging from the defoliated branches. The needles were held together by silky thread surrounding a small, black worm that would actually navigate a tree branch collecting needles for its cocoon. One could detach these worms from the tree with a slight pull near the base of the cocoon, so I spent most of one afternoon pulling worms off my tree. Unfortunately, many branches had already been defoliated, and although I removed hundreds of worms, there were still hundreds (if not thousands) of worms remaining, destroying more needles every day.

A little online research identified the pests as a bagworm that feeds on both evergreens and deciduous trees, but since spruce trees don't regenerate their needles, the damage to conifers is more noticeable than when these pests attack deciduous trees. My only consolation was the fact that the worms finished stripping branches by mid summer. The males emerge from the cocoons in a few weeks as a moth to fertilize the females that remain in their cocoons, and the fertilized eggs remain in the cocoon until late spring the next year.

This image from a few weeks ago shows several cocoons that had remained intact through the winter, some of which may have contained eggs ready to hatch into thousands of worms this spring. I removed a few hundred of these nests before I gave up. The tree was already badly damaged, especially in the crown, and if only one nest remained unpicked, I would have hundreds of worms to deal with by early summer. Since I have another spruce about 50 feet from this one from which I've already removed a handful of cocoons, I decided to destroy the damaged tree in an attempt to arrest the spread of the bagworms.

Even though I felt my options were severely limited, the decision was still hard. I considered the tree an exemplary specimen of its genus, and enjoyed watching it grow larger each year. The image above from December 2013 shows the beauty of both the tree and the snow, in my opinion. Ironically, there were obviously bagworm cocoons in the tree when this picture was taken, since the worms showed up just a few months later. That winter was also the coldest we've had here in recent memory, which doesn't offer much hope that cold weather might kill off the bagworms.

I vaguely recall seeing a few cocoons on this tree in 2013, but they didn't excite enough curiosity in me to cause me to investigate. Now that I recognize bagworm cocoons, I won't delay in acting in the future. Hopefully others will learn from my experience and will save their trees before it's too late.

First mowing of 2015

Spring growth was pretty minimal this year until about a week ago. Suddenly, trees are flowering, budding, or leafing out, and the grass is not only green, but long enough to cut. Although the yard could have waited a few more days for the first cutting, the weather on April 18 was well suited to mowing. It was evidently well suited to farming also as farmer neighbors in the two fields adjacent to our property were both out working, one planting corn in the field to the north, and the other performing a second fine tilling operation in preparation for planting in the field to the west. Although I'd seen tilling in other fields in the area earlier in the season, I hadn't noticed much planting until the 18th.

Time will tell how many more times we'll mow before the season is over, and I'm sure I'll tire of the experience at least once before next winter, but for now I'm glad to see green growth again!