|
|
Post by blackthumbmary on Apr 12, 2010 20:49:34 GMT -5
I am planting over an acre of corn and wondering what the best way to water all that corn??? Right now-aside from rain, it is me and a garden hose! Is a drip irrigation system necessary for corn? For that matter is any sort of supplemental watering needed in this region? I don't see any of the local farmers-including the guy who leases our land-using any sort of visible irrigation system...but they all raise corn for feed or ethanol. I live in Southern Indiana and am growing OP (mostly Heirloom) sweet corn on clay soil. I don't need complete perfection in my crop since I am only growing for my husband and me (not growing to sell). Just an aside - I like the idea of growing corn that is suited to this area and therefore does not require exhaustive measures (of natural resources) to sustain it. I am growing Hookers, Triple Play, Buhl..and maybe, time permitting, some Ames 1850 "Aunt Mary's Sweet" (courtesy of Grunt). So in regards to watering, I am trying to find a happy medium between supplementing my corn as needed without going overboard. All ideas welcomed  |
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 13, 2010 1:07:29 GMT -5
My farm is in the great basin desert. The general
rule for me is that fall seeded crops (spinach,
lettuce, radish, onion) will grow fine with
the snow-melt stored in the ground, and the spring
rains. By the end of June anything (any vegetable)
that is not irrigated has croaked.
Starting in mid May
I irrigate with rainbirds rising 2 feet from a 4" main.
One sprinkler every 40 feet with a sprinkler on a hose
at the end of the line to catch the edge of the field.
My turn is 12 hours once a week, though most
weeks I might only use 6-8 hours.
It works great on the corn as long as I set the
pipe about 6 feet away from the edge of the
patch. I read someone on the list writing that they
plant corn (a few) inches apart... I thought it was
a typo, and I still can't believe that corn planted
that close would ever produce a cob. I thin to
something like 12" to 18" apart in rows spaced
36" apart (slightly wider than my tiller.) Last year
I didn't get one patch of corn thinned so spacing
was closer to 6" or 9". The plants suffered from lack
of water for much of the summer even though I
gave them more water than the other patches to
try to compensate for the crowding.
(I cover every other drop-slot on my seeder and
it still plants too thickly.)
When I gardened in Ohio and Missouri I didn't irrigate.
A huge difference between here and there is that in the
East the humidity rolls across the landscape, suppressing
evaporation and transpiration. Here in the desert
super low humidity winds sweep in off the sand and suck
away every speck of available moisture.
I prefer gardening in clay over gardening in sand. The
sand is easier to till, weed, and harvest, but the clay
sure holds onto the water and nutrients.
And for what it's worth, I prefer gardening in the desert...
No f... mosquitoes.
Regards,
Joseph
|
|
|
|
Post by happyskunk on Apr 13, 2010 1:56:12 GMT -5
This will be my first year growing corn except for some strawberry popcorn I grew about 20 years ago. I'm really worried about watering. The soil surface seems to dry out really fast here and when summer hits it may not rain till October. I'm planning on doing something like the zuni waffle style but with circles about 8' wide instead of squares. I'll plant the corn 8-12" apart in groups of 30-40. After the corn grows up a bit I will weed, mulch with leaves, and plant beans/soybeans around the corn. I will also plant a few squash plants at the edges of the circles. In between the circles I will plant clover and flowers, sunflowers on the borders. I'm going to mix up all sorts of varieties. I will flood the circles when the plants look like they need water. Should be interesting to see what happens.
|
|
|
|
Post by mnjrutherford on Apr 13, 2010 6:00:44 GMT -5
Joseph, I SO hear you about the mosquitos! We have to be VERY careful with standing water around here for just that reason. We have a tiny creek on one side of the property, fortunately, there are enough birds and other animals that eat the larvae and that prevents it from being really bad in our immediate area. Regarding corn spacing... I was very skeptical about this myself. But for here in NC, its very important to grow densely. The corn needs it's "buddies" for support. After a hard wind, you'll find the corn laying down in the field. If it were not for all the "friends", it would bend over far enough that it would snap at the base. With the dense plantings, it lays partially down, then in a couple days it's arrow straight again. It's amazing. Happy, we tried the native "waffle" method several years ago and it didn't work for us at all. However, I think you have a MUCH superior plan thought out so I'm really hoping to see that you attain a much better success than we did. I look forward to hearing about the progress! Mary, Corn is pretty tough stuff from what I'm observing. Alan is a big time corn grower and I think you will get the best watering advice from him for your particular area. We don't really need to water a whole lot here. I have no clue about Indiana however. Corn is an interesting crop. The first couple years we planted, we were nervous and timid about it and only planted a few dozen stalks. Last year we planted 11 rows about 100' long each. We ate NOTHING but corn, morning, noon, and night, for several weeks. We saved some for seed but put NONE of it by for later in the year.  We are REALLY ready for our corn again this year and THIS year, we WILL put some by for later! ;D |
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 13, 2010 12:34:27 GMT -5
But for here in NC, its very important to grow densely. The corn needs it's "buddies" for support. After a hard wind, you'll find the corn laying down in the field. If it were not for all the "friends", it would bend over far enough that it would snap at the base. With the dense plantings, it lays partially down, then in a couple days it's arrow straight again. It's amazing. I rented a new field this year. The owner says that the wind howls down off the mountain and lays corn flat. I've never grown before in an area with so much wind. I figure that I'll do what my great-grandpa used to do with his corn. Dig a furrow in the garden, plant the corn in the bottom of the furrow, and then when it gets up tall enough, hill up the corn. I also plan to put the rows diagonal across the field so that the wind can blow through the rows rather than across them. (It sure messes with my training and cultural expectation that rows need to be exactly parallel with the edge of the field.) I'll try a dense planting as well... Regards, Joseph |
|
|
|
Post by mnjrutherford on Apr 13, 2010 13:27:22 GMT -5
I also plan to put the rows diagonal across the field so that the wind can blow through the rows rather than across them. (It sure messes with my training and cultural expectation that rows need to be exactly parallel with the edge of the field.) I'll try a dense planting as well... Regards, Joseph Good luck with those plans! I'm interested in hearing how it end up after harvest. We do the trenches as well, but not so much. Maybe will give that a shot also. I hope you'll forgive me for laughing at your comment regarding diagonal rows. It would absolutely kill me to do that! Why? Cause I'm just plain anal and just thinking about it is making me crazy!  Last year I let might hair down, got all wild and excited, and did one plot horizontal rather than vertical. Everything failed and I'm just certain it was because it was "different".  |
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 13, 2010 14:01:06 GMT -5
I hope you'll forgive me for laughing at your comment regarding diagonal rows. It would absolutely kill me to do that! Ha! Ha! One of my gardens is 163 feet wide on one end and 148 wide on the other. Good thing for rows of squash and pumpkins that can hide the missing 15 feet. It's not like I am growing a show garden or anything... I'm just planting row crops, but Oh, My Gosh!!!! Ooops, I almost fibbed... Last year I planted a couple of rows of corn along the road for a bit of privacy while working... This year, I decided that the place closest to the road will be devoted to tomatoes, a show garden if you will to draw people in. (But only a few hundred tomatoes close to the gate, the rest of the field is utilitarian.) And I guess that the single row of flowers that I plant along the fence next to the landlady's window are just for show. Maybe not, cause a happy landlord makes for happier farming. Regards, Joseph |
|
|
|
Post by mnjrutherford on Apr 13, 2010 18:45:16 GMT -5
One of my gardens is 163 feet wide on one end and 148 wide on the other. Good thing for rows of squash and pumpkins that can hide the missing 15 feet. ACK!!!! A RHOMBOID PLOT?!?!?! ::laughing:: You are a FAR braver man than I.  hmmm... well... You know what I mean! ;D Yep, I made my husband pretty nutty when we first got here, marking of the larger side of our property into perfectly square little grids that were then subdivided into perfectly square little plots... It was a true adventure in geometry particularly since we had not yet realized that the land has a sort of valley that runs through it and all our perfect little squares were not so perfect. I think that at some point Mike was flat out lying about some of the measurements just so I would let him go and do something else. Maybe that's why we had 11 and a half rows of corn last year... hmmmm... |
|
|
|
Post by mnjrutherford on Apr 13, 2010 18:48:47 GMT -5
Is a drip irrigation system necessary for corn? For that matter is any sort of supplemental watering needed in this region? IF you should discover that it would be prudent to have a watering system and IF it's large enough that you DO want to put in a small irrigation system, let me know and I'll put you in touch with the folks who sold us our stuff. We have a tiny orchard that we drip irrigate and we got everything we needed for about 5 years (including typical repair type stuff) for right around $100. Completely worth it from my point of view. OH, and it was mailed! That cost about $25... |
|
|
|
Post by blackthumbmary on Apr 13, 2010 22:54:04 GMT -5
Rutherford - I would LOVE to get the contact info for the drip irrigation - that is a fantastic price. If we don't end up using it for corn, we will use it for a future orchard that we are planning. You are right in that Alan can give me the best advice about my local watering needs. Your diagonal planting scheme sounds interesting since we do get some high winds around here. My brother-in-law lost quite a bit of his Golden Bantam last year due to wind damage. My problem is that I can barely handle planting in straight rows...see the end of this post... Joseph -thanks for the great advice about watering....as well as reminding me about some of better attributes of clay soil. I need to be reminded of them after weeding and re-tilling it...not fun  Happyskunk - good luck on your corn project, Maybe we can form a 'new corn growers support group'. Veteran growers welcome of course LOL. All this talk about corn field shapes and row layout is both interesting and entertaining. I am doing the standard 4 row blocks 10-12 feet long blah blah. The only problem is that some of my rows are a little .um...crooked at points. Not severely so but you can see where I went off course now that my initial planting has sprouted (yes I planted some Hooker's corn early...April 2nd). Let us just say that I can barely handle planting simple square blocks of rows.... |
|
|
|
Post by mnjrutherford on Apr 14, 2010 5:40:14 GMT -5
Straight rows are why God gave us chalk lines. I know carpenters think they are supposed to use them for building, but for "Anal Annies" like myself, they are just wonderful.... don't watch me on a day when I have to bring out the triangle to make sure each seed is perfectly spaced. <---- certified [INSANE] I'll have to dig that name up for you. Shouldn't be to deep, I think it's on the tape roll... Bug me if you don't have it by this evening, OK? |
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 14, 2010 16:38:53 GMT -5
don't watch me on a day when I have to bring out the triangle to make sure each seed is perfectly spaced. I drew measurement marks on my hoe... Saves me from taking a triangle or measuring tape out to the garden. Regards, Joseph |
|
|
|
Post by mnjrutherford on Apr 14, 2010 18:30:58 GMT -5
I drew measurement marks on my hoe... Saves me from taking a triangle or measuring tape out to the garden. ::roaring with laughter:: TOO perfect! I will have to do the same! Of course there are dibbles... but you never know, they could be made by floozies and the guages could be off by micrometers! |
|
|
|
Post by grunt on Apr 14, 2010 23:28:50 GMT -5
Mary: I use drip irrigation for everything here, with the exception of one section of lawn (and that may change). I use microtubing (spaghetti tubing) that delivers up to 2 GPH at ~ 5 lbs pressure. The company is www.submatic.com/. Used in beds it looks like this  . For use in the orchard or the pathways between all of my beds, I cut the emitter tubing to about 2" long, and lay the hoses every 6' to 8'. since I don't crop the grass in the orchard very short, I can mow right over the lines, even the day after I place them. By the end of the summer, the hoses are almost invisible, and in absolutely no danger of being picked up by the mower. Jo: Make your own dibble stick    This particular dibble stick is almost 30 years old. Modified to add: The microtubing is ~ $45 for 1000' of 2 GPH (Hiflow) tubing. You can use the cheapest hoses you can find for the feeder line and end caps (not necessary for orchard watering), and make your own punch with a nail and a block of wood  |
|
|
|
Post by mnjrutherford on Apr 15, 2010 7:31:20 GMT -5
;D ;D ;D Dan, I do believe that you have just proven that us anal types rock the world! Only a homemade dibble can be guaranteed "Floozy Free"! I'm gonna have to get Mike onto this one, especially for really tiny seed like brassicas and carrots. Thank you so much!
|
|
We are REALLY ready for our corn again this year and THIS year, we WILL put some by for later! ;D
Last year I let might hair down, got all wild and excited, and did one plot horizontal rather than vertical. Everything failed and I'm just certain it was because it was "different". 
hmmm... well... 
