Weed Patrol

In early July the field was getting pretty weedy. After a few more days, the weeds were getting to be significantly bad and the field was sprayed before the weeds could do any damage. Below are some pictures several days after spraying. With close inspection, one can see some rows of grass in the weed patch. Note this post is a little dated, these pictures are from early July.  To spray the acre a pesticide mix was made up and applied using a 4-wheeler spray boom. Chemical applied was 2,4-D,  Atrazine, and AMS (ammonium sulfate).

You can sort of see cross rows of the grass among the dying weeds.

another cross row picture, one can see the taller miscanthus grass.

Slow and steady

On July 3rd, I was able to make it out to the farms and have a good look at the miscanthus plot. We were also lucky enough to have Emily Heaton from Iowa State University meet us to have a quick tour. We were able to discuss the plot, growing expectations, equipment & labor, and talk about general practices and shared lessons learned over years of growing miscanthus as well as other research and personal projects. I look forward to sharing our experiences into the future with what works, what doesn't, and how to logistically make a biomass crop really work.

As traditional Iowa farmers, my dad and I can easily look as our new grass plot and say that it looks terrible. The nearby corn is approaching shoulder height, and the grass is far behind other nearby established brome grass.  But this is a new plant, and we have to change our mindsets. Upon closer inspection, there are a lot pf plants coming, and they seem to be doing well.

First view entering the plot. Quite a bit of foxtail in this area, but this is right next to the driveway entrance to the field. Same vantage point as many other previous pictures.

This is at the top of the hill in the middle of the plot. A few really good rows are visible without a lot of weeds around. The tall skinny grass is the miscanthus, everything else are weeds.

 
There needs to be a broad-leaf pesticide application soon, but it really looks like the miscanthus might make it! Emily assured us that the stand of first year rhizome grass looked really good. Her pleasant surprise helped calm our original doubts.

I got a yardstick and took a couple pictures of a few plants. I would guess that about 75% of plants are up, and of them 50% or better look like these plants below with the rest still very small as if they just came out of the ground. It will be better to see again after the broad-leaves are killed off.

25" single plant lots of good looking leaves.

Good sized plant, 4+ separate plants coming out of the same rhizome.

Smaller plant here 10" in height and only a few leaves, this is the general middle range of plants out there at this time

Another good medium sized plant. The terrace grass is in the background.

Growing update

I missed posting a few weeks ago when I took some more pictures of the grass starting to poke through the soil. A week or so after planting temperatures started to climb, and with all the rain we have had, the volunteer foxtail grass started growing. we tried to keep it knocked down by harrowing the ground well until the miscanthus started to come through.
These pictures were all taken June 12, 2011, 25 days after the initial planting.

After all the rain, a pool of water sits in the low spot. This is the view from the field entrance

This is on the back side of the hill. You can see there was quite a bit of erosion that happened from the rain and no soil cover. The stubble that was  harrowed in was still in the top portion of the soil. There was not deep gullies created by the rain.

Here is a grass coming out. very new. This likely just came through in the last day or two.

A little hard to see but this and the two below attempt to row the grass by sight. They are there, but are so small you have to almost know what your looking for, The grass is about 3-6" tall and doming through at the spaced we planted. It look like there is a good percentage of survival rate of the rhizomes. They are just slow to get started.