Early Summer year 2

It has been very hot and fairly dry over the last month. Any kind of rain is becoming very important for all crops in the area. From June 1 to July 11, 2012, a total of 4.5" of precipitation was recorded which has been enough to keep everything going so far. There are a lot of worse off areas in Iowa. The extreme high temperatures have taken care of what rain we did receive. On July 7, 2012 I was able to go out and take some more pictures. The grass is continuing to grow, but seems slowed by the lack of adequate moisture. The volunteer grass is also filling in and it will be in competition with the miscanthus until the miscanthus can hopefully grow over it. Much of the good standing miscanthus is chest high (4'-5') which is significantly better than July last year. The grass is at a height comparable to late August of last year.

The sun was beginning to set, but this is the same straight on view that I posted for late spring. the increased growth is obvious.

Average Western Iowa precipitation and Iowa temperatures

 
 From NOAA

On a separate topic, a new rhizome digger was acquired for our test plot. It was an old potato planter that we can use to dig up rhizomes this fall. Looking forward to the testing with this old tool.

Late Spring

This post is a recap for late spring. We had a very warm spring and the grass got to a really good start. I was coming up very fast. The picture below was taken on June 1, 2012. Last year we were able to plant the rhizomes on May 18 and had barely began to emerge at this same time last year. It is quite different from bare ground of last spring. Also it appears that practically all of the planted rhizomes came up this spring. Many plants that were either too small or did not come up last fall have started to sprout this spring which is a very good sign. It is very clear that some rows are doing far better than others. This can be tracked to the variable of boxes that were used for each set of rows. Some boxes had great rhizomes while others did not. It is suspected that this is the cause of low population rows. We will continue to monitor population through the year.

Late spring stand of rhizomes

Soil samples were taken and submitted to Iowa State Soil Analysis Laboratory. The ground was not too dry, but was beginning to dry out in areas. There has been a total of 11" of precipitation from January to June 1, 2012.

A single giant miscanthus plant.

Another group of healthy plants