D&V Organics CSA
Week 7
Summer is offically here and so are the summer-like temperatures. With little plants going out into the fields weekly, we have been rushing around to ensure their survival by promptly setting up irrigation and running it around the clock. Full-size plants require a lot of water and our smallest seedlings require less, but have less developed root systems, which makes it hard for them to reach water, so the timeliness of our irrigation to ensure the root zone stays damp is of utmost importance. Our farm's soils are incredibly sandy, which has its benefits, but holding water is one of its weaknesses. Over the years we have tried many strategies to grow our crops with optimal irrigation, but the nature of our farm's soils has its challenges. On our farm, we utilize a lot of drip irrigation that comes in large 7,500 foot spools, laid underground with implements attached to the tractor. The drip tape does just the thing its name implies, allows a slow drip of water to escape at a specific rate through a small emitter, spaced appropriately for the plants. With the temperatures being so hot and the sun shining bright, evaporative water loss is of concern on soil that is exposed, much like in this week's picture of our 2024 potato crop. For most of our crops, we use a plastic mulch, some black, green, white or reflective (different colors have various objectives), which acts as a weed barrier, but also prevents evaporative loss, and enhances moisture retention, maximizing water use. Our potatoes are not grown in a bed with plastic mulch. For the potatoes, we want to hill the plants to protect the potatoes from the greening effects of the sun, but also harvest them mechanically with a tractor operated harvester. But irrigating the potatoes most efficiently becomes more difficult. With a little thoughtful ingenuity, we designed a machine that installs drip tape below the ground, and works quite well for potatoes. We still have a level of evaporative loss, but the drip tape sits just below the rows of potato plants, allowing slow drips of water to the potatoes growing around it.
Enjoy,
Derek and Crew
