Anyway, I did some stuff and some things today. I had to use a different power unit on the pump west of the house this year, and I was having trouble with it running too fast, causing the well to surge a little bit. Basically, it was pumping some air, so the water wasn't coming out steadily. It's not the preferred method. Dad had a stack of pulleys in the barn, so I grabbed one that was an inch bigger than the one that was on the pump. You have to take 4 bolts out and the pulley will come off. Sounds easy, but they fit tight, and this pulley had been on for a long time. Dad has a lot of experience doing pump work, so he helped me pop it off. I found out that that well was drilled in '56.
This is the new pulley we put on. The round thing with the belt on it:
It turns real fast (about 1250 RPM) and brings water up:
It's powered by a Ford 200 engine that runs on propane. Had a load of propane brought out today. There goes another $400:
I think you've all seen pipe and how that works. This pulley, even though it is only an inch larger, has fixed the problem. I didn't have to adjust the speed of the power unit at all. I am a much happier camper.
I took some more crop pictures. The first picture is of a disease that we are getting in our corn this year called Goss's Wilt. It's a bacterial disease that can be caused by hail damage or wind damage, which we had this year. If either of those things strip the leaves, it allows the bacteria to enter the plant. It can rob yield. Not every field has it, as some varieties of corn are more susceptible than others. At this time, there's really not much you can do about it, except rotate crops and try to get rid of the residue, as the disease will live in the residue and carry over to the next crop year. A better explanation can be found here: http://pdc.unl.edu/agriculturecrops/corn/gosswilt
I picked a few ears of corn that were at the bottom end of a field. If the whole field looks like this, I will be grinning from ear to ear:
I pulled a bean plant that was at the bottom end of some sandier ground at home tonight. It was chest high and had 81 pods, which is quite a few. The seven pods that I set aside each had 4 beans in them, which is kind of a big deal. Soybean plants usually only have 3 beans per pod, but there is a push with new genetics to have more 4 bean pods. I don't remember ever really seeing any on any of my beans before. God is good:
Trying to show how big the beans are. They are chest high on me, and I'm about 6'.
Interesting irrigation setup. Do you run a traveling gun with that? Some days it seems all I get done it fight with irrrigation just on 50 acres of corn and 20 of alfalfa.
ReplyDeleteThere aren't many traveling guns around here. There are a few west of here where they grow a lot of produce, but here it is either center pivot or gated pipe. There used to be more guns around here, but they went away for the reason you stated. Dad said they were almost more trouble than they were worth. This year, any irrigation is good irrigation, though.
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