Experiential Learning Activity #4

1. I opened up the Cauliflower harvest a bit late this year. In subsequent years, the
person taking care of the flagging (harvest) might want to open the cauliflower up
for harvest when the heads are about 6-8 inches wide rather than 10-12 inches
wide. This will give members an extra 2-4 days to harvest and enjoy cauliflower
before they over mature. I guess the bottom line is that when cauliflower starts to
head it does so very quickly.
2. The super sweet corn and ornamental corn tasled at the same time (tasled - when
the corn sends up the large feathery looking male structures on the top of the plant
– it is the structure that holds the pollen that will fertilize the corn cob). When
different types (ornamental, sweet, super sweet, etc…) of corn pollinate one
another the result is a poor tasting cob with low sugar content. Thus, in
subsequent years the ornamental corn should be spaced far away from the sweet
corn or not planted at all. Alternatively, varieties of ornamental corn can be
chosen so that there pollination time does not overlap the super sweet varieties.
That’s what I had planned this year, however, the ornamental corn flowered at the
same time as the super sweet corn. My appologies for the poor planning. Anyway,
the problem was solved by removing all of the tasles from the ornamental corn
(thus, the ornamental corn can not pollinate the super sweet corn). Lets hope now
that the super sweet corn pollen does not damage the cobs of the ornamental corn.
3. It turns out that potato tubers grow very quickly. Once they have set their tubers
(at flowering) the tubers double in size every week. Wow.
4. Norland is a very early potato variety. Its tubers, at the moment are double to
triple the size of the Shepody and Russet potato varieties. So we should always
plant Norland potatoes in subsequent years for early harvest.
5. The garlic continues to look sad due to heat stress. One hort club member
suggested that we irrigate the garlic as much as possible to alleviate the heat
stress. This would probably work, however, our irrigation system covers 40-50
feet so all of the neighbouring crops (which don’t necessarily like that much
water) will also get soaked. For this reason, we will not irrigate the garlic to
alleviate heat stress.
6. I was informed that we should back off on the irrigation (particularly the overhead
irrigation system). This is because Saskatoon often gets some heavy rains in
September, therefore, if we over irrigate now we would be building up the water
table and may make the field susceptible to flooding if we get heavy rains in
September. However, we should continue to irrigate our drip irrigated crops.
7. Our watermelon fruit are starting to grow (some are about the size of golf balls or
larger now). Remember from the last experiential learning activity that
watermelon need at least 50 frost free days to mature. So lets keep our fingers
crossed for a late September frost.
8. Our mature pea plants are aphid infested and are suffering from Anthracnose. The
type of aphids on our peas is called pea aphids and come from the neighbouring
caragana bushes. However, these type of aphids prefer peas, so should remain on
our pea plants. The aphids are not a problem now for our mature pea plants
because harvest is just about finished. However, our germinating pea plants are
 aphid infested and may suffer damage. The Product Spinosad can be used on peas
to control aphids. I will leave this up to our field manager to decide whether it is
worth spraying our young peas with this soft product. Our young peas are also
suffering from wire stem/damping off or some fungus of that sort. This fungus
usually grows in hot humid weather like we are getting now. The fungus can be
controlled by a product called NO DAMP. Again, I will leave it up to the field
manager to decide if we should use this very soft product.
9. We planted radish a few weeks ago. We didn’t plant radish in the spring due to
root maggot issues. Root maggots destroy the roots of radish making them
disgusting. However, the root maggots are pupating at the moment so that is why
we planted radish a few weeks ago (i.e. in hope that the radish will escape the root
maggot larvae that would damage their roots). However, once the pupae emerge
they will lay more eggs before fall and form more damaging larvae. Lets hope our
radish harvest is done before that time. That said, radish should be ready for
harvest by late this week or early next week, just keep an eye out for flags in the
back of the field near the corn.
10. Our transplanted lettuce looked great. It grew quick, had little fungal rot and was
extra large at maturity. However, our seeded lettuce grew more slowly, had lots of
fungal rots and started bolting at a small size. I think the rotting issue was due to
tight seed spacing (a result of the seeder machine not us). Thus, we should
probably thin the lettuce that is currently germinating in the back of the field and
we should also thin seeded lettuce in subsequent years unless we are ok with
accepting smaller heads with some rot.
11. Last week I told everyone that one of the hort club members mentioned that they
heard that onions would grow larger if the soil was removed from around there
base. I did some research regarding this matter and found out that this roomer is a
myth. Onions will not get larger as a function of removing soil from around them.
12. I am proud to say that the hort club has stayed on top of the weed control, thus,
making it easy to control subsequent weed growth and harvesting. Great work.
13. We have been using this rolling tool that controls weeds. This tool is easy to use
as long as the weeds are not too tall and as long as the soil is not full of debris.
For this reason, it is important that harvested trash be placed in a pile (which is
near the road this year) rather than on adjacent rows.
14. Enjoy your harvest and have a great week.