One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered Part 34

What would you do with land subject to overflow by the Sacramento when that river rises 20 feet, and which you wanted to plant to barley this season? Would you take a chance on the river rising that high this year, or wait until after that danger was over, and take a chance on not getting enough rain to make the grain come up; also, if the river did come up for 48 hours after the grain was in, but did not wash, would the grain be lost? Should the grain be planted deeper than on ordinary land, and, if so, should a drill be used? How much seed should be sown per acre on good river-bottom soil?

Get the barley in and watch for the overflow rather than to fear it. An overflow for 48 hours would give you the greatest crop you ever saw, unless it should be in a settling basin and the water forced to escape by evaporation. From your description we judge that this is not so and that the land clears itself quickly from an overflow. Depth of sowing depends upon the character and condition of the soil - the lighter and drier the deeper. By all means use a drill if the soil is dry on the surface. Short rainfall makes the advantage of drill seeding most conspicuous. On the University Farm 22 trials gave an average gain of over 10 per cent in yield. The difference would be much greater in a dry year; it might be 25 per cent greater, possibly, and save high-priced seed at the same time, as about 90 pounds of seed per acre will do, instead of 120 pounds broadcast, in accordance with the approved heavy seeding practice on the river lands.

Barley and Alfalfa.

I have some alfalfa which is a poor stand. Can I disc it up heavily and seed in some barley for winter pasture?

You can get barley into your alfalfa as you propose, but you should not seed until fall. The more barley you get into your alfalfa, however, the less alfalfa you will have afterward. If you want to improve your afalfa, keep everything else out of the field and help the plants by regular irrigations during the balance of the growing season.

Beets and Potatoes.

Which is the best for dairy cows, plain red mangels or a cross between these and sugar beets? Can you suggest a more profitable variety of potato than the Oregon Burbank?

If you can get a cross which gives you more tonnage than a mangel and a higher nutritive content you would have something better to grow. The first point you have to determine by growing the two side by side and weighing the product; the nutritive value of each will have to be determined by chemical a.n.a.lysis. Until these determinations are actually made a comparison of desirability is nothing but conjecture. There are several other potatoes which are sometimes more profitable here and there for early crop when grown in an early locality. If you are not in an early locality you are obliged to produce for the main crop, and nothing, to our knowledge, sells as well as the Burbank, if you get a good one.

Beets for Stock.

Will sugar beets grow on black alkali land? How many pounds of seed per acre should be used and when is it time for sowing in the San Joaquin valley? Which kind would be best for cows?

Beets will do more on alkali than some other plants, but too much alkali will knock them out. You must try and see whether you have too much alkali or not. You can sow at various times during the rainy season, for the beets will stand some frost. Sow 8 pounds per acre in drills 2 1/2 to 3 feet apart, so as to use a horse cultivator. For stock you had better grow large stock beets like marigolds or tankards - not sugar beets. It costs too much to get sugar beets out of the ground, because it is their habit to grow small and bury themselves for the sake of the sugar maker, while stock beets grow largely above ground.

Summer Start of Stock Beets.

How can I make Mangel Wurzels grow in hot weather? The land is level and can be irrigated by flooding or ditching between the rows. How often should the water be applied, and which method used? The land is in fine shape; a sandy loam bordering on to heavier land.

Wet the land thoroughly; plow and harrow and drill in the seed in rows about 2 1/2 feet apart. This ought to give moisture enough to start the seed. Cultivate as soon as you can see the rows well. Irrigate in a furrow between the rows about once a month; cultivate after each irrigation.

Corn Growing for Silage.

With fair cultivation, will an acre produce about 10 tons of ensilage without fertilization - it being bottom land? How should it be planted?

- the rows closer together than 3 feet, or should it be planted the usual width between rows, and thick in the rows? If fertilizers were to be used, what kind would you recommend? Would you recommend deep plowing followed by a packer and harrow so as to preserve the moisture?

You ought to be able to get 10 tons of silage per acre from corn grown on good corn land. It can be best grown in rows sufficiently distant for cultivation, closer in the row than would be desirable for corn, and yet not too crowded, because corn for silage should develop good ears and should be cut for silage about the time when the glazing begins to appear. If your land needs fertilization, stable manure or a "complete fertilizer" of the dealers would be the proper thing to use. It would be very desirable to plow corn land deeply the preceding fall, followed by a packer or harrow to settle down the land below, but do not work down fine. Keep the surface stirred from time to time during the winter and put in the crop with the usual cultivation in the spring as soon as the frost danger is over.

Irrigation for Corn.

What amount of water is necessary per acre for the best possible yield of corn under acreage conditions and proper cultivation in the San Joaquin or Sacramento valleys?

No one can answer such a question with anything more than a guess. It depends upon how much rain has fallen the previous winter, how retentive the soil is naturally, and what has been done to help the soil to hold it. Nearly all the corn that is grown is carried without any irrigation at all on moist lowlands, which may be too wet for winter crops. If you demand a guess, make it six acre-inches, with a good surface pulverizing after each run of water in furrows between the rows. This water would be best used in two or three applications.

Eastern Seed Corn for California.

The question has been raised as to Eastern-grown seed corn, comparing it with California-grown seed. Some claim that the former does not yield well the first season.

We cannot give a complete refutation of the impression that Eastern seed corn does not yield well the first season in California. It is a somewhat prevalent impression. All that we can announce now is that we have grown collections of Eastern seed corn and have found the product quite as good as could have been expected, and did not encounter, apparently, the trouble of which you write.

Need of Corn Suckering.

To insure the best crop of corn possible, does it pay to sucker it or not?

The removal of suckers is a matter of local conditions largely in California, and growers are getting out of the habit of suckering. In some places suckering is needed, and in others it apparently does not pay to do so, although with very rare exceptions a larger yield can be secured by suckering than without.

Cow Peas Not Preparatory for Corn.

What time of the year can cow peas be planted, and can the entire crop be plowed under in time for planting field corn?

Cowpeas are very subject to frost. They are really beans, and therefore can be grown in the winter time only in a few practically frostless places. Wherever frosts are likely to occur they must be planted, like beans and corn, when the frost danger is over. Field peas, Canadian peas and vetches are hardy against frost and therefore safer for winter growth, and treated as you propose they may be preparatory for corn-growing providing you plow them under soon enough to get a month or more for decay before planting the corn.