2018 - The Farm

Well, I've been gone a few years from the board, and away from growing peppers, but looks like life is pushing me back that way again. 
 
I recently (last month) closed on a 25 acre farm in Central Illinois with some primo soil, and I'm going to give a commercial grow a test run. 
 

 

 
From up on the roof, when I was doing some roof repairs on the outbuildings. Not much as far as the eye can see, but cornfields...
 

 
 
Has a 4 stall garage and a horse stable on the property
 

 

 

 
Probably do my grow room upstairs here after I insulate it
 

 
Built some doors for the horse barn and patched the roof last month
 

 

 
 
Anyway just dropped a cold grand on seeds from pepperlover and buckeye, going to hit a greenhouse supplier up for other materials next week.
 
Have plans to build a 30x72' greenhouse in the spring, and a ~1200 sq foot dedicated grow room. Too late really to help with this year's grow, but next year it'll save me a lot of hassle on hardening off. 
 
The greenhouse, I am going to do a piped infloor heat slab, with a horizontal loop geothermal system (I own a mini excavator) that is solar powered. So heating should be nice, uniform, not create heat / cold bubbles, and not dry out plants like forced air would. I build circuit boards in my day job, so I will also build a microcontroller to handle the automated watering system with soil moisture monitors and actuated plumbing valves on the water supply.
 
Also plan on building a "deep winter" greenhouse for year round production. Got blueprints I made from a couple of years back, those are walled on three sides with heavy duty insulation, with the glass wall side angled to face winter solstice, so you can grow in the deep freeze months of the north. In the summer, those get hot enough to use as a natural dehydrator, replace the tables with racks for bulk drying.
 
Only doing a half acre or so of peppers to start with this year, the balance will be put in corn. I can't manage more than that with the labor I have available. (When you start talking thousands of plants, simple tasks like up-potting grow in to hundreds or thousands of man hours...)
 
Going to hire some local kids to help, school has a good ag co-op program for high schoolers, they can get school credit working on local farms. Since the plant out and harvest doesn't conflict too badly with corn, shouldn't have a problem finding labor around here.
 
Anyway, that's the plans.
 
We'll see how it goes.. er.. grows.
 

 

[Ethansm]

I'm not too surprised to hear you can keep the peppers alive by increased water and fertilizer when they're hit by dicamba drift. I have a friend that's got an ag science degree explain to me how it worked. If I remember right dicamba is such a strong growth hormone to broad leaf plants it forces the plant to exhaust all nutrients and water from around the base of the plant then suffocates itself. It takes a while for straight dicamba to suffocate the plant so usually these herbicides are mixed with something else to expedite plant death, so the dicamba is the vehicle to force the plant to intake the toxins. Interesting stuff, almost makes you wonder if small doses of pure dicamba and nutrients would make monster plants.

Edit: I'd much rather take an organic route, I'm not going to do this, just interesting to think about haha

 

[Bhuter]

 
Back in 2014 when I got hit I sent pictures to U of I ag lab, and they confirmed it was classical signs of herbicide drift contaminating plants with a growth regulator hormone. The two common ones in use are 2,4-D and dicamba.

Awesome! That's great to know! Now I guess I'll blame the neighbors for last year. Set me back about a month. I dish soaped and neemed to get rid of what I thought were mites. Here's a pic of my Goats weed from last year. I hope you don't mind.

 

[PtMD989]

I would be getting better clarification on the organic rules for treated lumber. They seem kinda vague to me like ,buffer zone ?( how far away do the plants need to be from PT lumber,to be compliant?) What can you wrap the PT lumber with? Plastic? Vinyl? Aluminum? Would paint work?


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[Walchit]

Also it's kind of a "f--- your neighbor" deal when your neighbors spray.
 
THEIR dandelions will die.
 
YOURS will grow MUCH MUCH BIGGER.
 
A little drift will induce massive growth in weeds.
 
I had some weeds under my deck (prickly dandelion things) which normally grow about 1 foot tall, grow over SIX FEET TALL that same year. They were frigging gigantic!
 

My wife came home the other day and our neighbor was in OUR front yard spraying dandelions... not trying to have neighbor problems so I'm gonna let him slide for now.

 

[TrentL]

I'm not too surprised to hear you can keep the peppers alive by increased water and fertilizer when they're hit by dicamba drift. I have a friend that's got an ag science degree explain to me how it worked. If I remember right dicamba is such a strong growth hormone to broad leaf plants it forces the plant to exhaust all nutrients and water from around the base of the plant then suffocates itself. It takes a while for straight dicamba to suffocate the plant so usually these herbicides are mixed with something else to expedite plant death, so the dicamba is the vehicle to force the plant to intake the toxins. Interesting stuff, almost makes you wonder if small doses of pure dicamba and nutrients would make monster plants.

Edit: I'd much rather take an organic route, I'm not going to do this, just interesting to think about haha

 
It does make for some monster plants, if they get a whiff. A lot of the synthetic growth hormones (rooting hormones, etc) are spinoffs or variations of herbicide development.
 
 

Awesome! That's great to know! Now I guess I'll blame the neighbors for last year. Set me back about a month. I dish soaped and neemed to get rid of what I thought were mites. Here's a pic of my Goats weed from last year. I hope you don't mind.

 
That is 100% absolutely 2,4-D herbicide damage. 
 

I would be getting better clarification on the organic rules for treated lumber. They seem kinda vague to me like ,buffer zone ?( how far away do the plants need to be from PT lumber,to be compliant?) What can you wrap the PT lumber with? Plastic? Vinyl? Aluminum? Would paint work?


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I looked and the whole mess started back in 1995 when they banned the use of arsenic / arsenate treated lumber around organic grows. The composition changed (they now use a copper based infusion) but since that is a synthetic compound, they have not and will not approve it for organic use. They also do not allow PAINT to prevent plant contact with the treated lumber.. as PAINT is not an organic listed compound... etc... etc..
 
They don't even allow treated lumber for fence posts for organic livestock production!  Heaven forbid the pigs and cows might rub up against the posts and get contaminated!
 
They have a list of alternative building materials that can be used. Cedar would be my first choice, it's a rot resistant wood that would stand up to direct soil contact for a long time.
 
It's also hellaciously expensive, I priced cedar posts and they were just about $4,000 for the amount I need (72)
 

My wife came home the other day and our neighbor was in OUR front yard spraying dandelions... not trying to have neighbor problems so I'm gonna let him slide for now.

 
Ugh. Be careful with the wind.

 

[TrentL]

All plants going outside today. Going to rent a tiller attachment for my skid loader, do some wire transfers for the soil mixer equipment and 1 acre of ground cover fabric.. try to get some tomatoes in the dirt today.
 
Still figuring out the whole "how to build tomato trellis on a large scale" for now it looks like t-post's and nylon covered wire. 
 
I'm very tired.
 
Plant staging area, they've been hiding here for 2 days from high wind and storms, but we're about to put them all outside. (There's still at least this many up in the grow room too)
 

 

 
 
 
 
 

 

[Bhuter]

Thank you very much, Trent for identifying my plant damage issue! I guess my neighbors sprayed for weeds last year. Now I have to figure out how to not cause a neighbor feud.

Holy moly, you're like the energizer bunny! You've got so much going on and so many great looking plants. I love your professionalism. I'd like to have your ambition. Great stuff!

 

[TrentL]

We only have 4 tables left to go.
 
I need to get these tomatoes in the ground yesterday.
 

 
Ultrahots
 

 
Passive hydro
 

 
That's all that's left upstairs, they're going out for sun today
 

 

[TrentL]

Thank you very much, Trent for identifying my plant damage issue! I guess my neighbors sprayed for weeds last year. Now I have to figure out how to not cause a neighbor feud.

Holy moly, you're like the energizer bunny! You've got so much going on and so many great looking plants. I love your professionalism. I'd like to have your ambition. Great stuff!

 
It's not all happy go lucky. Yesterday I was puking from stress.
 
But, today is a new day, every morning I wake up and try to give it my all.

 

[PtMD989]

That sucks a fat mans ass about PT lumber. Is cedar up to building code for ground contact? How far is their “ buffer zone “ ? What kind of barrier is acceptable?
Hops,have you thought about growing them? There is a big demand from the craft brewers.


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[TrentL]

That sucks a fat mans ass about PT lumber. Is cedar up to building code for ground contact? How far is their “ buffer zone “ ? What kind of barrier is acceptable?
Hops,have you thought about growing them? There is a big demand from the craft brewers.


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That's the catch, any "buffer zone" requirement per USDA guidelines is *subject to the inspector at the time of inspection*. There's no standard guidance for it. It is whatever the inspector decides is appropriate. Any crops within that buffer zone have to be treated as chemical crops, and handled separately from organic. You can't harvest together, you can't store or transport together, and any tools or vehicles or equipment used to harvest "buffer crops" have to be fully sanitized before handling organic goods again. 
 
I won't know until the time of the inspection. The inspector could rule that the entire pasture is invalidated. He could rule that there's 20' buffer, which would mean the first several rows would have to be treated as chemical crops, on the side of the structures.
 
He would *certainly* invalidate the seed plants WITHIN the buildings as there would be unavoidable plant to building contact. 

So we pulled all of the posts.
 
Cedar is a natural wood, so it could be used. Cedar can withstand ground contact for decades before deteriorating to the point it has to be replaced. People have used them as fence posts for ages. 
 
But, it's 4x as expensive as pressure treated, and I already blew my budget on the isolation grow. I'll have to partition off a cold frame house with mesh, instead. No biggie, just gotta change the way I do things.

 

[nmlarson]

Keep your chin up. Know there are more than a few people here pulling for your success.

 

[PtMD989]

Wow, on top of all the money you you spent for applications and such, sounds like maybe the inspectors want to get “ paid” also.
Just my opinion.


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[TrentL]

It's showtime...
 

 

 
 
All I have left up there is some 'maters which we are VERY fragile, tall, and we're bringing them down 1 at a time and only what we can plant.
 
Also, the passive hydroponics table is still up there. Haven't touched them yet. Gotta plant them in the north field, when it's time.
 
The rest of the plants are outside.
 

 

 

 
Speaking of. Some tomatoes hit the dirt today.
 

 
I rented a tiller attachment for my skid loader today. Unconventional farming. No tractor, so .. use what ya got!
 

 

 

 

 
First pod of the year goes to ... Sweet French Bell.
 

 
 

 

[TrentL]

Calm winds tomorrow, neighbor just called to say he is spraying dicamba. Cross fingers. He's adding a droplet thing to the mix which will keep the droplets heavy, spraying low to the soil, and it should help reduce / eliminate mist and drift. Winds are not perfect but favorable; when the wind picks up later in the day it should be blowing away from my plot, so .. hopefully we're good.
 
 

 

[TrentL]

Also I have seen no zig-zag veins develop. I'm not sure what the plants got hit with last weekend. But it doesn't appear to be 2,4-D. They aren't showing symptoms of it. The initial budding up they did is just.. odd. They're growing stupidly fast still. I've never seen chinense set this many flowers on a node before. 
 
Maybe the organic fertilizer is just starting to kick ass and take names? I haven't had to give them anything for nearly 3 weeks now, as far as liquid fertilizer, and they are all as healthy and happy as can be. 
 
No sunburn to speak of, although I've had some wind damage. Plants get a little too dry, too fast, when there was 20-30mph wind for several days in a row. This dries out the leaf tips and with the wind whipping them around, was some moderate damage to the leaves on many of them. We watered some in the AM only to find them bone dry again before we left for the day, had to hit them again. 
 
Anyway, time for a quick TV show and then bed, gotta go make a dent in the planting tomorrow.
 
 

 

[nmlarson]

Wow!  Looks can deceive, I know, but that is some amazing looking earth!  Coming from rock, shale and clay country, I'd be in hog heaven to garden in that!  No wonder you want to go for your certification.

 

[TrentL]

Wow!  Looks can deceive, I know, but that is some amazing looking earth!  Coming from rock, shale and clay country, I'd be in hog heaven to garden in that!  No wonder you want to go for your certification.

 
I've got Silt loam, of various types. Multiple glaciers rolled over this area throughout history, creating the finest dirt on the planet. Each summer the midwest takes the crown for densest plant life on the planet. (Amazon basin has us beat on an all around year round average, but the midwest steals the show every summer).
 
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/uscorn-belt-the-most-productive-region-in-the-world-17265
 

 
My topsoil is ~48" thick in the places I've tested. Below that, is a layer of pottery grade fine brown clay for about 3-4 feet thick. Then below that, the best sand you'd ever look at that wasn't on a beach. Below that, the sand and gravel mahomet aquifer. 
 
Over most of the property the water table is within 1-4 feet of grade. One section of field is at grade - it floods occasionally. I'll have problems growing there. But about 20 acres are absolutely perfect soil composition, drainage, and water availability. 
 
It's expensive dirt - $11,250 an acre for my little patch of 26 acres. It sits at the lower end of "excellent" grade (productivity index 127+ across the field). Some even higher productive fields around here sell for $16-17,000 per acre.
 
 

 

[TrentL]

Ruled out herbicide drift damage. What I started seeing last weekend is still unidentified, but the plants aren't showing the classic signs of 2,4-d exposure. No zig-zag main vein in leaves, etc.


 
They seem to be, overall, doing much better now that they are outside. The chinense species with the big leaves are sunburned (should have hardened them off better - after 2 days out they didn't show any signs of being sunburned, but last night it was obvious they got hit pretty bad), but they're all healthy and growing. Annuums look about perfect.

 
I would think it might be humidity, but then again, the ones that were showing the worst symptoms were the one nearest the air intakes. 
 
So who knows. 
 

 

[TrentL]

Sunburned, wind whipped, ugly Chinense. Whoops.
 

 

 

 
Some more tilling shots from yesterday
 

 

 

 
And the pepper crop waits on ground cover fabric to go out.
 

 

 
I ordered twelve 15'6" x 300' rolls of Dewitt 3.2oz Sunbelt ground cover on Friday, enough to do 55,800 square feet (1.28 acres)
 
http://www.dewittcompany.com/Sunbelt__3.2_nbspOZ__.aspx?productid=63&categoryid=3
 
Cost was $5,119 shipped. 
 
But zero weeds is appealing. Will save that on labor and spray, easily.