Curry Farms

Along my journey I met the Curry family who reside near Rayville, Louisiana. Mr. Bentley and his delightful wife Sandy open their home to their community each year. They have lived on this farm for most of their lives and have created a wonderland. You should see how beautiful it is!

There are pumpkin patches in their backyard. Also, they farm Christmas trees!! They invite friends, family, and community members to come and celebrate the fall season. People come from many miles away to gather a Halloween pumpkin and an authentic tree for their home.

There are goats, donkeys, chickens, and other critters roaming around. They love attention, and food of course. When I become a home owner later in life I hope to have several acres and lots of wildlife to share my afternoons with.



Last but not least there is a huge catfish pond! Perfect resource for a fish fry or relaxing on the dock. Their home is also open for birthday parties and carnival get-togethers! I just had to share these pictures because I had such a good time exploring. If you'd like more information about Curry Farms, please visit   http://www.curryfarms.net/CURRY_FARMS/HOME.html

Happy Monday!

Rice Field Days

So that's me in a rice field near Stuttgart, Arkansas last week. I was there for a rice field day put on by the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station. People from all parts of the community gathered at the Grand Prairie Center for free give-aways, informational booths, provided lunch, and rice plot tours. It was really a great networking event! Throughout the summer I have realized how important it is to reach out to anyone and everyone around you. If you're on a plane you should definitely introduce yourself to the person next to you - you never know who you are sitting by!!

Above is a rice plot. We talked about different rice varieties; which ones prosper in a range of temperatures, which ones battle disease well, which ones support high yields, etc.

Rice is a crop that is flooded - we actually want standing water (which is a disaster for most other crops). The piled up dirt surrounding the plots are called levees. They support the water and guide it along with gravity from the highest point in a field to the lowest point.

The leaves pictured above feature a disease called sheath blight. If this disease takes over the crop, a grower would be facing yield loss of up to 25% or greater! Not only do dollar signs raise a red flag, but the quality of the rice is also compromised after facing disease.

I'm sure glad there are chemical corporations out there to safely protect our food, right? ;)



Cotton was king!

Cotton was once king of the south, but that has changed throughout the years. Cotton is like a small child; it requires constant upkeep, tender care, and is expensive. Cost per acre can easily exceed $500 along the growing season. While I was in Arkansas I learned that just two short years ago, total cotton acres for the state was approximately 518,000. Today, Arkansas features about 350,000 acres. There are cotton gins across the south with worry on their face.

www.cotton.org states, "U.S. textile mills have spun almost 5 million bales of cotton on average for the past 3 years (2006-2008). That's enough cotton to make over 1 billion pairs of jeans."

I cannot stress how important cotton is. "One bale of cotton can make 1,217 men's T-shirts or 313,600 $100 bills." The crop is also responsible for the creation of an immense amount of biofuels. The United States historically exports about half our cotton to other countries around the world - imagine the money that brings into our economy!

Cotton has several growth stages. I am learning about them as we prepare for cotton defoliation season. Defoliation means taking all the leaves off the plant so that the cotton can be cleanly and easily harvested at maximum yields.

As you can see the flower blooms white, then turns red, and a cotton boll is revealed. The boll opens up over time and gives us mature cotton. Cotton can take anywhere from 130 - 160 days to complete this process.

Above is a picture of a boll weevil. "The boll weevil is the primary insect enemy of cotton. An adult is ¼ to ½ inch long, appearing tan to dark brown or gray in color, has a hard humpback-shaped shell and the characteristic snout accounting for about ¼ of its length. This pest has plagued U.S. cotton producers since 1892. It can complete an entire lifecycle in three weeks, lay 200 eggs per female–each in a separate cotton square or boll, ensuring the destruction of each–and spread rapidly, covering 40 to 160 miles per year. (www.cotton.org)"

Knowledge is power, folks!