Well in this short blog, all I have to say is if you have never had irrigation problems of some sort of variation, then you aren’t farming. These past two weeks we have been playing with finding the right amount of PSI to run through our lines and get our sprinklers to work properly. With water flowing down the ditch not being an issue no more, now we need to figure out how to better utilize it. Our pump allows us to set the PSI and move water at that pressure. However, between the pump and our riser heads, the water makes eight 90 degree angles. This is important because it slows down water significantly, especially since we have aluminum pipe running all the way from the pump. What does this all mean you may ask, well in short it means that we lose about 3 to 6 PSI from the pump to the sprinkler heads. So in order to fix it, we need to move our recommended 37 PSI for our sprinklers heads to 40-42 PSI to compensate for the bends and water pressure lost between the pump and the sprinkler risers.

Along with PSI calculation, we had fun working with Mel, Precision Rains pipe expert, and helped him put together old and problematic pipe and make it whole again. We were able to make fifty-dollar pipe into 1,000 after costs for Mel’s labor. The trick though with old pipe is that it tends to split when you go and try to compress pipe inside of it. So instead what we did is we used appropriate amounts of new pipe and spliced it with old pipe and made repairs that way. A good tid-pit that is good to consider that Mel told us, is in order to keep your pipe is good condition and last longer, is in the winter you set the pipe on top of either wood blocks every ten feet or on the pipe trailer to avoid corrosion by soil and weather damage in the off season. Furthermore, it is also good to keep scrap parts and pieces of pipe around, because you never know when it will be useful and you will need a part that you happened to throw out.

Well ladies and gentleman, its been now a little over a week since we had planted the seeds, and look at our field!

Man I can’t believe how big they are getting! With a little help with some rain and good sun light, these seeds have just taken off. However, are perennial seeds are still lagging compared to our annuals and triticale. What we have done though, is we have only been running sets of two, with three lines in one set and two lines in one set to make sure our HRTS on the pump don’t go over, and we have decided to change our sprinkler heads to a R33, maroon 26 plate to eliminate water shadows and get our perennials growing, and to perfect efficiency. All in all, we hope to be seeing our perennials start to grow and see more and more green starting to pop out in our field!

In the spirit of our nations independence day, we have blue and white rain gauges in our field to record how much water we are getting from the sprinklers and we have red and white bird reflect tape on our fiber glass sticks to detour the birds away from eating our seeds we just planted. All of which are important steps to help both the seeds germinate correctly and make sure that there is correct amounts of water being distributed around the field. But above all, its the 4th of July and what better to incorporate our nations colors in our experiment! Cheers!

Last week consisted of some pretty exciting news, we were finally able to seed our plots! However, what was more exciting, for me at least, is I was able to put the seed in the funnel cone of the seeder and drop the seed in their designated spots. For all who haven’t seeded before, let me tell you, it can be a little stressful. But by the end of the day, my co-worker Chris, my professor G, and I had an awesome system worked out. Chris’s job was to drive the tractor strait in the correct plots and make sure we weren’t overlapping with other plots. G’s job was to tell me when to drop the seed in the plots and tell me what seed should be next. As for my job, I was in charge of opening the little bags of seed, putting inoculate on the seeds if needed, put the seeds in the seed cone before the tractor got to the plot, drop the seed into the plots at the correct time, and make sure I was seeding the right plants in the correct order. Talk about stressed, and I mean worse than writing a final paper that is due in the next hour.  Although its difficulty, we were able to seed all our annual and perennial seeds that day and will start the preparation for irrigation! Oh, and I cant forget picture!

Towards the beginning of this week, we had ran into the problem of not having enough water go down the ditch to run the lines we need at all parts of the ranch. This drew concern, because we were seeding this week and needed to irrigate our testing field Friday. So Aj and I’s task was to help Austin and his crew to clear out all debris and  break down anything that was restricting the water flow from coming down stream. While cleaning out the ditch and collecting all kinds of debris, I had a came up with a list of things to note when you are using a ditch to receive your water:

1. It is important to do your “spring cleaning” before you have water in the ditch. This helps, because you start out the season with no bumps before you start needing the water and it allows you to keep up with blockages.

   

2.  If you can, burning the ditch and spraying it before the water comes in is very helpful. This way you have a clean shot to look at the water and be able to identify problems and limits the weeds that can pull from your current.
3. Talk with neighbors that may also use the ditch and build a plan as to how to maintain the ditch better and keep it going for all to enjoy.
4. Listening is your best tool when dealing with ditches. If you hear the sound of water, there is a pretty good chance that there is a blockage somewhere.
5. Maintaining the structure and embankments of the ditch are very important to consider, because if they aren’t maintained, you loose water speed, debris get caught easier, and water flooding are more likely.
6. It’s always good to keep an eye out for what your PSI and the amount of water your pump can take so you know the accurate amount of water you should be pushing down and you don’t go over you water right.

Along with the awesome field trip this week, finishing the final touches and checking the last couple boxes was what consisted of this week as we prepared to start seeding next week. Although we are a few months behind our proposed date, we are getting everything perfect so their is no error for mistake later. Finishing touches included: identifying leaks and holes in the pipes, replacing gaskets, remove pipe off the field, and clean sprinkler heads. In addition to that, I worked on my metal skills and was able help shorten them to 3 feet and buffer the edges. Here at the bottom is only a few of the sparks I was making while cutting them!

After finalizing all the check marks and last touch ups, we spent the last two days marking the field with flags where the plots, alleys, and boarders are. We did this so we knew where the plots started for seeding and to help the tractor say straight as we are driving next week. We used close to 500 flags just to mark the field, ranging from our American flag colors for 4th of July to our own Oregon State Orange. After all the anticipation, stay tune for picture of the seeding extravaganza! But  for now, here’s some pictures of our beautiful colored flags.

I just wanted to take the time and just brag about how awesome Eastern Oregon is! Wednesday I had the opportunity to leave the field and attend the 40th Annual Union CO. Crops and Conservation Tour with my professors and co-worker; and let me tell you, I was blown away by the community support for one another and the developments and improvements each farmer and rancher is trying to achieve for the Eastern Oregon Community. I met some of the greatest people and learned so much about operations around me that I had no idea that existed. To give you a short insight I wanted to hit on some points that really stood out to me and what I had observed.

First off, we stopped and looked at TRICO Farms and observed their malt barley production and research plots. There, a few speakers talked about the project and how they had added the variable of nitrogen amount put in the soil to their research, along with the range of barley selection they were testing. What was really interesting about this stop, is I was able to get an in-site as to what I will be anticipating once our plants are seeded and grow, as well as see what variables can effect plant production. Furthermore, Tom Hutchison, from Gold Rush Malt and Craft Malting, had spoke and expressed his goals and purpose of this company. Tom had mentioned that his goal was to create craft malt that can be sold to smaller firms and local businesses to impact the economy of Eastern Oregon and bring jobs back here.

We had also stopped at Grande Ronde Dairy out side of Union. There’s a dairy in Union you may ask. You aren’t alone. I had asked the same question myself, however this is no ordinary diary, it was a goat dairy! Who knew that there was a local goat dairy a few miles from where I worked! Stephanie Rovey, owner and operator, gave us a tour of her operation, her shipping process, and much more. I even found out that you could buy her goat cheese at our local Safeway here in La Grande. Something I found really unique about Stephanie’s operation is she only has female staff, for the reasons that women could relate more the goats during the birth process and milking phases, as well as 90% women in the United States do the grocery shopping and need to know what they are buying and how their food is processed. I found this so fascinating and thought it was a interesting way of integrate knowledge through the community. I am not much of a goat cheese eater due to allergies, however I heard their cheese was so good and recommended to anyone to try it.

These where only a couple stops that we made throughout the day. We also stopped at Hines Meat Co., Conservation Farm of the Year, and many other window stops to observe plants and forages. But, my favorite part about stopping at all these companies, was the drive by owners to help the local economy and bring more of the things they produce back to the community for everyone to enjoy the local product. Not only that, but how willing and nice the owners and people on the tour were. I asked so many questions during the tour and every time I did I got an ear full, plus some! If you are looking for information about Eastern Oregon production and facilities, or either what farmers and ranchers are doing, I highly recommend attending the Union Co. Crops and Conservation Tour next year. I promise you wont be disappointed!’

Getting up to speed to this week, last week was all about irrigation and water. Our experiment is months behind, which means that we need to make everything perfect that we can control. With that being said, during  the beginning of the week our time was mostly spend cleaning the ditch and increasing our pounds per square inch (PSI). In order to do that, we needed to clear off all blockages and build ups that may restrict water from flowing down stream. To say the least, the picture below was only half of what we pulled out of the ditch during two days.

Towards the end of the week, our time was focused on fixing pipe, getting risers ready, and testing our sprinkler system. An important thing to do when setting up pipe at the beginning of a season is checking and replacing all the gaskets, clear out all the dirt and rocks that animals may have put in the pipe during the winter, and checking sprinkler heads. However, but before we could test the line for these important and crucial steps, we had to first put the ball valve and 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch national pipe tread (NTP) together on the riser. We accomplished this by coating pipe dope in the threads and screwing the NPT to the pipe, which then would connect the ball valve. Once all 163 risers were completed, we then connected our 126 three inch, 40 foot pipe on our test plots. Take a glance at the fun!

Once we had accomplished our important steps and we tested our irrigation, which we ran into some problems. First off, we didn’t have enough Wade gaskets to repair broken ones, so we had to order some that would not be here for another two weeks. Second, we had a bunch of broken pipe that needed repairs, and we only have a new number of pipe to replace them, due to not having gaskets for the Wade pipe. Third, we were having problems with the sprinklers covering all of the plots with water. To say the least, we had to get over some huge barriers. However, we were able to have just the right amount of pipe, we decided to shorten the risers to cover more area of the plots, and we found some spare Wade gaskets to get us all on track. The biggest lesson I have learned is to always be prepared for worst case situations and if you know problems that can happen, try to avoid them!

 

Have you ever wondered what the best way to connect drop line pipe was? Well, it is quite simple. Last week I not only learned how tricky drop line pipe was to connect, but an efficient method as to put it together. When putting together drop line pipe, you have to get at the right angle for the ears to slide over each other. With that being said, you don’t only have to angle it correctly, but sometimes you have to give it a little extra push. May I present to you the “Wiggle Dance” as we refer to it on the field. It does not only help get the pipe in, but creates great entertainment for coworkers, take a look!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6QMIhViuP8MeUthMU9UYmQzY2s