The ripper is continuing to work at Whitmore ranch. Getting very deep.

Deep Ripping increases soil drainage by opening up the soil and allowing water to infiltrate at a faster rate. This helps reduce erosion by getting the water away quicker. In other words, it results in soil aeration which helps break down organic matter and provides plant roots with plenty of oxygen.

They don't call it Ripper for nothing..

Yes. Ripper is doing a great job at Whitmore!

He is able to completely bury the shank and slip-plow. So far he has not brought up any hardpan (if he does, then he has to go again and break it up!). Slip plowing also displaces and cracks more soil than ripping (and requires a correspondingly higher energy input of course). 

Check out the pictures!

Ready for harvest, I think..

Yellow cling peaches are considered ripe to pick when there is no green left on the fruit. They should come off the tree with only a slight twist. The fruits found on the top and outside of the tree usually ripen first. Selection of picking dates is as much art as it is science.

Carpenter Irrigation and water usage overview..

While we are researching a new irrigation system for Whitmore ranch (the winning choices emerging are micro-sprinklers and drip), it is worth looking at what we are doing at Carpenter and how much water the orchard uses right now.

The water is pumped from a TID irrigation canal and passes through a filtration system into the low volume sprinkler system.

About 38 acre inches of water per acre are applied to the orchard from April to October averaging one irrigation per week over the 25 week period. 

Irrigations early and late in the season may be less than once per week, while during the summer period the irrigations will exceed once per week. 

Taking a break after a day's work!

Spraying CAN-17 (Calcium Ammonium Nitrate) for the peaches

It's more for adding Nitrogen to the soil although it contains calcium carbonate.

CAN 17 fertilizer contains 8% calcium and 17% nitrogen. The nitrogen is one-third ammonic form and two-thirds nitrate form. This has two advantages:

• Fast acting nitrate form (nitrate-nitrogen) is available immediately to trees. 
• Long lasting ammonic form (ammonium-nitrogen) is held in reserve for later use.

The calcium in CAN 17 is water soluble and readily available to plants. Calcium assists in formation of new cells. If I am not mistaken, calcium also increases fruit quality (bright color, sweetness and shelf life).

Another cool use of CAN:

• Its dissolution in water is endothermic, so it's widely used in instant cold packs.

Not-so-cool use of CAN:

• It's used in explosive making. In fact, it is found in 80% of explosives in North America.

Irrigation problems at Carpenter

PROBLEM: The irrigation station filters were plugging up within a minute or two of being backflushed.  Here is how it works: The system takes in water from irrigation canal, passes it thru a filter to trap debris, and clean water goes out to the orchard floor.
As debris in a filter increases, backflush is initiated. During backflush, the trapped debris which is flushed out.
But here, the filters are clogging within a minute of backflush.

OUR APPROACH: Disassembly of the filter station revealed no obvious problem. The plugging of the filters forced us to irrigate by opening only 2 of the 6 valves for each set instead of the normal 3. This reduced the flow through the filters to 1300 gpm instead of the normal 2100 gpm. 

Of course, the filters could handle the lower flow without a problem. The problem with irrigating this way is that it took 3 days to irrigate instead of only 2. Thus there would be a 50% increase in pumping costs and irrigation labor. 

CALLED IN HELP: We had the representative from the manufacturer (Netafim) out to evaluate the problem. He thought that cleaning the filtering elements (small grooved disks) with strong chlorine would correct the problem. After two tries, It did not. Perhaps, the filter elements had worn down and the resulting "mesh" was too fine for the canal water to pass through. The well water had no problem passing through the filters without causing plugging. 

PURCHASED NEW: Finally last week we purchased new elements and changed them. Went with an 80 mesh set of elements (it had been 120 mesh) which will be plenty small enough to prevent problems in the field and which will last much longer. 

The first irrigation with the new elements has gone very well, I sure hope the problem is corrected.