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.