Friday, April 8, 2011

In Need of Rainy Days

I spent two years over in Orange County from 2008-2010 serving in a split 4-H and Ag position with Purdue Extension. Now, during that time, in a county known mainly for woodlands and cattle grazing, contacting farmers was not too difficult. Everything was put on hold to cut hay, but everyone tended to have a slightly different schedule for cutting hay. Only a handful of farmers had enough tillable acres to really be off-the-grid during planting season. Gibson County is nothing like Orange County. Anhydrous tanks are on the move, sprayers are burning down weeds, and I cannot really contact ANYONE unless precipitation is actively falling. Allow me to amend that last statement: I feel awful attempting to contact ANYONE when this much is happening around the county. Farmers are some of the more outgoing, cordial folks around. Very few will intentionally skip or screen a phone call. Which compounds the sense of guilt I feel by asking them to take time out of their day to discuss plans for researchers to scope out their fields. Important business, but none-too-urgent when knives full of anhydrous are going into the ground. So, this is a great time of year to wait for rain while building a newsletter email list. For updates on Gibson County and surrounding area agricultural and natural resource news, send an email to hschmitz@purdue.edu. Newsletters start going out in May.

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