Chapter 439. A Father and Some Stupid Horses: A Crash Course on Farming. (4/5)

“Uh, for wheat, which kind of herbicide among those you listed would you normally use?”

“Among the selective ones, you’d typically use a growth regulator herbicide. These are widely used to control broadleaf weeds in grass crops such as wheat. But yuh should be careful and consider the future when choosin which herbicide to use as the one yuh use can affect what crops yuh can plant during yer next crop rotation in that field.”

“Right.” Damn… just from what I heard about herbicides I felt like I was in way over my head.

“Well, I can tell yer feelin overwhelmed by all this talk of herbicides. When yuh still have no idea what yer doing and yer feeling completely lost on what to do, yuh can rely on an agronomist. They specialize in such matters and can advise yuh what product to spray and how much to use.”

“Phew. That’s a relief. Do you have an agronomist who works on your farm?”

Dawn’s father let out a long sigh, “Haaaaaaaaah. Aurelia was quite knowledgeable when it came to these things. I... learned a lot from her when we were still together.”

“Oh… I see…”

“Dawn is also pretty good too, she looks up all sorts of stuff online. That girl’s always readin up on the latest studies in farmin.”

Oh? Dawn really is as knowledgeable as she claimed? How unexpected of that airhead. I was pretty convinced she was just boasting.

Dawn’s father continued to lament as she shook his head regretfully, “It’s a shame she’s awful at putting the things she reads into practice. Haaaah… of all the things she had to inherit from Aurelia, why’d it have to be that?”

“So… I’m assuming insecticides and fungicides are just as complicated as herbicides are, right?”

“Yes, they are. There are good insects yuh actually want around as they benefit yuh and there are bad ones that can eat your crops or carry diseases which will reduce your yield.”

“Among the bad ones some of the more notable ones include the hessian fly, aphids, wireworms, grasshoppers, armyworms, and cereal leaf beetles.”

“The hessian fly infests both winter and spring wheat. One to several larvae may infest an individual plant, but a single larva is sufficient to severely damage or even kill a susceptible wheat plant.”

“There are several species of aphids in wheat fields. Different species have different life cycles. Aphids do little direct damage to wheat plants but can be problematic due to transmission of viruses.”

“Wireworms are the immature larval stage of click beetles, and these beetles can spend several years in this larval stage feeding on germinating seeds and young seedlings, resulting in thin crop stands and lower yields.”

“Most grasshoppers have a single generation per year and overwinter as eggs deposited in soil within pastures, roadsides, and uncultivated areas. Nymphs hatch in the spring and feed and develop through summer, maturing as adults in about thirty to fifty days. Both the nymphs and adults consume wheat foliage.”

“Armyworms are moth caterpillars that vary in color. They can be gray or green with a distinct yellow, white, and brown stripe along the body. The adult is a yellow-brown moth. Moths emerge in spring months and lay eggs on wheat. Larvae develop from these eggs then feed on wheat from May into the summer.”

“Cereal leaf beetles wait out the winter and emerge in the spring, where they can move into winter and then spring wheat. Larvae and adults can do significant damage to crops.”

“There really are a lot of insects to look out for…” I wanted to cry. How do farmers manage? There’s so much crap to be on guard against. Isn’t nature too ruthless? Are farmers actually superheroes? The world is literally out to get them.

“Haha, a lot? Yuh don’t even know the half of it, kid.”

“Uh… about the diseases?”

“There are different types of diseases to be on the lookout for in wheat. Bacterial, fungal, viral, phytoplasmal, and parasitic nematodes. Should I go into details about them all? There’s a lot and we might be here for a few days.”

“No… I’m... good.” I started to sweat profusely. Farming was… terrifying.

“Hahaha.” Dawn’s father chuckled to himself in a good mood.

“I knew farming was hard… but I really didn’t understand the true depth of it.”

“What? Yuh scared now and givin up?”

“No, I just figured I should start reading up a lot more on it now. Putting it off until that day comes and  trying to understand it in a short period of time seems like a pretty bad idea.”

“It is. Yuh should start young. There’s so much to learn when it comes to farming.”

“You need to not only have all the knowledge but know when to put it into practice. After all, timing is critical when applying crop protection products. If applied too soon, it may be ineffective on the issue it’s trying to resolve. If it’s done too late, the damage to the crop will already be done and there will be no saving it.”

“Is that Dawn’s problem?”

“Yeah. That girl’s timing is awful. She’s either too slow to notice the problem or too late to do anything about it. She ends up unable to resolve problems despite knowing how to.”

“That’s pretty unfortunate.”

“It is.”

“Is there anything else important I should know about pesticides?”

“Hmm… I guess that there are usage restrictions.”

“Usage restrictions? Like what exactly?”

“Well, how much time needs to pass before the crop can be harvested after being sprayed.”

“That matters? Can’t it just be washed off after?”

He facepalmed and shook his head looking like he was cringing internally when he heard my question. “Washing off wheat right before you’re about to store it, that’d be the dumbest thing ever. Yuh wanna store it dry. I guess I didn’t explain harvesting yet.”

“First and foremost, crops cannot be harvested when wet. If wet grain is harvested the quality drastically decreases and can make it completely unusable.”

“Oh.”

“To harvest the crops we use a combine like the one sittin over there.” He pointed over to a corner of the barn where a large green vehicle with black rotating blades at the front was located.

“I’ve seen them before, but how do they work exactly?”

“Well, they do a lot more than just cutting down the crop. It separates the seeds from the leaves and stocks, stores the seeds, then disperses the spent stocks and leaves out the back.”

“Where is it storing the seeds exactly?”

“The seeds go into the storage bin of the combine before it’s later offloaded.”

“Uh, it’s offloaded how exactly?”

“You see that long arm attached to the side of the combine?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s called an auger. It sucks the seeds up out of the storage bin and disperses them into a grain buggy or wagon attached to a tractor. That’s how we offload it.”

“I see. Hey, what are those used for?”

“That one’s a row planter, the other is a seed drill. Which one yuh use depends on the crop yer lookin to plant. The row planter is better for bigger seeds.”

“Huh? Wait, you don’t plant the seeds one at a time by hand using a shovel and hoe the way you see farmers doing it in anime?” Anime lied to me?

“Boy, are yuh mad! No one in their right mind’s gonna do that! We’re not livin in the stone age anymore! Have yuh really never seen these bein pulled around on a farm before?” His entire body trembled as though he was in physical pain from answering my oblivious question.

His response made me really feel like I was living under a rock.