Trego's Mountain Ear

"Serving North Lincoln County"

Category: A Science for Everyone

  • What is a Farm

    What is a Farm

    A dozen years ago, I wrote “What is a Farm” and now I have one.

    The bottom line that defines a farm is production.  “The current definition, first used for the 1974 census, is any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were produced and sold, or normally would have been sold, during the census year. (1992 Census of Agriculture).”  It’s kind of fun to be able to quote myself, and find that the commentary is still accurate 12 years later.

    This July, I harvested 275 little round bales of grass hay, and stored them in the log shed.  I figure if I sell them at $4 each, the place makes the minimum to be a farm.  Logically, that makes me a farmer, for the first time in my life.  I remember seeing a neighbor in Ag Hall when I worked for Extension – and commenting to Todd that he was the first farmer I had seen in that building . . . to be fair, I hadn’t worked in Ag Hall all that long.  Now that I’m a farmer I do have to sell those cute little bales to actually qualify.

    Since I’ve already done the research, I can help others determine if they also qualify: “The definition also makes it easy to be a “small farmer”: if a family has a couple dozen hens and eats organic eggs from its own free-range chickens, the family probably produces enough to be living on a farm. Similarly, a two-Holstein-steer feedlot with all purchased feed can meet the definition of a farm. Obviously, a large hog confinement facility is a farm, even if it lacks plows and fields.” 

    This table shows how the government’s definition of a farm has changed over time:

  • Alumni Magazines

    As a young man, MSU’s alumni magazine occasionally brought information about classmates, but was by and large an irrelevant publication.  Adding a couple more degrees brought more alumni magazines – and the deaths column became something I watch more.  Not sure why – perhaps to make sure I’m not there.

    Today, STATE listed Jeeta Kant and Bob Mendelsohn.  I met Jeeta when she was unable to get into the sociology Master’s program, and couldn’t understand why her 35 year-old bachelors in Soc didn’t punch all the buttons – she had good grades, but lacked the research.  A colleague in geography looked at the books she had done on Hutterite colonies, and in 2008 she completed her MS in geography on the topic.  After that, she worked on a research project in the civil engineering department, on edible and usable plants on the Pine Ridge, completing her Ph.D. in 2013, at the age of 66.  She spent a few years as a postdoc researcher before retiring.  Jeeta didn’t have a conventional academic career, but she did show that age isn’t an insurmountable handicap, and combining a research career with social security isn’t impossible.  

    Bob Mendelsohn’s specialty was deviance – and it always struck me as a bit strange that our deviance prof was the closest to the norm.  I mean, the guy was married to his high school girlfriend, from 1967 until he went away this May.  He retired in 2008, and spent several hours telling me of his return to studying his Judaism.  He was challenged by the thought of giving up deli ham sandwiches – hopefully keeping kosher came easier as he moved to the east coast.  I’ll remember a Jewish researcher who loved the green and red decorations, and the music of Christmas.  Totally different upbringings – but a good friend who left the world a better place for having been here.

  • The Weatherman Said

    It looks like we’re into some near record or even record breaking high temperatures.  Kalispell’s record high was 105 degrees back in 1961.  I probably handled that by heading into the creek.  Still, that’s fairly gentle, compared to Glendive in 1893, or Medicine Lake in 1937 – both of which saw 117 degrees. 

    As I look at the predictions for the next few days, my mind goes back to the concept of growing degree days, and then to the temperature limits on plant growth.  Corn, for example, doesn’t grow unless the temperature is at least 50 degrees, and anything over 86 is wasted.  Today’s heat isn’t much help for the sweet corn in the garden.  Wheat, as I recall handles temperatures up to 90 – but there isn’t much good to be said about 100+ degree weather for crops or people.  Alfalfa doesn’t notice the temperature until it tops 104.  (All of this is from memory, and the last time I taught the class was 35 years ago – I don’t believe that I’ve lost it since then, but checking the numbers won’t hurt my feelings)

    The excess temperature has the spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce and similar leafy greens bolting – going into seed production early.  I’m not sure how the early heat is going to affect the tomatoes and peppers this early in their growth.

    Still, I’ve been through the hottest day Montana could offer – I was manning a target so we could tie in two separate benchmarks on two separate mountains . . . the kind of job a monkey with passable radio discipline could handle.  I’d figured on waiting for the radio call to shift the target, then napping in the shade.  When I got to the only shade available, I saw a rattlesnake slide into a crack in the boulder I had planned to use as a back rest.  It was a shady, smooth boulder – and if I had gotten there 5 minutes later, I would have probably got the nap.  Instead, I stood in the sunlight.  There’s a word for fear of snakes.

  • Low Carb Potatoes

    As the garden becomes better established, I’m researching low carbohydrate potatoes.  I like potatoes, but part of surviving cancer included type II diabetes.  It isn’t a big deal – but potatoes and apples are high in carbohydrates, carbohydrates convert to sugar, and I have the ability to find the low carb varieties.  If I can’t buy them in the stores, I can grow them in the garden.

    Spud Smart and Potato Grower both have articles on the new varieties of potatoes that are low carb. The Spud Smart article starts with

    Potandon Produce unveiled its first low-carbohydrate potato Oct. 19 during the Produce Marketing Association’s Fresh Summit convention in New Orleans. The Idaho Falls-based company boasts its CarbSmart potato has 55 percent fewer carbohydrates than rice or pasta.”

    Boise isn’t that far away, Idaho produces a lot of potatoes, and I have hopes of being able to find their CarbSmart potato in the grocery store.

    Potato Grower describes a world where many different low carb potatoes are available – though it’s a long drive to get Lotato in the Netherlands or New Zealand.  Still, the Sunlite variety is listed as available in supermarkets ranging from Florida to Minnesota – and the drive is getting shorter. 

    Montana State University has developed a variety named “Huckleberry Gold.”  For a change, it is easier to find data online from the seed potato sellers than from the university.  The common description is “MSU researchers have found that Huckleberry Gold has a low glycemic index. This variety does not cause a rapid spike in blood sugar like most starchy foods. Great potato for diabetics!

    It appears to need a slightly longer growing season than Trego offers – more suited to Eureka or Rexford.  Still, there are ways to work around this – a dark cold frame to warm the soil early and protect from late frost will help me.  I can mix a bit of sand into my silty clay to come up with a small plot closer to a loam and better suited for potatoes.  I am looking forward to raising potatoes that do not spike my blood sugar.

    Huckleberry Gold produces round to oval small to medium sized tubers with purple skin and yellow flesh. Resistant to common scab and verticillium wilt.”

    Irish Eyes Garden Seeds

    “Researchers in the Sands’ Research Lab at MSU’s Plant Science Department have found low glycemic index potatoes that do not cause the rapid spike in blood sugar that comes with eating starchy foods. Sugar spikes can be dangerous for diabetics who lack the insulin to handle it and have been linked to cancer, heart disease and other conditions.”

    Ag Update

  • Welcome Back Carter

    It’s time to watch the Consumer Price Index again.  The CPI is published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics(BLS) and the recent release shows an inflation level that hasn’t been seen since Obama was a president.

    “The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.6 percent in May on a seasonally adjusted basis after rising 0.8 percent in April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 5.0 percent before seasonal adjustment; this was the largest 12-month increase since a 5.4-percent increase for the period ending August 2008.”

    Well, the inflation rate isn’t up to where it was in the Carter years – but it looks to me like the BLS website is going to be worth watching.

  • Climate Change-A Matter of Perspective

    Perspective makes a difference on most things. By training, my temporal perspective is, at the least, the last 20,000 years. As I greet the morning, I see a meadow where just over a century ago there was a lake. I have seen photographs of that lake – a vestige of the glacial lakes that were scattered across northwest Montana. There is some solid evidence off the California coast that until about 18,000 years ago, when the Ice Age began warming, sea level was about 600 feet lower than it is today. Estimates show that another couple-hundred feet of sea level rise is stored on land surfaces such as Greenland and the Antarctic.

    I’d be more concerned about the water rising if I didn’t live at 3,100 feet elevation. The highest point in Florida is 345 feet above sea level. The high point in Washington DC is 410 feet above sea level. Glaciers have been where I live. Global cooling and ice holds more significance to me. My perspective would be different if I lived in Florida, or DC, or Paramaribo. Surplus elevation staves off the threat of rising seas.

    I reside just a little south of the 49th parallel. As June approaches, I have just finished mowing the lawn for the second time. The last frost (hopefully the last frost) was about a week ago. If global warming extends my short growing season, my garden becomes more productive. It’s a matter of perspective – two weeks more growing season would be nice here . . . but might not be so beneficial in northern New Mexico or southern Colorado. There is a different view as the latitude increases or decreases.

    Geologists tell me that there have been five major ice-ages, one where the glaciers reached the equator. Each precedes our modern, technical culture – which suggests that climate change has occurred without human causation. The question becomes how much of the change is due to “natural” events and how much is human caused? There is a difference between a 20,000 year perspective and a 200 year perspective. The world view is different from sea level in Washington DC than from 3,100 ft above sea level on the western edge of the Rocky Mountains.

    An agricultural perspective shows that longer growing seasons would produce more crops in Canada and Russia. Construction in our southern states shows that it is cheaper to cool our buildings than to heat them. Climate change is not a simple equation, there are advantages to warming as well as disadvantages – and it’s relevance to our lives depends on where we live.