Fertilizer SUCKS!
12 August 2007
Farming SUCKS! Sometimes the pictures look fun and
the idea of being outside every day can
be enticing but don't be fooled, farming SUCKS! Every time I
finish a project there are two more that need to be done. Every
time I fix one thing, two more things break. Every time I need a
sunny day it's raining. Every time I need rain it's sunny!
It doesn't matter if I'm sick or tired or busy, the weeds still grow,
the fence still breaks, the fertilizer still needs spreading and the
coffee still need picking. In an attempt to share all this joy,
here is one of many examples of exactly why FARMING SUCKS!
Spreading fertilizer really SUCKS!
Every year we remove thousands of pounds of
coffee from our coffee trees. That's a good thing because all
those pounds of coffee can be sold. We also prune thousands of
pounds of branches off the trees every year. That's not so good
because we have to spend even more time chipping up all those branches
just to get rid of them, but proper pruning helps keep the trees
healthy and productive. Most of the nutrients contained in the
pruned branches go back into the ground but not all. The nutrients
contained in the coffee we harvest is gone forever. Between the
coffee and the pruning there are a lot of nutrients that need to be
replaced every year. Soil can't sustain that production
forever. Since we want to maintain healthy soil that means we
have to add a lot of fertilizer to make up the difference.
Thousands and thousands of pounds of fertilizer.
To make matters even worse, we live
on a volcano. That means our soil all came from lava rock which
is often acidic. The volcano also produces acid rain. It's
not normally enough acid to be noticeable but over time all that acid
builds up in the soil. Coffee likes slightly acidic soil but only
slightly. To raise the soil's pH we have to add lime.
Thousands and thousands of pounds of lime.
Every year I send soil samples to the university. The soil is
analyzed and a report is generated by learned professors. This
year's report recommends that I add 6000 pounds of lime per acre split
into five applications per year. That's just the lime, the report
also recommends several thousand pounds of fertilizer per acre also
split into in five applications per year. That's 10 times per
year they want me to add lime and fertilizer. I don't know what
professors developed this report but I don't see any of them
volunteering to help.
Applying fertilizer isn't easy. Adding too much fertilizer at
once and you'll shock or burn the trees. Go too long between
fertilizing and you'll stress the trees. Too much rain, the
fertilizer washes away. Too much sun, the fertilizer disappears
into the air. Too close to the trunk and you can burn the
tree. Too far away and the roots can't reach it. And my
personal favorite: add fertilizer and a huge growth of weeds will soon
follow.
Ordering fertilizer is a challenge too. The fertilizer I use
comes in 50 pound bags in powdered or granular form. Granular
fertilizer is much easier to handle and much more effective than
fertilizer straight from the cow. There are only a few places
on the island that sell fertilizer in the types and quantities I
need. Those places are often out and can take weeks or even months
to deliver what I ordered. Fertilizer ain't cheap either.
It currently costs about $15 for a 50 pound bag. I order anywhere
from 40-100 bags at a time, several times per year.
Once the fertilizer arrives, the
driver and I unload it all, one bag at a time, into a huge pile in the
greenhouse (because the fertilizer needs to be stored some place dry
and the barn is usually too crowded). The next challenge is to
get all that fertilizer onto the fields. I've tried several
different methods but always seem to end up doing it by hand.
That means walking up and down each row, carrying a bucket full of
heavy fertilizer and throwing it out one handful at a time.
You may be tempted to think of those little handheld seed spreaders you
can buy at your local nursery for spreading seed and fertilizer across
your lawn. When we first moved here I found one of those things
in a pile of junk under the house. It was an extra large one and
only needed minor repairs so I fixed it up and gave it a try. It
SUCKED! Imagine spinning the little handle and think of how long
it takes to empty one load. Now imagine simply grabbing a handful
at a time and throwing it. If I sat there and spun the little
handle it would take me all day to do one row. It's much faster
to march down the row, throwing out fertilizer just as fast as I can go.
Your next thought might be one of those large push spreaders.
Tried it. It sucked. Far too many rocks, far too many
hills, far too much work. Walking and throwing is still easier.
Ok, how about a fancy electric one that mounts to the ATV? Tried
it. Still sucked. It broke after two bags. I don't
know what the thing was designed for but it certainly wasn't for
spreading fertilizer on a farm. $165 down the drain.
The next step was a larger model that can be pulled behind the diesel
mower. Sucked, sucked, sucked! Again, I don't know what it
was designed for but it certainly doesn't work very well for spreading
fertilizer on a farm. The handle that starts and stops the flow
of fertilizer is impossible to reach while sitting on the mower.
Duh! What kind of a moron designed that?! Luckily my father
was visiting and he found an old piece of aluminum that he used to
fabricate a handle extension. His handle worked great, that's how
it should have been designed in the first place. What my father
couldn't fix was the fact that the spreader is way too top heavy.
With a load full of fertilizer the tiniest little bump will dump the
entire spreader right over. Apparently it's only designed for use
on farms that don't have any bumps. It's also designed for
fertilizer that is teflon coated. Any other fertilizer will get
stuck in the hopper and next thing you know you've driven all the way
down the row without a bit of fertilizer coming out of the SUCKY
SPREADER.
Real farmers use giant PTO spreaders on the three point hitch of their
giant tractors. I wish I could be like a real farmer.
Unfortunately coffee has this annoying tendency for the limbs to bend
over and hang out in the rows. Driving my full-sized tractor down
the rows will rip any of these hanging limbs right off the trees, along
with all their precious coffee. With patience and care I can get
my smaller mower down the rows but getting the full sized tractor down
the row causes so much damage that I only do it when I have to.
So, once again, I am back to spreading fertilizer by hand.
It's not so bad though. It's a little rough on the hands and gets
your clothes, shoes, hands, hair, face and lungs all covered in
fertilizer dust. But it's great exercise! And once you've
spent a few days spreading fertilizer by hand then it's quite nice to
spend a little time behind the computer writing about how much FARMING
SUCKS!
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