Progress!

We haven't had a rain since Feb 8 so the grains are simply hanging out. Between Feb 5 and 8 we received 8 inches of rain that permeated the fluffy, loamy, freshly-disced ground. After the rains, the soil settled into stretches of shallow hills and valleys made by the disc furrows.  The broadcast grains fell into the grooves such that they're lined up, which might be convenient for harrow weeding later on.

They've grown rapidly. As of Feb 14, 10 days after planting, these are the stats:

Rye - root length: 3 cm sprout height: 3 cm

Red fife - root length: 4 cm  sprout height: 4 cm

Sonora - root length: 1 cm sprout height: 1 cm

Triple IV - root length: 2 cm sprout height: 1-2 cm

Some days Sonora seems to be in the lead, then red fife will sprint to the fore. Place your wagers on what'll reach 8 cm the fastest!

This is the progression for Triple IV between Feb 10 and 14:

Feb 10

Feb 11

Feb 13

Feb 14

It seems that during this period the clusters are growing the fastest. This may be attributed to the surface level ability to retain soil moisture from the rain. It'll be interesting to see how this changes overtime. Will they continue to support each other, compete for moisture, or what.

Sonora - Feb 13

I'm trying to figure out what to track.  So far I've got: weather, average root depth, average sprout height, soil moisture, ambient temperature, soil temperature, time of day. Any suggestions?

I take a 10x10 square and go to a random point in the field and place it over a random area. I count how many seeds there are, how many have germinated, how many haven't, how many weeds.

As of Feb 16, these are the average numbers for each plot (two sample areas for each type):

Variety - # of weeds, germinated seed, ungerminated seed

Rye - 7, 7, 4

Sonora - 5, 22, 4

Red Fife - 4, 20, 1

Triple IV - 5, 28, 1

The areas with highest germination are:

Rye - 10, 13, 8

Sonora - 4, 23, 5

Red Fife - 6 ,26, 2

Triple IV - 7, 39, 1

Of course, these numbers aren't perfect because they don't account for how many seeds were devoured by ravens.  I come out to find hundreds of them in the field everyday.  They don't respond to me when I walk out, but they start flying when I dance to Mariah Carey's "Fantasy". I've stationed a proxy for me in perma-dance position.