Come along on a ride through the elds of South Gila Valley
Well, it looks like the warm weather is finally getting here. It has really been enjoyable to be out during the past few months. Looking at the farm fields, it is obvious that the crops are changing.
The wheat fields this year are beautiful. The crop is standing tall and level in the fields.
Harvest of wheat will start in mid-may on the earliest planted fields.
The arrival of the red and yellowing blackbirds is also a signal that the wheat is ripening. Yuma grows primarily Durum wheat varieties, which are shipped overseas for pasta production.
Fields of onion seed heads, looking like snowballs, are ripening as well. When the seed is mature in the heads, the stalks are usually hand cut and laid on plastic sheets in the field to dry.
The seed is not held tightly in the onion heads and harvesting directly causes a large loss of seed. Since some of the onion varieties do not produce large amounts of seed, every single one is precious.
Once the heads are dried, a small specialized combine goes down the plastic lined rows and picks up the onion heads. The plastic is then vacuumed for the seeds that shattered out of the heads while drying.
There are still a few vegetable crops being grown, some baby greens and spinach have been put in late in March. There was celery being harvested in Gila Valley this week.
Also in Gila Valley are fields with plastic covering the rows and plants transplanted through the plastic. Many of these are watermelon and cantaloupe fields. A buried drip system is under the plastic for irrigation.
In previous years, keeping the melons dry while flood irrigating was a problem. The melon beds were very tall and the seed planted on the side of the beds on the south side for maximum heat as they were planted in early spring when it was possible to have cold weather. Workers then had to physically walk the fields and turn the vines to keep them on top of the beds so the melons would not get wet during flood irrigation.
Use of drip irrigation has eliminated many of the problems caused by melons developing on wet soil and improved the quality of the crop. It was also easier for the harvesters to walk in the dry furrows to pick the melons. Soil on melons is a food safety concern and taken very seriously.
I saw a few fields of what looked like Sudan grass being irrigated up. Sudan grass is a feed crop that grows to be several feet tall. It has an extensive root system which helps to break up the compaction caused by the growing and harvesting of vegetable crops.
Every vegetable you eat has probably been touched by human hands three or four times before it gets to you. All those feet cause soil compaction along with the farm equipment and harvest aids. The root system of the Sudan crop also creates tunnels in the soil and they grow through the layers of soil. The roots grow 5 to 6 feet deep, and after the Sudan grass is harvested, the roots decay and create passages for air and water deep into the soil. All plants need as much air as they need water, so this is a critical rotation crop.
I also saw several fields of 3- to 4-inch tall cotton. Cotton is another rotation crop with a deeper root system to help improve the soil after the vegetable season. There is really no rest for Yuma County growers. The good thing about the summer crops is that they stay in the ground longer than most of the vegetable crops from planting to harvest.
This allows even the farmers to get away to the mountains or ocean for some R&R before starting back to vegetables in July.