Cow Peas Not Preparatory For Corn
Categories:
Grains and Forage Crops
What time of the year can cow peas be planted, and can the entire crop
be plowed under in time for planting field corn?
Cowpeas are very subject to frost. They are really beans, and therefore
can be grown in the winter time only in a few practically frostless
places. Wherever frosts are likely to occur they must be planted, like
beans and corn, when the frost danger is over. Field peas, Canadian peas
and
etches are hardy against frost and therefore safer for winter
growth, and treated as you propose they may be preparatory for
corn-growing providing you plow them under soon enough to get a month or
more for decay before planting the corn.
Oats and Rust
Is there any variety of oats that is rust-proof, or any method of
treating oats that will render them rust resistant? We are situated on a
mountain, only about 12 miles from the coast, and have considerable
foggy weather, which most of the farmers here say is the cause of the
rust.
There is no way of treating oats which will prevent smut, if the variety
is liable to it. There is a great difference in the resistance of
different varieties. A few dark-colored oats are practically rust-proof,
and you can get seed of them from the seedsmen in San Francisco and Los
Angeles. Such varieties are chiefly grown on the southern coast. Foggy
weather has much to do with the rust, because it causes atmospheric
moisture which is favorable to the growth of the fungus, which is
usually checked by dry heat, and yet there are atmospheric conditions
occasionally which favor the rust even in the driest parts of the State.
The fog favors rust, but does not cause it. The cause is a fungus, long
ago thoroughly understood and named puccinia graminis.