Pea Maturity

[farmaholic]

Our peas hung on amazingly well given the amount of moisture(not a lack of) received. Is anyone seeing natural senescence of their pea crop. Ours have been in since about April 28. Yellow patches are beginning to appear.... at least patches through-out the field never turned brown first like it did some other years.

We are using Diquat as the desiccant. Hope I can stay out of the field until the timing is right... starting to get anxious. Hope to get them before they decide to lay down!!! Probably the best "looking" pea crop we've ever grown. Greens... hope the premium over yellows returns. There are some fields in the district that aren't doing very good.

[tweety]

+1 on the greens premium.

Don't spray Reglone too early. Green plants will have the leaves burnt off and will take forever to ripen. Plus you then can't spray roundup.

[sumdumguy]

How are you going to retain the colour if you desiccate?

[farmaholic]

sdg....it's worked very well for us in the past.....usually have no trouble "making the grade". Of course we always need a bit of help, actually full co-operation, from Mama Nature. We don't like when the swaths blow around or get blown into piles as big and dense as soft core round bales.

They are probably always a #1 but everyone only buys them priced at two or "better"....wink wink.... so I "accept" it! LOL...

[tweety]

Sumdum, color is only lost mostly to rain and lots of sun. You want to minimize the time between almost ripe and binning. Reglone is super fast and Reglone Ion now is even faster - assuming the crop is even and senescence has occured on most plants.

[sumdumguy]

Has anyone tried Dessicash?

[JDGreen]

Use dessicash all the time. Same shitty result as reglone ion if canopy is thick.

[tweety]

Perhaps spraying too early JDGreen? It must be senesced or it will not work not matter the canopy. If its green a few cells explode but with water available surrounding cells repair damage and continue to grow.

[4GFarms]

We sprayed glyphosate last year and it took awhile for some big thistles to dry down. We have some sow thistle this year to control so probably just go with gly or gly/heat. We let ours get pretty ripe last year and it worked but will. Depend on how the forecast looks. How long do you guys leave your peas to ripen before spraying??

[farmaholic]

I think I used to spray a little too early, waiting for more major color change this time. Going early on greens is forgiving but I assume going too early on yellows intended for edibles would be bad.