July 14, 2015 – Medstead Update

Since the last post, conditions in Medstead have become much more favorable!  In the past couple days the area has gotten an inch and 6/10’s of rain, supplying the greatly needed moisture. Currently the crop is in 40-50% bloom. When pictures were taken from the air and also from the ground no visual differences were observed.

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Looking across the site. Image captured on July 13th, 2015.

Just for curiosities sake, two random plants were pulled from the field: one from the treated and one from the untreated. Between the two plants there were some differences…

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The sample from one of the boron treated strips is on the left and the untreated on the right.

The untreated had more vibrant colored flowers and was not as progressed in staging as the treated. The treated, though more progressed in flowering, did not have the size of pods that the untreated had. Bear in mind that this was simply two random plants that were taken and do not offer significant observations for the field as a whole. On the next visit to the site more plants will be looked at individually between the treated and untreated to see if when they are singled out there are more differences observed.