2000 Calories: Part Two (Limiting Factors)

Short story

Farmer Eugene Verde (also known as Farmer Green Jeans) was dismayed to find himself agreeing to let his nephew (actually his wife's nephew) work around the farm.

Eric Cephalus was not the clearest thinking of individuals, in fact, he was down-right fuzzy-headed on his very best days.

So Farmer Verde put his mind in gear and finally came up with a task that Eric could not screw up. He simply needed to hitch up the trailer and drive down to the elevator and buy some soybeans (on credit) and haul them back to the farm. Once back to the farm, he needed to unload them into the bin.

Calling the eager-but-inept young man over to the trailer, Farmer Verde pointed at the flat-bed trailer and then at a pile of tongue-and-groove lumber.

"That trailer is 10' long by 5' across. Those boards are six inches across and there are 8, 10' long boards there."

"I need to have you make some sides for the trailer out of those boards, go to the elevator and buy some beans. Then bring them back here and unload them into that bin right there" Verde said, pointing to the bin.

No way Eric could screw it up.

"Here is a tool-box. Keys are in the ignition of the truck and a box of nails in in the bed of the truck."

***Six hours later***

Farmer Verde looked in the bin and there were only five bushels of beans in it. He had expected more than that.

Then, looking at his on-line account at the elevator, he saw that Fuzzyhead had put 200 bushels of beans on his account that morning.

Something wasn't adding up!

Catching up with Fuzzyhead, who was chatting with his girlfriend on his phone, Verde asked "What happened?"

Fuzzyhead was more than happy to give an account for himself. He had done himself proud!

"I know gas is expensive, so I knew that I had to build the sides of the trailer up really high."

Verde nodded.

"So I made the first side five feet high..."

Verde frowned. This was not going the way he expected.

"...and I seen that I might be a bit short of lumber, so I built the other side two feet high..."

Verde's frown deepened. He was doing the math in his head.

"...and I seen that the pile of lumber was shrinking mighty fast so I made the front end 12" high..."

Five times ten plus two times ten is seventy, leaving one, ten foot length. Cut in half and run across the front of the trailer that left....eighty minus seventy minus 10...

"Lemme guess" Farmer Verde interjected "you didn't have any left for the back."

Soybeans are shaped like ball-bearings

"Dang, Aunt Winifred said you were good with numbers. You see what happened in your head without me having to tell you" Fuzzy said with admiration in his voice.

Farmer Verde felt a headache coming on.

"So tell me why you ordered 200 bushels at the elevator" Farmer Verde commanded. He was afraid that he knew what he was going to hear.

"Well, I done some math. The bed of the trailer is 5' by 10' so that is fifty square feet. Fifty square feet by five feet deep is 250 cubic feet. A bushel is 1.25 cubic feet so that means the trailer can hold two-hunnert bushel" Fuzzy said with pride in his voice.

"Lemme guess, your girlfriend helped you figure that out" Verde said, the slightest bits of sarcasm seeping through his words.

"She mighta helped a little bit" Fuzzy admitted.

Oddly enough, Fuzzy does not work for Farmer Verde any more.

End of story

***

For the sake of convenience, I am going to sort potential limiting factors on the basis of time. Specifically, I will call one group Hours, another group Weeks and the third group Decades.

Hours time-horizon

Fruit growers have a saying, "Sunlight makes sugar".

That six hours of shade from the tree on the perimeter of your growing area can never be regained. That six hours is gone forever.

Exposure to moving air dries the morning dew and during the night the mixing effect reduces the risk of a killing frost. Moving air reduces disease pressure.

Weeks time-horizon

A lack of water does not happen in the blink of an eye. It develops over days or weeks. Lack of water can be exacerbated by sandy soil, or shallow soil above rock or pavement. Lack of water is also exacerbated by high planting density and weeds.

Urine patches on a perennial ryegrass pasture three weeks after cows were removed

Lack of fixed nitrogen impacts growth in the "weeks" time horizon.

One limiting factor that rarely gets talked about is "management". Think back to the last time you passed a work crew repairing pavement. It is likely that only half of the crew was actually working effectively. As Chief Executive Officer of your enterprise you will be juggling running chainsaws and many of your decisions will be suboptimal.

Decades time horizon

Soil nutrients other than nitrogen fall into the decades category. In most cases, the nutrients will not be leaving the farm quickly enough to be much of an issue unless you live on the side of a hill where soil erosion can happen quickly. The only other case I can think of is selling hay. Shipping 10 tons of dry matter off-farm every year leaves a mark.

Summary

The potential limiting factors that fall into the Hours category are usually easy to remedy. It might take a chainsaw or pruning snips or relocating your primary growing area but then the problem is fixed.

The potential limiting factors that I list in the Decades will not sneak up on you very quickly. Once you have them under control you can safely ignore them for a while.

The huge leverage involves the three items listed in the Weeks category: Water, Nitrogen and Management. Full-court-press those items every moment your team is on the court and you will be on your way to a good harvest every year.

2000 Calories: Water