Several decades ago I was warned by an agronomist about how herbicide weed control might be less effective on certain weeds that exhibited the sunflower effect. Since the leaves of certain weeds would track the sun, they should be sprayed in the middle of the day. This meant when the sun was high in the sky the leaves would sit parallel to ground and the spray from a crop sprayer would cover them with the most coverage for effective control. Spraying these weeds earlier in the day or later in the day meant the leaves may sit perpendicular to the spray and not receive a fatal dose of herbicide to completely kill them. I now know that there is a fancy word for the “sunflower effect.”
About 15 years ago I started planting strips of sunflowers for aesthetic reasons. As a beekeeper I knew that pollinators loved them, as well as almost anyone on the planet. It is hard not to smile when viewing a patch of sunflowers in bloom. The last several years I expanded my plantings to be about 5 acres in about 10 staggered planting dates.
This year in early July I planted soybeans on my 40-acre wheat field immediately after harvest. We ran out of seed with about 5 acres of the field remaining. This was somewhat intentional, so I could finally try planting a larger tract of sunflowers with the hope that maybe this year I could try harvesting them.
It was quite shocking when that field came into bloom. It was a vast sea of yellow that faced the road to the east. The first several days I noticed vehicles stopping to take pictures. One night I posted a video on Facebook where I was lamenting that at sunset all the flowers were facing east, as if they did not track the sun like the sunflower effect I had learned about years earlier. That was when Nancy Kuhajda informed me of the correct term for this phenomenon, heliotropism.
That is the fancy botanical word for plants that follow the sun throughout the day. I now also know that sunflowers automatically reset to the east before sunset, and they will quit tracking the sun and face east full time when they have matured. But by far the most shocking discovery occurred about one week into full bloom. I walked into my sunflowers to study the bees and flowers present and make another video for one of my many whimsical Facebook posts. A lovely aroma enveloped me. I had never experienced that before with my small patches that tended to be linear strips. What else did I learn this year?
Experts recommend you harvest sunflowers at high moisture, 15%-25% and dry them to prevent field losses from harvest shattering and bird predation. Sunflowers need to be 8-10% moisture for safe storage, so a crop dryer is needed. With all my dryers full of corn on November 1, I laid tarps on hayracks and covered them 4” deep with seeds. It only took 5 days in the sun for my 2,000 pounds of sunflower seeds to dry to 10% moisture, with some periodical stirring. My harvest of 2,000 pounds from 5 acres is about 1/8th of the national average yield. My low yield is attributed to my lack of fertilizer application, extremely late planting as a second/double crop, and all the free-loading birds that I arrived every day for my all-you-can-eat buffet. It should be noted that my second crop beans only yielded 28 bushels per acre, about 1/3rd my full season varieties. The soybeans showed great promise until it quit raining in August and September.
My wife, Cora, has been buying flax seed as a supplement for her horse’s feed. A couple months ago she asked if I could grow some flax. My little handheld moisture tester has 28 different crops that can be selected to test for moisture content, including flax, stripe and oil sunflowers. I have used it to test my corn, soybeans, oats, wheat and now sunflowers. I have a feeling that it may be testing flax sometime next year.
Does that mean I have to try planting the remaining 23 crops for the next 23 years? Maybe it is best I do not let her know that tidbit; or there may be no retirement soon for this 60-year-old farmer.
Bird lovers do not fret; I still have 3 patches of sunflowers totaling 5 acres outstanding in the field to feed the birds this winter. If that runs out, I know a guy with another 2,000 pounds in storage.
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