Today's Features

Taylorsville Elementary School Principal Chuck Abell, right, presents a $25 prize to Kaylee Smith who won a poster contest at the school. The presentation was made April 29 during the school’s olympic-style opening ceremony for state testing.

The wettest April on record and historic flooding have kept the majority of Kentucky producers out of fields, delaying planting across the state and prompting producers to consider switching some areas from corn to soybeans.
According to the Kentucky Weekly Crop and Weather report, 17 percent of the state’s corn crop was planted as of May 1. This is a great deal behind 2010, which had 82 percent of planting completed at this time, and less than the five-year average of 59 percent.

The rules on amending the soil have changed over the years.  Part of the change relates to the fact that good soil is hard to come by in newly developed subdivisions where enormous earth moving equipment is used to level trees and land.  This equipment not only removes the valuable topsoil, it also compacts subsoil and kills the living organisms that make up a healthy soil system.  The less we disturb the soil the better, but for many,   some sort of amendment is necessary in order to improve tilth, drainage and nutrition.