According to Climate.com. We’ve had 20.3” at our place in St. Louis, and 12.7” up by Mark Twain Lake. So I did exaggerate a little. I think I’m getting a lot more runoff this year because the guy renting my acres up on the farm switched from alfalfa to soy beans. The beans are out, he no tills the ground, so most of what comes down, runs off. The alfalfa wasn’t as generous.
9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep. RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these. I think that's about all I should put in my little pond. Otter attack in 2023
I've inched my way up to about 12.5' now. I really thought I'd have more by now, and was hoping to have more before stocking, but didn't want to miss out on another growing season so I went ahead and put in some BG and RES yesterday so I'd have something besides FHM in it. Most of the FHM from last year's spawns are getting pretty big now and doing great on the Optimal.
Alright Bob! 12.5’ is getting there. This is the wettest spring in a long time. I’m wondering up at my place what the date is when the farmers throw in the towel and just don’t bother to plant anything? I think if they were able to work fields the seeds wouldn’t come up anyway. Just mold in the ground. How about a pic? Glad it’s getting there. Jeff
9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep. RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these. I think that's about all I should put in my little pond. Otter attack in 2023
I’m wondering up at my place what the date is when the farmers throw in the towel and just don’t bother to plant anything? I think if they were able to work fields the seeds wouldn’t come up anyway. Just mold in the ground.
In west central MO the "Prevent Plant" date for corn is May 28th with crop insurance. So if you have bought crop insurance and its been too wet to plant corn by May 28th, you have the option to file a claim. Its not a "get rich" payment, but will keep you from loosing your arse.
How is your water clarity running this spring? IIRC you had Rainman treat it with alum a couple of years ago?
Jeff, it still has a pretty long way to go yet but at least I can't get it all in one picture from the dam anymore. lol! I was talking to a guy last week that said if he couldn't plant soon, he wouldn't be planting at all.
9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep. RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these. I think that's about all I should put in my little pond. Otter attack in 2023
Jeff, I did get some rain last night, about .15" so not much help, but a little. lol! I seen on the news that I have some more chances coming up. I'm still hoping for a big one before the ground dries out, and I can still get good run off. I ordered a bag of Optimal Junior last night to try. Last time I got the Starter #4, which I still have a fair amount of. I plan to throw some of both out and see what they like.
Now they say Tuesday for the next chance. The guy farming our place just sprayed roundup to knock down the weeds. He’s planning on planting beans next week. Hoping all the roundup doesn’t end up in my pond.. (Its a big part of my drainage.)
9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep. RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these. I think that's about all I should put in my little pond. Otter attack in 2023
John, no big rains yet, and it's been dropping for over a week now.. I got a small one last night, that didn't help much, but better than nothing. I'm getting a bigger one tonight, not sure how much I'm getting yet. It rained hard for 20 minutes or so, at around 7pm, and has been raining off and on since. I hope it will be big enough to help.
We had 2” in St Louis, and it came down in about 5 minutes. Crazy weather. I hope you got some good runoff from it.
I’ve had 3” up at the farm since our renter sprayed round up on the weeds, so he could get beans in. Pretty sure a fair amount of the roundup is in our pond. Going up this weekend to see what’s happened. I can’t imagine they’ll be planting anything up there, and more rain forecasted for Sat and Sun..
9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep. RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these. I think that's about all I should put in my little pond. Otter attack in 2023
Jeff, I only got about 1.12" last night. I didn't get much run off, maybe 3". My upper watershed has been drying up for a while now, so it's going to take a big rain or a lot of small ones close together for me to get much run off. For a while it was wet enough that I had a small trickle going in all the time, but never could get a good rain after it got that way,only small ones. It stopped trickling in about a week ago. Maybe one of these days. Lol!
Bob, as much rain as your area has been getting, your pond really should be full by now. It should not take a huge flood to fill a pond.
Something must be wrong with the area of your watershed.
I only have about 1.5 acres of watershed for two 1/4 acre ponds, and the leaky one has been full six times since late 2015, and the other one about 10 times. Mine is only about 3:1 on watershed, and no major problems. My watershed consists mostly of tall grassy hayfields and a little bit of brushy areas.
John, I think I have a few things working against me. For one, I almost never seem to get as much rain as most in my area. The only thing I can think of with that, is the area I'm in is known for being very hilly with very tall steep hills, and I'm thinking maybe it causes some kind of turbulence that makes the rain go around me. Wells are 600'+ in my area. As for my watershed, most of it is thick woods with very thick under growth. I'm still waiting for my guy to come out and work on it so I can get better run off. Then every time it comes up to a new level, it soaks up a lot of water (or looses it) before it starts holding better, and right now it seems to be taking longer about it than it was. I'm sure if it would hold as tight as a drum, without soaking up so much first, it would be full by now.
John, some good examples are late last night-early morning I got about .75" of rain. On the news this morning, they said areas around 10 miles or so away got 1"-3". Tuesday night I got about 1.12" and less than 20 miles from me got 2". We've had a lot of rain in the area, put it has been mostly spotty, at least for me.lol!
My pond was slow filling also. I ended up putting a dry dam in the next draw over and running an 8" pipe over to the pond. Basically doubled my watershed and filled in 6 months.
Roundy, I don't have any areas I could do that. The only thing like that, that I could do is try to pump from my old silted in pond that is only 2'-3' deep when full, but I'd have to pump about 400' up an over a 50' or so high hill. Access is poor so it wouldn't be easy. It doesn't hold a lot so I would probably need to be able to pump it pretty fast while it's raining to get much out of it. I will probably have to wait till we move onto the property to bother trying it. Another thing I worry about doing that, is pumping bad things over from the old pond, it already has a lot of duckweed in it. On another note, I have about a 1 1/2" baby painted turtle that showed up in the pond a few days ago.
Bob, We get the same thing; bypassed by rains, likely due to a ridge to the south and west that rises about 750 feet above our valley. We still receive enough rain to fill the ponds, even though it's frequently less than surrounding areas, especially south of that ridge.
Here in central MO we have had an unbelievable abundance of rain, the new pond I built I figured would be a couple years getting full, it just started collecting water in mid Feb and is about 6 ft from being full, with about an 8 to 1 ratio in drainage acres to acre of water, Ive got well over 20 ft of water in it now.
All the really good ideas I've ever had came to me while I was milking a cow.
Gehajake,I see them talking on the news about all the rain out your way. I don't think I've got more than 1.5" in 24 hours all year. If you bump it up to about 30 hours or so, I might of got close to 2". I don't think I've got more than 2" or so in 48 hours all year.
I checked records. In the past year, we have received 11 rains of one inch or more. Only one 24 hour rainfall was over two inches, at 2.28 inches. Most were simply "grass growing rains", with no runoff. Yet, my new 1/4 acre pond has stayed mostly full or near full, with approximately a 2:1 watershed.
Our total for the year is 50.81 inches at my station, but the average rain was small.
Year to date numbers, according to climate dot com. St. Louis = 24.5”, our place up by Center MO 17.5”. It was running 2:1 with St Louis getting twice as much, but the farm has been catching up. My water is the brownest it’s ever been, except when it was filled.
9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep. RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these. I think that's about all I should put in my little pond. Otter attack in 2023