Quarterback U

So the Altoona Mirror published this article about determining which college program could claim the title of "Quarterback U." They figured the best way to figure out the tendency of a school to turn out great QBs was to look total starts a college's alumni have had in the NFL (1966-Present.) The results are quite interesting. I have summarized the important data as follows:

Number of NFL games started by alumni quarterbacks:

1. Purdue 704

2. Washington 617

3. Miami, Fla. 577

4. Notre Dame 574

5. Stanford 567

6. Alabama 495

7. UCLA 482

8. USC 463

9. Oregon 438

10. Michigan 428

11. Maryland 402

12. California 381

13. BYU 373

14. Arizona State 358

15. Washington State 333

16. Illinois 284

17. Pittsburgh 271

18. Southern Mississippi 270

19. San Jose State 265

20. Boston College 259

21. Georgia 254

22. N.C. State 250

23. Kansas State 249

24. Penn State 241

25. Tennessee 235

Big XII Games (QBs)

1. K-State 249 (4)

2. KU 190 (3)

3. Colorado 95 (2)

4. Nebraska 79 (6)

5. Iowa State 52 (4)

6. Texas Tech 47 (1)

7. Baylor 45 (5)

8. Texas 44 (2)

9. Mizzou 18 (3)

10. Texas A&M 16 (3)

11. OSU 14 (1)

12. OU 0 (0)

The complete Big XII list:

BAYLOR (5)

Cody Carlson 19

Don Trull 15

Buddy Humphrey 5

Cotton Davidson 4

Brad Goebel 2

COLORADO (2)

Kordell Stewart 87

Koy Detmer 8

IOWA STATE (4)

David Archer 23

Sage Rosenfels 12

Seneca Wallace 12

Tim Van Galder 5

KANSAS (3)

John Hadl 135

Bobby Douglass 53

Frank Seurer 2

KANSAS STATE (4)

Steve Grogan 135

Lynn Dickey 111

Dennis Morrison 2

Dan Manucci 1

MISSOURI (3)

Brad Smith 13

Steve Pisarkiewicz 4

Gary Lane 1

NEBRASKA (6)

Vince Ferragamo 53

Jerry Tagge 12

Bruce Mathison 9

Dennis Claridge 3

David Humm 1

Terry Luck 1

OKLAHOMA STATE (1)

Rusty Hilger 14

TEXAS (2)

Vince Young 29

Chris Simms 15

TEXAS A&M (3)

Ed Hargett 7

Gary Kubiak 5

Bucky Richardson 4

TEXAS TECH (1)

Billy Joe Tolliver 47

Of course, these numbers are subject to change.

Cause and Effect.

So the soil around the sprinkler tracks where I disked in January warmed up faster this spring, resulting in faster germination and emergence of the corn I planted. Here are some photos from throughout the spring and summer:





It of course became the most pronounced during pollination.
The slow emergence under no-till is what a lot of people don't like about it (And so they practice strip-till) but this year, at least, I was glad to see the rest of the corn lag behind those strips. The corn in those strips pollinated with high temperatures between 100-105 F (that's bad.) The rest of the field pollinated a few days later with highs between 85-90 F (that's good.)

A Blog Post So Incredible It Took Three(3) Months to Finish.

Apparently I have an enemy who has access to jointed goatgrass (Aegilops cylindrica) seed, cause I had plenty on the eastern edge of my wheat field at the Gray Havens.
This is the kind of stuff that gets seed lots rejected, so I don't want any to wind up in my combine, and I want to prevent as much goatgrass seed from being produced as I can.

This plant has yet to pollinate, so I would be able to prevent any viable seed by spraying it with glyphosate(Roundup).

This plant, however, is at about 50% anthesis, meaning that about 1/2 of the seeds have already pollinated.
This means that I can't prevent viable seeds by spraying glyphosate (as glyphosate is a relatively slow acting chemical.) The only options I have left then, are to either spray with paraquat (Gramaxone, which kills things in a manner of hours) or to mow. This should prevent about 80% more of the seeds than spraying with glyphosate would.
Since the last thing I am going to do (quite possibly literally) is use paraquat in a hand sprayer, the only option left was to mow.

Mowing has the added benefit of cutting of any heads off below what i would cut with the combine (assuming nothing bad were to happen to the wheat before harvest.)

Of course, to do a good job I had to take out some wheat too. I also will leave another foot or two on the edge when I cut it (this is how badly I want to avoid any goatgrass seed contaminating my combine.)

Why is goatgrass so bad, you ask? Well it is a very close relative of wheat, so it can't be controlled in most wheat varieties chemically (the exception being "clearfield wheat varieties with a genetic tolerance to certain herbicides.)
Also, it will actually cross with wheat to create a wheat jointgrass hybrid. What does that look like? Well, as you can see from my neighbors field, pretty mush exactly what you think it would look like:


It looks like this is a problem I will have to deal with every year at the Gray Havens, judging from the healthy Jointed Goatgrass population in the ditch across the road: