Frost Seeding

Spring of 2016 got so warm, so fast that I was a little concerned that I would not get a chance to frost seed the Spring Street field.  I really want to get a good stand of clover in this field so it can stay in clover for the Winter of 2016.  We will not plant wheat into it until the Fall of 2017.  Anyhow, I was finally relived when the forecast showed three night with a low of 27 degrees.  The first night turned out to be a bust (no frost), but the second night went down to an honest 29 degrees.  The seeds spreader gave me a bit of trouble but I still managed to the field just after sunrise.  The below picture was taken at 7:16 am on March 20, the Spring equinox of 2016.  I marked the field in 45 foot swaths and ran the spinner at full speed, and the seed sieve at the #2 position.  This left a 10' wide strip on the East side, which I did with a slower spinner (think the #4 setting) but drove faster to keep it from spreading too heavy.  I have calibrated the normal configuration to be 10 mph, 45' wide, #2 sieve opening equals 8 lbs/acre.  This was a 3 acre parcel and I think I hit the numbers very well.  I just hope the seed flew out well side to side.  The electric motor was causing all kinds of trouble and will have to be replaced.

The below pic I shot the day before, when I measured and flagged the field.  The field looks great.

8 Mile Field

Brian offered me a 3 acre soybean field up on 8 mile road to put some more Turkey in.  We used Mike's no-till drill and it went very fast.  This is more of the certified Turkey Red from Ehmke seed company.  Planting date was October 11, 2015, a tad later than I would have liked.  However, as it turned out the weather was mild going into Winter and the wheat got a good strong start.

2015 Spring Street Planting

The 5 acres of clover have been growing well on Spring Street this summer.  To maximize N contribution and reduce headaches, I opted to not try haying any of it and just keep it all on the field.  On September 15, Ron mowed it down with an ordinary brush hog.  This did a nice job.

On September 17 & 18, Ron plowed down the entire field.  We are only going to plant 3 acres in Turkey this Fall, and save the other 2 acres for Marquis Spring.  But it made sense to plow up the entire field now.

We are going to plant the 3 acres in back to Turkey, since this are of the field is slightly lower than the field up by the road.  The idea is to save the driest possible part of the field for planting in Spring, when dry fields are hard to come by.  This area was worked with the disc about 5 days later, and then worked with the cultimulcher twice.

Here you can see how the seed bed looked prior to planting.  The field to the right is the front part that we will seed to Marquis Spring, hopefully in late March of 2016.

On September 25, Ron & Mary drilled in the Turkey Red.  This is certified seed from Ehmke Seed Company, from stock maintained at Kansas State University.

Here is how the planting looked by October 4.  It rained once since planting, but not much.  However, nights have been damp.

Cleaning and Testing

I did the first test of the harvest a day or two after we finished in the field.  The dough was springy and easy to work with.  I think it is a winner!  Can't wait to get a sample to the bakery and hear what the pros think.  I will also bake some loaves as soon as I have time.

It will be another week or two before I can get the harvest cleaned and bagged locally.  In the mean time, I drove out to Hubbleton, WI, with 5 bushels to get some bakery samples cleaned on this Clipper 47 BD.  This is a three screen machine that is not set up for small quantities, but the owner was kind enough to accommodate me.  I had to carry the bags up two ladders to dump the grain into the hopper.

The machine was set up with a 16 round hole scalper, a 14 round hole scalper, and a 1/13 x 1/2 sifting screen.  The grain was cleaned well except for a few unthreshed berries that are sneaking through.  Without a de-bearder, I don't know if all this can be removed.  I would like to try increasing the fan next time to see if some of this will blow out.  The seed cleaner in Racine plans to run the harvest through twice so I am hopeful about getting this last stubborn bit out of the product.

I immediately dropped a sample in the mail to Great Plains Analytic Laboratory.  Can't wait to get the results!!!

All that straw

There was a mountain of straw to deal with after harvest, much more than I expected.  We came back with the baler the same day we finished harvesting and made about 80 bales.  I was anxious to begin so I could get a feel for the scale of the project.  Brian loaned me his hay rake and I actually did the first two passes with my minivan!  Enough to run the baler for an 30 minutes and make 80 bales.  Raking and baling go very fast.  I was never able to get a clean time due to breakdowns (the knotting mechanism failed maybe 4 times today), but with clean running we were making 40 bales in less than 15 minutes I would say.

Here is my view on the wagon.  Straw is easy to stack, so light!  The field was variable and we tried to separate the pure straw bales from the bales with clover, which I want to feed to my animals this winter.  In some patches, the clover was thick and made very nice forage bales.

I got so dirty and sweaty on that wagon!  Ron was very steady running the tractor and baler, and never betrayed a hint of frustration during the breakdowns.  I really enjoyed working with him.

Here is the side of the field where the clover was very thick.  You can see all the clover in the windrows.  I stacked bales from these two rows right into my barn the same day for my goats and donkeys to eat this winter.

Second & Third Day

We went back to work on Thursday, July 23, just waiting until the day was warm and dry enough to get all the moisture evaporated.  The weather was perfect--low 80's, low humidity, and a light breeze.  Now that the field was opened up, I was anxious to get a close look at the knocked down spot.  It actually was filled with very heavy, full heads.  They were well off the ground, and as it turned out we did not have trouble getting it harvested.

It also became apparent that the wheat drilled into the oat ground did not grow as well as the wheat drilled into bean ground.  The difference was subtle, but you can see bigger heads on the bean ground...

versus the oat ground.

I stuck one of the grain aerators into the hopper wagon, which was plugged in when we put it in the shed that night.  Moisture by the end of the day was as low as 12.6%.

The hopper was filled this high by the end of the day.

The day ended unexpectedly when the discharge auger stopped turning.  Ron towed the combine back to the shop with about 6 passes remaining in the field.  Lucky the weather was just perfect and we could take the extra time!

The auger fix was messy but straightforward, and Ron was back in the field by 11:00 am on Friday.  The second hopper was about 1/3 full a couple hours later, and the field was now harvested.  Yeah!

Harvest Begins!

There has been good drying weather the past few days and I tested the moisture level in the field twice yesterday.  The wheat was testing from 14.4% to 16.4%, the dryer test coming later in the day.  As you can see from this pic taken on 7/20, the wheat was drying off well.

So we decided to do a test harvest starting today at 2:00.  Ron got the field broke open and made around 4 passes.  The wheat was threshing well and the wheat was thicker than expected, especially on the bean ground.

My hand tester was showing moisture from 14.4% to above 16%.  This was OK, but a tad higher than I want.  I was hoping the moisture would drop once we finished cutting around the edges where we were picking up a lot of weeds, but it didn't seem to.  I put the dryer tube into the growing pile (so it can be dried in the shed), but also decided that we should stop cutting and try again tomorrow afternoon.  We have a clear forecast until Saturday morning, so it makes sense to let it stand in the sun a little and dry down more.  My friend Brian ran a sample over to the elevator and basically confirmed my readings: 14.4% and a 60.6 test weight.  I was happy to see my hand meter was guessing a tad high, so at least it won't steer me into trouble.  I am using the John Deere SW08120 moisture tester, commonly available on the Internet.