Spring Inspection

Brian & I checked on the Raymond field this morning.  It is weedy as expected, but the wheat is growing!  The red clover has taken but we are both thinking we will need to plow the field down pretty soon after harvest to put a check on the weeds.

Here is Ron's field on Spring Street.  It looks fantastic!  It's growing very strong and except for the edges there are no weeds, period.

For comparison here is what the growth looked like on May 2, 15 days ago.

Close up of the Spring Street field.  There are no weeds but also not that much clover.  We'll see if it catches up.

Here are some representative plants I pulled from the two fields.  The plants on the left are from the Spring Street field.

Spring Growth

The field on Spring Street is coming up very clean and strong.  I can see a few clover plants coming up but it's still too early to get a feeling for how successful the frost seeding was.  Overall, the field looks as strong as conventional wheat in nearby fields.

The Raymond field, predictably, is spottier.  We are transitioning this field to production and the first year will probably not be the best.  But it will definitely produce something.

Frost seeding

Both fields were seeded to medium red clover on the morning of Sunday March 22. This seed is broadcast over the existing wheat that was planted last Fall. I did not take any pictures since there was such a rush to get off the fields before the frost came out. The night was not as cold as forecast. In retrospect there may have been better days in the next week. 

The seeding was done with a broadcast seeder mounted on an ordinary atv. Target speed was 8 mph on the number two setting. The Raymond field was done in 45 foot passes and the mount pleasant field at 50 foot passes. The wind was picking up and it was probably not very accurate. 

Field check

There were a couple of sunny days above freezing this week and there was the slightest hint of growth in the plantings.

The Spring Street field

The Raymond field

Raymond Field up!

There are signs of life at the new field in Raymond. Germination looks good despite fairly cold conditions and not much rain.

Meanwhile the Spring St field is coming along great!

First planting up!

It's been two weeks since the field in Mount Pleasant was planted, and the crop is germinating very well.

Just an emerald green hue at a distance, but it's there!

Raymond Field

A second field became available in the town of Raymond and I was able to obtain enough seed to plant it.  This 6 acre field is in a beautiful setting, but it was covered in annual weeds, some grasses, and dozens of small trees.  This field has not been farmed in 3 years, and has not had any fertilizers or chemicals on it for 10 years.  Here is how it looked before we began.

This is the view from the seat of the tractor during the first pass of discing.  We began using a 15' disc pulled by a John Deere 3010, which was just barely enough power.  I did most of the field work while Brian was busy harvesting soybeans in nearby fields.

After 3-4 passes of the disc, the field still had a lot of trash but looked a lot better. This is the appearance of the field on October 12, after 2 days of work.  By then we had switched to a 130 hp International 1086 to pull the disc.  We did not get it planted in time before a rain event of around 2" came.

We resumed work on October 22, by which time the field was still wet, but workable.  We brought the John Deere 4020 with loader bucket into the field to remove a large rock.  Many, many smaller rocks and trees were removed by hand.  The field was worked with one pass of the disc...

...followed by one pass of the digger/drag.  The trash was just barely cut up enough to be dragged.  There were a few places where the trash was still clogging the digger, but Brian could see it happen and take steps to clear the implement.  After digging the field looked very good.

We began the next day with drilling!  The seeder was a no-till type and Brian drilled the field in about an hour.  The target drilling rate was 100 lbs/acre, which on this machine turned out to be notch 23 on the right on notch 24 on the left.   Depth was around 1".  The no-till machine packs the soil tightly and the surface of the field is completely different than the field in Mount Pleasant.

Here is how the field looks up close after the no-till planter has sliced and closed the seed furrows. 

The Raymond field after planting on October 23.  It rained about .1" that evening.