May 6, 2008

Greetings,

Finally some nice planting weather, only to be interrupted by what appears to be a nuisance shower. One more wave to go over, but it appears to be pretty light with a few cracks of thunder. Planting has been going on for some time in the area, but it seemed to get serious Monday. I think it all depended on how many acres a guy had to plant. It was the coldest April in 15 years so I heard on the radio. Soil temps came up during the day but when the ground is froze in the morning it is probably best to wait with the corn if you have time. It will be interesting to see how the corn that has been in the ground for 2 weeks turns out.

We started planting corn Saturday. The ground was still a little wet, but OK to get started. I spent a lot of time adjusting down pressure, height of the residue managers, and switching closing wheels from smooth to poky and back again. The forecast was looking pretty decent so it looked like an opportunity for education. Like, one of the board members told me, you keep adjusting until you refuse to take any more time and just go. The strip till is interesting. Last year I did not put the duals on the tractor when I strip tilled. That was a mistake since it needed the footprint to keep from crabbing. So, the strips wander just enough that the residue managers need to be set more aggressive than needed to keep the row clean when it is not exactly on the strip. However, when the managers are dropped down, it appears the planter follows the the slight variation of the strip. It looks like you are moving more soil then you really are because trash is mixed in. In the soybeans and flax stubble that was strip tilled, I was able to keep the managers pretty much from doing anything. The wheat stubble was a little in between. It appeared that in wetter ground, the smooth closing wheels were the best choice. Today, with the ground a little drier, the poky wheels looked nice. Before today they were leaving the ground in such a way that it looked like it would dry out.

The winter wheat seeded in stubble the 19th of September looks good. However the October 3 seeding into soybeans stubble is looking pretty tough. There appears to be enough of a stand to make cover, and winter wheat is notorious for coming back from the dead and yielding spectacularly so I will keep the the 3 plots and see what happens.

Good luck and be safe!

Kelly Cooper- farm manager

PS-If you are interested in the Districts' old IH 300 tractor click the button below.