May 26 2009

May 26, 2009

Greetings,

It is hard to believe how badly we needed the 0.32 rain after how wet it has been. I guess it is almost becoming routine that we fight with mud to plant in and than need moisture to soften up the compacted hard soil. Timing seems to be so critical. We used both the concord and 1560 disc drill to seed wheat, which was put in 2 1/2 weeks latter than we have been able to seed the last 3 years. The soil was wet, but with the residue on the surface it helps to keep the 1560 "floating" and also keeps the the drill from mudding up. I was surprised how wet of ground I was able to go through, but then it was not very long stretches. The concorde cutting coulter gave problems but that seemed to get better after the discs got shined up. It ook several scraping operations with a putty knife to get that accomplished. The weather stayed wet and damp, with no amounts of rain more than 0.34 and the spring wheat came up nicely. I was really surprised to see anything come up in some of the wettest spots. Corn seeding went well but was slow. There is a lot of sidewall compaction. I have debated using the spiked closing wheels. I put them on a couple of the row units and this year it looks like they worked. I had been concerned about them drying the soil out. Seeding 2 inches deep will probably help as the seed will be deep enough to stay in moist ground. Seems like there are a lot of opinions on how to manage this issue. It appears that one can match conditions with several various options. For example this year the soil was very wet but the residue seemed cut easy was very dry. I think this had something to do with all the snow. I also noticed the strip till berm pretty much disappeared and the soil was not nice a mellow like it was last year. My best guess there is that the rapid melt from the snow liquefied the worked soil causing the structure to collapse. Other observations were gully's formed in old bean ground with a lot of residue. The wheat stubble seemed to hold. In driving around the area it was not unusual to see gullies that you could not cross with a pickup. In fact, some gullies could not be crossed with tractors.

Just another unusual and challenging year.

Have a good week.

Kelly Cooper- farm manager