Spring Planting 2011

[Handy Andy]

  Dr B, the cost of working ground is really getting prohibitive.  Especially if you use a ripper in the fall after harvest, then use another smoothing tool 2 or 3 times over before planting.  If your ground stays relatively smooth,  you can let it stand over the winter, spray once in April, and then plant.  No till is really easy on equipment, cuts down on the hours in the field, and a planter or drill doesn't pull hard like a ripper or field cultivator.  The tool Norm is using looks like a cross between a disc ripper and a field cultivator.  Looks like a type of minimum till.

[Norm]

My large tractor is 225hp and running the drill I get about 9gph while the ripper or turbo chopper will burn 6gph. Luckily for us we did contract and fill our bulk tanks before fuel really went up so our costs was something like $2.85. That is gone and I just had it filled up yesterday and it was $3.54 per gallon of dyed diesel.

I don't have the exact figures for this spring yet but between me and a buddy I farm with I'll bet we have burned 2000 gallons with field prep, planting and spraying. That was for approximately 1200 acres between the two of us.

[scsmith42]

Been mowing, tedding and baling since last week; should be completed this evening.  Looks like a strong yield too, around 130 square bales per acre from my best pastures (which is a really good yield for around here). 





When it comes to producing a horse-quality hay, the weather sure can be frustrating.  Fortunately, this year looks pretty good.

ps - that yellow stuff that you can see off to the left side in the picture is some insulation that rained down on the farm from the recent tornado's.  We've been picking up insulation, shingles, clothing, etc for the past month; I picked up a cardboard box from this same pasture that had been delivered to a guy in Sanford - about 20 miles away from the farm. 

I had to stop several times while mowing/tedding and pick up debris that I'd missed in the earlier cleanup work.

[sandhills]

I have been able to run a whole 2 days in the last 2 weeks  >:(.  I still have 2-3 days of corn yet to plant but only have 60 acres or so of beans so they won't take long.  Just gotta keep telling myself we can't grow anything without rain, soon we'll be begging for it.

[beenthere]

With corn seed, when does one have to switch to a seed with a shorter growing period, being as there is a long delay in planting?
Seems a critical decision to have to re-purchase corn seed, or risk planting a longer season corn too late for it to reach maturity.

[red oaks lumber]

up here corn needs to be planted by the end of may period, then everything gets switched to beans, looks like this year there will be plenty of bean acres getting planted :(. looks like later next week i'll cut 80 acres of hay then do some notilling and add a better grass mixture. that 80 acres will be turned into grass feeding paddocks.

[Norm]

With corn seed, when does one have to switch to a seed with a shorter growing period, being as there is a long delay in planting?
Seems a critical decision to have to re-purchase corn seed, or risk planting a longer season corn too late for it to reach maturity.

It's kind of a hard question to answer because of the different growing seasons for different areas. Most seed dealers will let you trade in the longer season seed on shorter maturities for little or no penalty. For us we would be going with 100 day corn by now and seriously considering switching to soybeans by the 1st week of June. Problem is if you've put down certain herbicides that aren't bean friendly or put in expensive fertilizer beans do not need you're kind of stuck going with corn. If you have crop and revenue insurance after a certain date it may be better to take the preventative planting payout. 

[Faron]

One and  3/10 inches rain Monday, and another 1" last night. :(  Although some corn went in before the storms, it was essentially mudded in.  Everything is sprayed and ready to go.  If we have to switch to beans, the corn acres will have to be planted to STD beans.  Did that on some acres last year, and had good luck.  The weather forecast is for 8 rain free days, so I expect there will be some long days by the middle of next week. I hope to run the planter around the clock in shifts.  60 acres of rye hay will have to be baled next week too.  :-\  Gonna brand cattle in a little bit.  Anybody wanna help?

[submarinesailor]

Faron,

I would love to come over and help.  But momma has me completely riping out a bedroom and it's closet all the way to the bear walls and subflooring.  Than it's painting and bamboo flooring to get done/installed.  That's what my vacation next week looks like.

Oh, one more thing I forgot - a new bedroom door gets installed also.

Bruce

[Amelia Farms]

SCSmith,
Is that fescue you are cutting there? I am on my second season here with hay, not getting anywhere near the yield you are, but my fields have been neglected for 15+ years. Hope to have them back in decent shape int the next couple of years. I call my hay good donkey quality hay. :D :D

[sandhills]

AF that is a good one !  :D

[JV]

Not much done in my area.  The silty loam and muck riverbottom south of us and the sandy soils north of us have some planting done.  Our heavier soils won't produce trying to do them wet, some have tried in the past.  I wanted to finish clearing some fence rows on one of the places so the renter could plant.  I got a 1/2 day in 2 weeks ago.  Looks like any ditching won't get done until this fall.  Might get some done after a couple fields of wheat are cut.  I guess we could aerial seed some soybeans, but rigging the parachutes on each seed could get tedious.   :D 

[red oaks lumber]

put the beans in a 50 cal. and shoot them in :D

[scsmith42]

SCSmith,
Is that fescue you are cutting there? I am on my second season here with hay, not getting anywhere near the yield you are, but my fields have been neglected for 15+ years. Hope to have them back in decent shape int the next couple of years. I call my hay good donkey quality hay. :D :D

It's a fescue / rye mix.  The horses really like it too. 

The main reason that I'm getting the yields that I am is because 4 years ago I tilled 40 tractor trailer loads of compost into that 7 acre pasture.  The first year I lost the entire crop because it was too thick to dry!  The second year I cut a month early (1st week of April), and yielded 135 bales / acre.  Got a second cutting that same year in June of another 50 bales/acre.  Ever since my yields remain fairly high, and with all of the snow that we had this year it helped a lot.  Some years less than others, but all in all the compost experiment really paid off.

[Don_Papenburg]

I am running the 7710 with a QR trans  in C4 at about 1550 rpm  pulling a 12 row vac. planter. Depending on the ground and amount of hill I can do about 2.5-3 acres per gallon.
So on the low side it would cost about 0.95  in fuel .  seed is just a bit higher then
chemicals and fert. bring the cost up to ouch . 

[Bobus2003]

On my boss's farm, we planted 180 acres of Corn.. 97% of it was either washed away or is under water in the last weeks several inches of rain. Now he's talkin of tryin to get in a quick planting of Soybeans

[red oaks lumber]

finished planting today. 8)