Spring marches on. With almost record breaking warm temperatures it feels more like May than April this past week. No seeding going on in the immediate area that I have noticed but then it is still a little early. We know that Sask weather can lull us into a sense of security with beautiful weather and then turn around and hit us with a late spring snowstorm or frost and we might regret planting crops too early.
It has been great condtions for working on the big green machine, a John Deere 1610 chisel plow that we are installing an anhydrous fertilizer kit on. Its a lot of work and expense but at current rental rates this machine should pay for itself in about 3 years. And by that I mean the rental rates we won't have to pay. After over ten years of renting anhydrous applicators and paying as high as $3 an acre for the use of them, it will be nice to have a machine of our own that is always always available and kept in a good state of repair. Some of the rental stuff tends to see some hard use and a lack of maintenance.
Hopefully next week will see us putting anhydrous into the ground in preparation for planting. With a little luck ,,, seeding the first week of May.
As usual, plans subject to change due to weather changes. The cattle guys (including me) would like to see a little rain to get the grass growing, but not enough to seriously delay seeding crops
Folks who've never done any kind of farming have no idea about real weather conditions. I'll never forget the year that it sprinkled every weekend, but that we'd gone literally months without a good solid rain. Crops were stunted and the farmers were praying for rain, yet the kids who worked at the TV station were complaining about how it had been raining all summer!
ReplyDeleteI sincerely hope the weather doesn't give you any serious surprises this year, Ralph.
It finally quit raining here in Oregon, well sort of. I still can't finish spreading spring fertilizer on the grass fields. We had a fellow to put on liquid with a floater type sprayer but he had it calibrated wrong and now we still have to do it. Funny how somethings you really have to do yourself. Like spreading fertilizer and spraying and anhydrous. (Hope people are not saying that about my no-till planting. Ouch!)
ReplyDeleteNext project is overhauling the high flotation sprayer, I think...
Well, our weather is always "interesting". This morning, Sunday, it is snowing! Not much or enough to add much significant moisture but none too inspiring to get out and do anything. Guess I should take advantage of the chance to install some new parts on the tractor that needs doing.
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