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Roosty6 @B110

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Good Timing , or Lucky

I finished seeding the last field yesterday and today it is starting to rain which will be good for germination. I even got a row of peas planted in the garden this morning while waiting on the weather to make up it's mind. As it turned out I would have had plenty of time to spray out a tank of roundup on the chem fallow but the radar screen showed showers coming and so did the forecast. Its a five mile drive to the field and takes 3 hours to spray out the tank and I could not see three hours of good weather ahead.
So I went harrowing to smooth out the last field instead.
Still no rain falling by 1:00 pm but very threatening so I headed out to pick rocks on the fields seeded to canola and flax last week. That old 970 Case is really good on the rock picker although on a hot day the lack of AC might be uncomfortable.

I stopped to take this photo of it beside the Nevardland lilacs. The slow rain had already started but I carried on picking for another hour or more before it got too hard to see through the rain on the windows and the tires were picking up wet topsoil.
Surprising to see how well the crop was up already. I'd planned to spray the rest of that flax field with roundup to kill the weeds I missed with the air seeder but that train has left the station. The flax is up and roundup would kill it. Will be an interesting experiment to see which field is better. The one I sprayed last week and killed the weeds, or the one that did not get sprayed. It was way too windy when I sprayed that first 50 acres last week and the following 3 days were all windy so the sprayer sat and I missed my chance.
Maybe now I will have a bit of spare time to fill out the census form that Statistics Canada seems so intent on getting from me.

4 comments:

  1. I'll be looking forward to that crop comparison, Ralph, when the time comes. Scott is an organic farmer, like his parents before him, and he's had some great crops even HE had trouble believing.

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    1. I really respect and envy anyone that can make organic work. I'd be happy to park the sprayer for good but so far I have not had a crop worth much if it did not get chemical weed control. The part of the flax that missed pre-emerge spray will be getting post emergent spray later on (weather permitting)

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    2. I didn't know there is any problem making organic farming work. You just have to know what you're doing — or learn as you go, maybe. It's actually a bit of a science, the way they take signals from the soil and plants to figure out what is lacking nutritionally and all that, and what needs to be added (if anything) and when, etc. I will have to ask Scott if the yield is lower because of not adding chemical/pesticide/whatever. Maybe if it is, it's made up for by higher sale prices? You can see I've lived with an organic farmer for almost 14 years and am still no expert on the methods and results. My own father used sprays and believed they were necessary; not only that, but didn't want to deal with angry neighbours who'd blame him if they got weeds in their crops.

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  2. There's never a shortage of paperwork!

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