Where I've Been

Not on the net much lately as I've spent most of the last 9 days in or around the combine. Time just flies by. It seems I no sooner get into the cab and suddenly its 12 or so hours later and I'm quitting for the day. The acres are getting done and bins are filling up though so its ok.
Crop yields are surprising me as I did not expect much after a summer of almost no rain. Bin space will be adequate. Less fuel being burned since the ground is hard and dry and not trying to suck the combine down into the mud as it has the past 7 years.
The seeming endless run of hot dry weather seems to have come to an end today as it got cold and then light rain this evening. Canola seed was still testing so dry even though the straw coming out the back of the combine was hardly breaking up at all. Normally canola straw disintegrates to a fine dust by the time it runs through the combine. So I had to quit. Hoping for a few good hours of sunshine and wind tomorrow to finish that field. I could have wrapped it up late tonight or early tomorrow morning if the rain had stayed away. Kind of nice to get home before midnight for a change though.

Maybe I'll have time to exercise the "Merc" one of these days. Its been too long.

Spray? No Way!

So far I've had one good crop spraying day this week (yesterday). Other days were threatening rain or too windy. I did work monday evening, when the wind dropped but I had to run right up past sundown to finish the field. The crop was getting so wet even at sundown that the tires were building up mud so hopefully the herbicide will work on the weeds. Same thing next morning when I got out early to empty out the last ten acres worth in the tank. Crop wetter than if it had rained so we will see how that works. The rest of the day was near perfect conditions and I finished the wheat.
Roundup ready canola is more than ready for it's second spraying as soon as conditions permit. The plants are getting so big I will do some damage with the tires just by pulling the sprayer but there is so much volunteer flax coming up that I really need to get it done. Or else it will be a "dual crop" of canola and flax.
I watched this one working in the wind this morning before it got up to ridiculous speeds. They say wind gusts hit over 70 km per hour by mid day.
Hoping for a quiet morning tomorrow.

The Courage of The Early Morning

That is the title of a book by Billy Bishop , the flying ace of World War one. I must have read it years ago and the title stuck in my mind and usually I'm reminded of it on the rare occasion I actually do get up early in the morning. Once I'm up I enjoy it though. On a day like yesterday when there was fog in the hollow indicating a fine day to follow, without the annoying and soul destroying winds that plague us all to frequently, it was worth getting up at 5:00 am.
It was because of those wild winds, which made it inadvisable , or just plain crazy , to try and spray crops. Some mornings it was even windy by sunrise. Not June 7 though. I got in a good day of crop spraying. Put over 30 road miles on the tractor running back and forth for tanks of water/glyphosate, and probably more miles than that in the field. And only a gentle breeze at most.
No time to stop and take photos as I'm always under pressure spraying crops but I did take this quick shot over the steering wheel while driving by the "big slough" over on Winstanley Grove. So named back in the days when most sloughs dried up except this one.

You can see the rows of canola plants looking good. Looks like canola planted on summerfallow is superior to what I planted on flax stubble this year. In the years when it rains every other day the canola will germinate quick. But in this , the first dry spring we have had in years, any seed planted in dry soil is taking a long time to germinate (waiting on rain).

Got It All Done

Canola swathing and hay baling got done today. With a little help. I made good time on the canola swathing as the crop was a little lighter and I could travel faster without plugging the swather. Had the field done by 6:00 pm and then to work on the baler. I'd had a little help from a family member who ran the old hoses into town to have new ones made up for me. I had them re-assembled and headed down the road by 7:00 to bale.
It had been a really hot day and the humidity was well up there. Good news for baling hay as it needed the extra day drying today. The humidity helped it feed better without plugging on the baler pickup and I was done just before dark. Tires were getting wet from the moisture on the grass. Broke another cross bar on the baler chain for un known reasons.
Here is a picture of a "test plot" in my canola field. The green crop standing on the left of the picture actually received no canola seed at all at planting time. I'd run out of seed and just threw in a bit of wheat to finish off that two acres. Then when I sprayed the canola with roundup in June I forgot about the wheat and sprayed right over it. Roundup did a good job killing the wheat. Apparently there was enough volunteer canola seed leftover in the soil to produce a fair stand of crop although it is pretty late and will have to stand a bit longer before I swath it.

Crop Spraying/Auction sales/Haying

I think crop spraying is finally slowing down. Not to the point I have unhitched from the sprayer but just taking a break before hitting the chem fallow a second time. Did a poor job on the first application. Amazing the difference it makes leaving out one jug of Roundup from the mix.
Finished the last of the canola last week and shot a bit of video while driving. Plus a little outside taking a close up look at what appears to be herbicide drift damage to my canola from the neighbor's spraying. Contrary to popular belief, the newest sprayer technology is still not immune to high winds and ground speeds.

Looked at a really nice self propelled at an auction a few days ago but could not quite bring myself to spend what it would take to bring it home. 

Nice , well kept equipment, good weather made it an interesting auction but its taken me 24 hours to get over the back ache from all the standing around. I need to remember to sit down on a piece of machinery for a break sometimes. 

Haying has begun, on a very small scale here. Just enough to try out the 40 year old haybine and make sure everything works. It does. Baled up a few small squares along the driveway to replenish the supply in the hayloft that I depleted over the late winter when I had a cow confined in the shelter. 

Naturally laying a few swaths of hay seems to attract rain. Not a lot but just some damp drizzly weather that puts everything on hold until the sun comes back. 

Early canola fields are blooming already. Pictures to follow. 

Will It Ever End?

No, not complaining about winter, but this endless debate about the safety of gmo crops and food. I get a little tired of reading and talking about it but this news item about a recent video caught my attention today. License to farm
It is an attempt to explain some of the facts and dispel the myths and misguided thinking some seem to have about "franken foods". Comments about roundup injected into the seeds! Good grief! Not a clue.
From this simple uneducated farmer's point of view, and gmo canola is all I am familiar with., the genetic modification to roundup ready canola is as simple as the name. It is resistant to the herbicide Roundup, or it's generic equivalent herbicides. No more or less.
Herbicide resistance is something that occurs naturally over time in crops and scientists have simply taken advantage of that trait and used it to our (the grower's) advantage to develop a strain of the canola plant that can be sprayed with roundup and thrive while all weeds around it die. That simple. It is a cheap and safe herbicide that allows us to grow a clean, and therefore more profitable , crop.
Conventional (non roundup ready) canola required herbicide to control weeds too. More expensive and no safer than roundup.
Meanwhile, on a more interesting and enjoyable topic, one of my favourite youtube channels has a new video about what else, rusty old cars. The latest from coldwarmotors.

 

Spraying Crops In The Hundred Acre Woods

Well actually not in the woods but around them. As the photo indicates, a 60 foot sprayer will just barely fit in some of the openings between the trees. I need to be at least half awake to make it through these spots without breaking the end off the spray boom.

A sensible person, and probably most of my neighbours, would say just get a cat in and clear all that bush out and farm every acre. True enough, I'd like to widen a few spots for easier access but am reluctant to turn a cat driver loose in there. They tend to get carried away and soon my fields would be as wide open and wind swept as some of my more efficient neighbours farms. We like a little shelter though, and the trees do make a good background for photos. A great place for wildlife and trail cams.
Thanks to some good weather and some long days in the tractor I am reasonably caught up with crop spraying. Just a couple of fields of flax and one of oats left that are not quite ready. I might have to hit the canola with a second spray of Roundup if conditions are favourable. But given a few days of rain and wind even roundup ready canola eventually gets too big to spray.
Yesterday, June 12 was a perfect spray day. No wind, not too hot or cold or wet, a rare combination lately. I switched the booms on at 8:00 in the morning (its a long drive to the field) and switched them off for the last time at 9:30 in the evening. Probably my best day yet, considering I had a couple of hours (28 miles) of road driving between farms. Tank fill time, flush and clean every nozzle and screen when changing herbicides, it sure makes the day go by quickly.

Anniversary of D Day (and a good day to spray)

Yesterday,, June 6th was the anniversary of D Day when the allied forces hit the beaches of Normandy in 1944. My dad missed out on that by about a month. Long time readers of this blog (are there any?) might recall reading an excerpt from dad's Memories of WWII that I published here back in 08.
As the title to this post indicates, today, June 7 was a great for crop spraying. About the best I have seen in long time. Not too hot, windy or wet. When conditions are that good I really need to take advantage. In spite of a late start I did get a couple of hundred acres sprayed. Finished up the chem fallow and about 130 acres of canola sprayed. Not bad considering I had a good 20 miles of road transport (at 13 mph) plus the usual time spent pumping water and mixing chemical. Say what you will about Monsanto's GM canola but it sure makes weed control a breeze. Cheap effective herbicide (roundup) and a very wide window of application takes a lot of the stress out of spraying crops.
More by luck than good management I managed to finish up with just enough chemical on the chem fallow. The sprayer tank ran empty within a minute of finishing the field.
How I wish I had spent a day this spring harrowing, piling and burning the residual flax straw on the canola field. It is unbelieveble how hard those lumps of straw can be. The roughly 15,000 pound tractor bounces over those straw lumps like a cork on the ocean and the driver (me) does likewise. It makes for a tiring day and a resolution to not let this happen again next year.
The canola is emerging as good as any year I can ever remember in spite of the rather dry conditions.

This photo from a couple of days ago was taken as I had just finished a 40 acre chem fallow field. It is pure luck that this picture survived. It was on the card inside the camera that got lost in a stubble field today. I was going to take a picture at "The Poplars" of the lilacs that were blooming and discovered the pocket I always carry the little Canon Elph in was empty. Guess I forgot to snap the pocket closed and the camera fell out. That could have ruined a perfect day. My best guess was that it had fallen out when I crawled under the sprayer to drain the tank after finishing chem fallow. After a bit of walking around sure enough, the little black rectangle was laying there on the straw. The transport wheels of the sprayer had just missed running over it.
Storm clouds gathered in the west and the wind increased as I finished up the last 40 acres of canola. Might get a break from spraying tomorrow.