June 1st is Here and had 9 days to seed in May!

[hobbyfrmr]

My neighbors are ummm.....direct cultivating. I get
a kick out of them, they are so righteous with their
zero till and now it's all back to tillage just to get
the crop in. I think they are also scamming the
carbon credit company. They had to sign that no
tillage for a number of years. Now the whole farm
is tilled up. I don't think they will pay back that
money, it's all tied up in a zero till drill! Ironic.

I do get a kick out of all that spraying. But hey,
most producers have been convinced that you
can't farm without it. They get that look. Like a
junkie!

[sumdumguy]

You all remember the discers? seed, weed and
feed in one operation. Someday it will be
reinvented, when half of our kids are fighting
cancer.

[newguy]

Remember once I was seeding with discers a Person tring to seed with air seeder could not go. He ended up going home and getting out his discers and never stopped after. Having that same trouble with air drill and heavy land not drying out. Think the cultivater would fix the problem. Did a bunch of cultivating last fall wish I had did more.

[grassfarmer]

Sumdumguy, I'm with you on the spray thing. Not
saying don't ever use it but the frequency seems to
have got out of hand. Neighbours were spraying peas
yesterday - for the second time inside the 3 weeks
since seeding. Assuming the first was a pre-seed
burn off applied a couple of days after seeding why
would you need to be back on again a couple weeks
later? Maybe the fact the first day it was a little windy
and we could smell the stuff in our yard 1/2 a mile
away? If we could smell it at that distance I'm sure all
the pasture/animals in between got an uninvited
application as well.

[agchat]

Just a comment on the discer. Keep telling a friend
of mine that I think a lot of this no till drills can
nickel and dime a guy to death, especially if you
cannot afford to buy new. One nice thing with the
discer for pre seeding service was a grease gun and
a plier to rock the main drive shaft to make sure it
turned all the cups. Then away you went your pre
service was done. Still thing i would find it hard to
change, very few acres done in a day compared to
now.

[BreadWinner]

As far a chemicals you can spray less when the
weeds are small so that is why there are more
applications.

Cancer rates are also dropping, I think cancer has
more to do with nuclear testing in the 60s the
baby boomer gen seems to have more than its
fair share. My grandfather used to swim in farm
chemicals. He blew out plugged nozzles with his
lips. He treated canola with no rubber gloves or
respirators. He would spray on the open tractor
and the drift would get his back wet. He washed
his hands in gasoline. He died of a heart attack at
80 walking in his field he needed a bypass but
was too stubborn to have it done.

[furrowtickler]

Agree with breadwinnier, we use less chem than 15 years ago. But more folliar fert and fungicide. So all spraying is not a DDT product, lol.

[sumdumguy]

When we seeded with discers, we seeded,
sprayed once in .june for broadleafs, end of story.
Today, burn off, sometimes twice, broadleaf,
fungicide and desiccation.

Cleaner fields, but lot more chemical.

[Hopperbin]

Also no over laps like it used to be, cannot even immagine trying to operate a sprayer without gps again. I used to have my old sprayer double the size of the drill so spayed according to the drill overlap. Nozzle technology has reduced the drift a lot also. Saskfarmer I don't know about that harrow. My morris was doing an ok job but did bunch a little at times in the canola stubble I was in. I only done the wet spots. I figure the harrow does a better job than the cultivator. Hoping to get done planting on tuesday likely near dark. Then go back over some of the ruts I made but without the anhydrous tank. If wednesday rain holds off.

[Hopperbin]

Weeds were also not as much a problem years ago, newer land, summerfallow, blowing dust, 0 visibility.