hobby farmer

[pourfarmer]

Hows your crops looking? We're a good week
maybe 2 away from swathing anything here.
Had a bad problem with wild buckwheat on
summerfallow for some reason... dragged 50
acres of good wheat to the ground. Gonna
be a fun harvest, lets hope prices goes
up! Good luck!!

[hobbyfrmr]

Crops are drive by decent so far.about 3 weeks to
a month before combining. Deluges of rain have
started to lodge the oats. Hemp is looking
average according to federal inspector. Barley on
stubble looks surprisingly good and clean. There
are patches of thistle in barley, gives neighbors
something to look at and feel good about their
own!. I plan to seed winter wheat late August.
Have not grown wheat in many years due to CWB
buy backs. I am bullish on prices, but do not
usually get the super highs. I like to sell for good
profit, I don't like to "hold out" for prices That
somebody, friend's, wife's brother sold for 300km
away. I need cash flow like any farmer.

[hobbyfrmr]

I wonder if buckwheat is pulling down my oats!
That may be part of the problem. I will eventually
go and look. Not sure how to control them around
planting time. It may have been the buckets of
rain just after seeding that germinated the
buckwheat.

[pourfarmer]

i know what you mean about thistle, got
em bad in a oat crop as well. Just
patches, will try and summerfallow that
piece next year. Barley didnt do so well
here, i expect due to excessive rain.
Flax looks like hell, but should do ok.

Ever post emerge harrow peas? thinking
that might help next year with my
buckwheat issue. Dont want wreck my crop
to kill a few buckwheat plants

[hobbyfrmr]

No trying. Summerfallow it. Its ok to have some thistles but not corner to corner snow storm type stuff. The patches do not get any smaller. Then for sure yeild is compromised and another year has gone by.

Here is advice I got from an Alberta organic farmer. Little red hen mills? or something like that. It works I have been doing it for about 3 years.

Spike that stubble deep as your tractor can pull this fall, about a week before ground is frozen. Next summer once you can get a cultivator through the field,remove shovels put spikes on. Spike field then rodweeder 5 days later. next pass, spikes again, go a little deeper. Rodweeder again. do this until freeze up. Last spike pass youin late october/early nov just before freezing must happen. It will look rather clean, and not really weedy growth. DO IT ANYWAY. it looks like a waste of fuel, but spike it and then you will see the little thistles the rodweeder plucks out of the ground.
If you dont have a rodweeder, buy one. I prefer Leon vs. morris. Both work.

Your other option is to spray the smf with roundup in September, and plant canola on smf next spring. Either way, you win!

[hobbyfrmr]

I have not, the organic neighbor harrows the hell out of them post emergence. If it gets bad for wild mustard or wild oats, about 10 days after emergence, they "double harrow". tine harrows standing straight,go up and then on your way back, leave half the width of harrows on the stuff you already did, opposite direction. Headlands do once one way, then opposite direction. When they are done, its pretty black and nasty and devastating. 5 days later, peas are back and most everything else did not survive the smashing! oh yeah, seed heavy. 3.5-4 bushels per acre. Sometimes the harrows kill pea plants....but only the weak ones!