POST HARVEST REVIEW OF 2014

     SUMMARY:  This year started out as a great opportunity to see if heavy surface residue and standing stubble would hold moisture for crop development that normally would evaporate into the atmosphere.  Recognizing that spring crops would be insurance claims from the get-go, being late in their seeding was not a big concern.  As it turns out I can't make any real judgement about what heavy tall residue may have contributed to the crop.  (In short, a wasted year)   The abundant June rain skewed everything.  As we came out of winter I expected nothing for a spring crop, and got something.  Others, in some cases, did better.  If June had been like January through April I think the timely seeded spring crops would have been toast and we would still be where we are.  Having seeded close to the middle of May, we still had abundant stored moisture by mid June.  The June rain allowed our barley to stay in the vegetative stage longer, developing more tillers.  The main stem of our barley was hurt but did fairly well.  The first tiller contributed a little to yield.  The remaining tillers, for the most part, just used nutrients and moisture and slowed harvest with no contribution to yield.  The spring wheat is less determinable.  There were fewer tillers.  The main stem showed some damage as well as the first tiller.  The second through fourth tillers, in places, contributed to yield.   It's interesting to speculate what this SWSW crop would have yielded had it been seeded timely.
         Our winter wheat was very near WSU's trial average for the rainfall area.  48 sites.  From what I hear our SWWW was a little better than most of the fields around me.
         Our spring wheat was right at WSU's trial average for the rainfall area, even though it was planted a month later.  42 sites.  We appeared to be a little lower than neighboring fields near me.
         Our spring barley (no WSU data available now) was, I'm sure, low by any standard.  There was no barley raised near our field for comparison.
                                         CONCLUSIONS
         --- Delete this year from mental calculations for future crop planning.  I read this from several sources, and agree.
         --- High rainfall areas and associated soils are much more forgiving than the low rainfall areas to less optimal conditions including seeding date.
         --- Don't expect moisture, whether stored, or saved through the growing season, to recover potential yield loss from late seeding.  Plants can't draw moisture fast enough, regardless of availability, in high heat environment.  (an affirmation of past research and experience.)
        --- It appears that even in drought years, spring small grain crops will do better with high seed rates.  This deters tillering.  Each tiller takes about a week to develop, so every tiller potentially delays maturity a week.
        --- I think that if we would have had stubble left standing following last falls seeding of winter wheat, that would have given enough protection for the crop to have endured the December blast with less damage.

     BACKGROUND:
       --- The September 1, 2013 to August 31st, 2014 moisture was a total of just over 8" (that included the December/January snowfall that mostly went down the creek (check label titled moisture for details), and the nearly 2" received in mid May and the month of June.  That is a long ways off our 15-17" historical average.
       ---The fall of 2013 was dry, causing spotty emergence of the fall wheat in the area-- including ours.  We expected 100% and didn't get it.
       --- Mid December we experienced high winds from the northeast with temperatures dipping to single digits for several days, and no snow cover.
       --- There was very little moisture received over the winter and spring of 2014.
       --- In mid February we experienced a quick warmup on frozen ground with a thin (1-3") snow cover.   Within 2 hours, the snow cover was mostly gone, and nearly all the water left the fields causing creek rise and minor flooding in areas.
       --- Mid May provided ≈ 0.5" rain, and June provided us with 1.54" of moisture.  Most of it in three days mid month.
      --- Third week of June started very warm and quickly got hot that lasted well into August without any real break.  Wind accompanied the heat for many of those days.
      DETAIL:
       --- Winter Wheat: (15-17"rainfall area) Averaged 77 bu/ac. (Brundage 96)  Most of the field was a long north facing slope.  These slopes had fair residue, but very little was standing.  This condition limited protection for the December event and the growing crop showed significant burn.  Spring recovery and development was slow. We had an anomaly in one corner of the field.  It apparently received some protection, from the cold blast of wind, behind a north facing high ridge.  This  rectangular area (≈70ac) had a flat area broken up with three low hills.  This area averaged over 100 bu/ac and ranged as high as 140 bu/ac.
       --- Spring Barley: (15-17" rainfall area) Average 3/4 tn/ac.  Two fields.  Both with southern exposures.  Seeded at 100#/ac Lenetah a month later than optimal.
                CRP field had excellent stored moisture.  The field was clipped in 2013, so little standing residue, and some dirt showing.
                The barley on barley field had good moisture.  The previous yield was 1.5 tn/ac.  It had a lot of residue on the ground and the stubble (high density) was standing.  It yielded a 100#/ac more than the CRP.
                 We also had a separate small flat 12 ac CF field that was seeded to barley.  This area had a fantastic stand, seeded at 122#/ac.  It's yield was 1.25 tn/ac.
         ---Spring Wheat: (18-20"rainfall area)  These were seeded a month later than optimal at 100#/ac of Diva.
                Field-1 was embarrassing to watch the whole growing season but ended up yielding the best (50b/a).  Mustard was raised last year.  Poor residue cover, and little standing.  Field had balanced aspects of high/low, north south east west slopes.  Eroded areas got hard, so stand started out spotty.
                Field-2 was primarily a long south slope with a big flat.  Average yield of 46 bu/ac.  Tremendous surface residue on much of the flat with dense standing barley stubble.  There was some fallow ground where we did ditch work last year.  The high ground also had good surface residue and dense standing standing stubble. Areas of the flat went over 100 bu/ac, but dropped quickly with elevation.  The emergence looked good all over.
                 Field-2 was fairly well balanced with high/low, north south east west aspects.  Always considered this field the poorest of the three.  It yielded 43 bu/ac.  Good residue on the surface except on eroded ridges.  Good standing barley residue except on the eroded ridges.  The emergence looked good.

CROSS-SLOT DRILL KIT?

[Updated 9/19/14]  
I have received two questions about our drill.  I'll address them on this post.
                                   ---- Did our drill come as a kit?
                                   ---- Did Cross-slot help us with the design?
     No!--- the drill did not come as a kit.  You have the option of purchasing a complete drill unit from Baker No-Tillage Limited, or, buy a retrofit package with as many openers as you desire and put them on a locally made frame.  There are many options offered in a retrofit order.  Study the proposal sheet and understand the terms while working up an order.  AgPro of Lewiston, ID. currently builds frames for cross-slot openers.  They have their own suggested frame design, or will build to your specification.
       For info about our drill see post of 5/3/14.

     Yes!--- Baker No-Tillage Limited did help us with the design.  The basic design(look) is one they use -- we viewed pictures and copied the look.   They are very good about sharing component information.  The material type, size and dimensions associated with our drill is our design decision.  We sized the drill to fit our tractor.  That was only marginally successful.  I set a goal for a tare weight of 18K.  It went out of the shop at 24K.  This summer we added 1k on each wing making it 26k, --- and, maybe growing.
       Gavin Porter is the company representative for the US and is very accessible and helpful. His cell number is 509-595-5782