For the last couple of years my interest has picked up on "soil health". I used to think that stopping the destructive practice of tilling the soil was sufficient. ---After a few years it became obvious that something more was needed, and Dr. Dwayne Beck came into our realm of education with his research on crop diversity, rotations, rooting depths, moisture use. That was a big leap forward for us, but something was still missing. ---Than, in the last few years with the news about the Chesapeake Bay problems, cover crops are front and center in the news. USDA's "Life in the Soil series" featuring Ray Archuleta is well done and has a compelling message. Many speakers are available, selling their stories of success based on use of cover crops to stop erosion and holding nutrients. Organic farming uses many of the same principals and appears to be getting increasing press coverage and retailer interest. ---There is an increasing negative attitude toward agribusiness' chemical and fertility inputs in the non farm community. Strangely, I'm fining myself moving toward that frame of mind. There was a time that I accepted GE crops as logical progress toward higher yield, healthier plants using less toxic chemicals, and should not be questioned, --that is not my feeling today. My thinking today is that every GE organism needs to be tested for negative environmental impact before being released. A benign appearance may be deceiving. ---The most recent interest I have developed on the hunt for a better way of farming is to learn more about soils and their complexity. The spring of 2015 we spent a lot of money on Biological tests for one piece of ground, and spent the remainder of the year trying to figure out what they meant. Last spring I listened to a presentation by Dr. Elaine Ingham. It was mind boggling, --unbelievable! My limited education on soils is now more than 50 years old, but her presentation sounded reasonable and logical. Since then I have listened to a lot of her past presentations, and others on soil health, and her thesis is something that needs to be tried. If successful, farming will become a very profitable business through greatly reduced inputs. There are a lot of Guru's out there selling elixir's that promise higher yields and better food quality. Some of them advertise as organics, and leave the impression that they are adding soil organisms. So far, what I have found is that if most of the elixir was derived from natural grown products it is advertised as organic, and they are all fertilizers ammendments of one kind or another, --no live soil organisms are included. At first, Dr. Ingham's program appears daunting; however, I think that it is not. One can work her "magic" on plots as small as a garden for starters and work up to larger acreage.
After viewing many different authored videos, I am including three presenters that I think have something to say that can be backed up with research. They also, in their own way, support the other two presenters. Each of these presentations are approximately 30 minutes. These sites give access to other videos by these authors on the subject of soils and their health.
----- ( Soil Health Principles ) Jill Clapperton: She was a soil scientist in Canada for many years, and now doing research in Washington State. She is the founder of "Rhizoterra". I first became acquainted with her back in the 80's when Guy Swanson would bring her down to his "Yielder Conferences". She was an early spokesman on soil health.
----- ( Soil Health Principles ) Ray Archuleta: He is a soil health specialist and agronomist with USDA. He is the principle narrator for USDA's excellent video series on "Secrets of the Soil".
----- ( The Soil Foodweb ) Elaine Ingham: She is a soil biologist, microbiologist, and founder of "Soil Foodweb". She is the author of "USDA's Soil Biology Primer". She currently is the hot commodity at conferences on soil health. She upsets apple carts and draws controversy. I think she knows her stuff and articulates it very well. The following link is an interesting article on the principal controversy she is part of. When I followed this through the various links provided, it appears to me, she was subjected to a real hack job. It also appears she may have overstated some conclusions in verbal presentations. < GM watch.org >
Monday, October 31, 2016
Saturday, October 15, 2016
CROSS-SLOT EXPERIENCE
We love the Cross-Slot drill for it's ability to seed into vary adverse seeding conditions, which we have, --uneven ground, uneven residue distribution, heavy, loose residue, tall tangled residue, hard ground with powder pockets, For the most part the drill gives us great emergence. We're getting better stand establishment than what we have ever been able to achieve with hoe drills and disc drills in the past, --particularly the spring seeded crops. Winter wheat was much more forgiving. With years of direct seeding, 100% surface protection, and the CrossSlot drill, soil surface sealing is not a concern. Whether we can physically seed a field is no longer a concern. If the ground will support the weight you can seed. There are a couple of issues however. One issue relates to the opener.
----We are not able to use the scraper on the opener as shown. Years ago the scraper was designed at WSU for the CrossSlot. Farming the steep slopes of the Palouse Hills causes a lot of side force on the disc blade of the opener. This force opens a gap on the up-hill side of the disc, and exerts enough force on the down-hill side of the disc, that the friction exerted on the seed by the disc grabs a percentage of the seed and moves it back toward the soil surface. This displaces the seed from the horizontal slot left by the blade to a position along the vertical slot left by the disc. When we A-B line on steep slopes, frequently, a striping effect can be seen. In a lot of scenarios this does not happen; but, when you are drilling into thin moisture, or going through heavy straw, where that straw gets pushed into the disc slot, you want all the seed in the proper location for optimum emergence. The "scraper" was designed for just that purpose, to hold the seed in the horizontal slot. We need to find a way to get those scrapers functioning as intended. Currently, they catch residue and than dirt and drag, making a mess. What has changed since the scraper was developed? I think it is our farming method/goal. Twenty years ago yields were less, and we would struggle to seed into hundreds of pounds of surface residue, and maybe a long cut would be 24"tall. Fields would be "conditioned" for seeding (harrowing, mowing). Today, CrossSlot users are dealing with much heavier, longer residues, and not "conditioning" the field to seed. In our case we are regularly seeding into several thousand pounds of residue and a long cut of 40+ inches. The most residue we have seeded into has been in excess of twenty thousand pounds of tangle winter wheat residue. The idea I have had since building this drill was to change the pull point by swinging the hitch to transfer the side draft to the tractor; however, the Auto guidance technology is not capable of compensating for this movement.
The other issue, relates to the seed metering system.
---- The AgPro/Valmar metering system is long in the tooth and needs to be upgraded. The deficiencies glare when seeding very low rates, --2-5#/a of canola as an example. On the plus, it's simple. On the negative: --in our hills, the seed delivery and volume is dependent on the systems aspect (front up or down, side tilt, shake). --being nothing more than a form of flute feed, it draws in and spits out seed in clumps depending on the air stream to spread it out. --Overrun is horrible, and when you factor that in, reduce the rate to compensate, one is left wondering what rate he has actually seeding. Singulation is probably not feasible, but I think building a bottom using the JD double run feeds will give us a close alternative.
The double run feed will require a lot of adjustment to vary seeding rates but with our Omni drive coupled with the Bourgault gear box, I don't think we will have to change any sprockets to seed 2#/a to 200#/a. Until I find differently, if the seed is metered out fairly even, I think the current air system will deliver to the ground fairly evenly.
We are fast approaching the time where we will not be able to cut seeding costs by saving back seed. All of the new wheat cultivars we are interested in are proprietary and the cost is significant. Seed overrun will be an expense to eliminate.
Pic above is showing the Bourgault transmission with it's capability of 1/1 to 60/1 ratio. The Omi drive with it's effective 30-150rpm variable capability is connected to the input shaft on the back of the Bourgault. You see the chain connecting the output shaft to the roll. A 180 position encoder is mounted on the end of the roll shaft to control seed rate through the Omni drive and Viper.
The other issue, relates to the seed metering system.
---- The AgPro/Valmar metering system is long in the tooth and needs to be upgraded. The deficiencies glare when seeding very low rates, --2-5#/a of canola as an example. On the plus, it's simple. On the negative: --in our hills, the seed delivery and volume is dependent on the systems aspect (front up or down, side tilt, shake). --being nothing more than a form of flute feed, it draws in and spits out seed in clumps depending on the air stream to spread it out. --Overrun is horrible, and when you factor that in, reduce the rate to compensate, one is left wondering what rate he has actually seeding. Singulation is probably not feasible, but I think building a bottom using the JD double run feeds will give us a close alternative. 
We are fast approaching the time where we will not be able to cut seeding costs by saving back seed. All of the new wheat cultivars we are interested in are proprietary and the cost is significant. Seed overrun will be an expense to eliminate.
Pic above is showing the Bourgault transmission with it's capability of 1/1 to 60/1 ratio. The Omi drive with it's effective 30-150rpm variable capability is connected to the input shaft on the back of the Bourgault. You see the chain connecting the output shaft to the roll. A 180 position encoder is mounted on the end of the roll shaft to control seed rate through the Omni drive and Viper.
2016 Harvest Update
This year has been the most confusing of my 60+ years of farming. The weather looked like it was going to treat us pretty good, but, mostly after the fact, we found it wasn't as good as it first appeared. I thought we missed the frost in April, but as it turned out, not quite. The moisture was coming along just fine, then it shut off. The years moisture was just short of our long term average. The heat wave in May, although not real hot, apparently did damage depending on where the crop was in it's development. The temperature for this growing and harvest season was quite comfortable. A relatively mild winter, and no 100+ days. Very different from 2015's long stretch of 100+ temperatures. All in all everything was looking pretty good. Looking back on Art Douglas' prediction, I think he was right on for my immediate area. There apparently was a big swing of temperature in the April-May period that set us up for falling number issues depending on area, and wheat cultivar. I knew when it happened but didn't think anything about it, --not severe, not unusual. Everything I hear is antidotal; however, I'm of the opinion that the test is badly flawed. Inconsistency in the ability to replicate the numbers, even in a relatively narrow range, is wide spread. It appears to me that the milling industry has found a way to purchase high quality grain, --cheap, and at our expense. Hopefully, this will be addressed before another harvest. I have been hearing of some fantastic yields, but some are pretty mediocre, and some fields have very low FN's, but not all of them. With the quality issues and plummeting prices, this will be a year we hope to never repeat.
Now, for our farm. ---Wheat yields were good, but not exceptional, --with exception. The FN's varied across the fields ranging from 279-330. Wheat yields ranged from 83 to a little over 100. This yield range is close to norm for us at this stage,--slow but steady gain over time. We have a variety of soils ranging from very complex shallow ground to deep Athena soils. Our cover crop ground was the 83 and we consider that fantastic. This is the worst ground we have with complex soils and large areas that have a couple of inches of soil over fractured rock, and infested with Rush Skeleton weed. This area was seeded to a multiple cultivar (brassica/legume) cover crop last year and used 3" water compared to our CF. This spring there was less than an inch (0.8") difference in moisture. There were variations in yield over the CC area but none of the shallow spots showed significant drop as was expected. Was this unexpected yield do to the cover crop? Too early to tell! One year doesn't make a trend, but since it wasn't a flop, it's encouragement to expand the practice. Our experience is paralleling the experience of other farmers in the area, --covers used 3" moisture, yields didn't collapse. This also matches the literature on the subject. The remainder of our Brundage 96 looked exceptional through harvest, but didn't end up yielding exceptional. The Puma went over a hundred.
--- The mustard was a disappointment. Yields ranged from ≈680 to 870#/a. The stand emerged well with an OK population. Quality was good. It was harvested with the stripper head. The field Rep. indicated that they were finding similar results region wide, and no real explanation as to why. In our case, my thoughts are: --we should seed 8-10#/ac instead of the 5-6, and that we seeded to shallow. we had emergence over too long of time span. I'm guessing that another factor was that the little heat wave in May hit the mustard at the wrong time in it's development. I didn't see frost damage during emergence.
--- The winter peas were problematic from the start. They yielded 1262#/a. One field was destroyed because of contamination with Billy Beans. They were all dormant seeded in November. They came up this spring looking great and high population. With no experience in dormant seeding we didn't put on the pre-emergence chemistry. Bad mistake! Spring applications of grass and broadleaf herbicides were a total failure. Dormant seeding of winter peas has great potential, but make sure to get the pre-emerge chemistry applied. We ended up with an even over-story of Jim Hill Mustard, that proved to be challenging to harvest. An IH8230 with MacDon header had no easier time than our N7 and standard head. A very slow grind. The crop grade showed high percent of hard seed which was subtracted from the germ making it un-usable as seed stock. Our supplier had only one field that returned seed quality winter peas, and they were seeded in the spring, --so missed the environmental condition that caused the hard seed. We will likely see Austrian peas show up for several years because of this hard seed issue. Fortunately they are not difficult to remove.
----The spring peas were fantastic at Thornton. Thornton was DRY. They were ≈6" below normal, but the yields were very good. Most communities north and south of Thornton had fairly normal precipitation. Except for the rainfall, the other environmental conditions favored a good crop in 2016. Our "Ginny" peas ranged from 2400-2980#/a, depending on the field. The normally high yielding low ground tallied as much as 6500#/a. They stood way too long for a green pea; however, the bleach, was insignificant, and seed coat damage was reasonable. Normally green peas will have significant bleach if they stand beyond maturity. Ginny is a great cultivar. We harvested them with a standard head w/o pea lifters. A slow harvest and in areas some peas were left on the vine (too deep in the track). Our old wheat residue was left intact and we had a lot of pea residue left in the field. We expected we would process all the residue, leaving exposed ground, which is normal with pea harvest, --but didn't.
--- Our DNS (Glee)@ 42b/a was ok. Heavy weight, but only 13+% protein. Stand was good but maybe it needed to be thicker. Consider increasing seed rate, --we had 2-3 tillers and don't want more than two. Probably needed more N to get protein.
--- Our SB (Lenatah) @3030#/a was ok. Heavy weight and quality was excellent. Stand was good, but may consider increased seeding rate.
--- We had a Viterra test plot of 6 new spring canola cultivars for the area. Most were a GMO of one type or another. They all had excellent yields ranging between 1700-2700#/a. The plot was in the flat in front of our house. The trial was not limited in moisture, and had a high pH (8+) in much of it. We seeded the plots after the mustard and before moving to Thornton. The seeding rate was ≈4#/a. The stand developed over about 3 weeks,--it didn't seem to effect the outcome. The canola probably stood too long; however, there was very low shatter on all the cultivars. The quality of the stand didn't allow much movement within the crop canopy.
Now, for our farm. ---Wheat yields were good, but not exceptional, --with exception. The FN's varied across the fields ranging from 279-330. Wheat yields ranged from 83 to a little over 100. This yield range is close to norm for us at this stage,--slow but steady gain over time. We have a variety of soils ranging from very complex shallow ground to deep Athena soils. Our cover crop ground was the 83 and we consider that fantastic. This is the worst ground we have with complex soils and large areas that have a couple of inches of soil over fractured rock, and infested with Rush Skeleton weed. This area was seeded to a multiple cultivar (brassica/legume) cover crop last year and used 3" water compared to our CF. This spring there was less than an inch (0.8") difference in moisture. There were variations in yield over the CC area but none of the shallow spots showed significant drop as was expected. Was this unexpected yield do to the cover crop? Too early to tell! One year doesn't make a trend, but since it wasn't a flop, it's encouragement to expand the practice. Our experience is paralleling the experience of other farmers in the area, --covers used 3" moisture, yields didn't collapse. This also matches the literature on the subject. The remainder of our Brundage 96 looked exceptional through harvest, but didn't end up yielding exceptional. The Puma went over a hundred.
--- The mustard was a disappointment. Yields ranged from ≈680 to 870#/a. The stand emerged well with an OK population. Quality was good. It was harvested with the stripper head. The field Rep. indicated that they were finding similar results region wide, and no real explanation as to why. In our case, my thoughts are: --we should seed 8-10#/ac instead of the 5-6, and that we seeded to shallow. we had emergence over too long of time span. I'm guessing that another factor was that the little heat wave in May hit the mustard at the wrong time in it's development. I didn't see frost damage during emergence.
--- The winter peas were problematic from the start. They yielded 1262#/a. One field was destroyed because of contamination with Billy Beans. They were all dormant seeded in November. They came up this spring looking great and high population. With no experience in dormant seeding we didn't put on the pre-emergence chemistry. Bad mistake! Spring applications of grass and broadleaf herbicides were a total failure. Dormant seeding of winter peas has great potential, but make sure to get the pre-emerge chemistry applied. We ended up with an even over-story of Jim Hill Mustard, that proved to be challenging to harvest. An IH8230 with MacDon header had no easier time than our N7 and standard head. A very slow grind. The crop grade showed high percent of hard seed which was subtracted from the germ making it un-usable as seed stock. Our supplier had only one field that returned seed quality winter peas, and they were seeded in the spring, --so missed the environmental condition that caused the hard seed. We will likely see Austrian peas show up for several years because of this hard seed issue. Fortunately they are not difficult to remove.
----The spring peas were fantastic at Thornton. Thornton was DRY. They were ≈6" below normal, but the yields were very good. Most communities north and south of Thornton had fairly normal precipitation. Except for the rainfall, the other environmental conditions favored a good crop in 2016. Our "Ginny" peas ranged from 2400-2980#/a, depending on the field. The normally high yielding low ground tallied as much as 6500#/a. They stood way too long for a green pea; however, the bleach, was insignificant, and seed coat damage was reasonable. Normally green peas will have significant bleach if they stand beyond maturity. Ginny is a great cultivar. We harvested them with a standard head w/o pea lifters. A slow harvest and in areas some peas were left on the vine (too deep in the track). Our old wheat residue was left intact and we had a lot of pea residue left in the field. We expected we would process all the residue, leaving exposed ground, which is normal with pea harvest, --but didn't.
--- Our DNS (Glee)@ 42b/a was ok. Heavy weight, but only 13+% protein. Stand was good but maybe it needed to be thicker. Consider increasing seed rate, --we had 2-3 tillers and don't want more than two. Probably needed more N to get protein.
--- Our SB (Lenatah) @3030#/a was ok. Heavy weight and quality was excellent. Stand was good, but may consider increased seeding rate.
--- We had a Viterra test plot of 6 new spring canola cultivars for the area. Most were a GMO of one type or another. They all had excellent yields ranging between 1700-2700#/a. The plot was in the flat in front of our house. The trial was not limited in moisture, and had a high pH (8+) in much of it. We seeded the plots after the mustard and before moving to Thornton. The seeding rate was ≈4#/a. The stand developed over about 3 weeks,--it didn't seem to effect the outcome. The canola probably stood too long; however, there was very low shatter on all the cultivars. The quality of the stand didn't allow much movement within the crop canopy.
Thursday, October 13, 2016
2016 Rainfall Summary
I have updated the ----- 2016 CROP YEAR -- RAINFALL, posted on April 13th, 2016 to reflect the moisture received for the Thornton, Wa. area, and the St.John-Ewan area.
Sunday, October 2, 2016
A little Tillage Ruins No-Till
[update 10/6/16] I have no comment related to the cover crop aspect; however, the tillage part supports my experience, and my contention that using "no-till" as a rotational practice, in CT is not sustainable. It takes time for ground to re-develop soil structure, and channels from earthworm activity, and decayed root channels. Any cultivation will destroy the surface connection for moisture to rapidly enter the soil profile. Many will argue that moisture goes two ways as a reason to till and make the dust mulch in the fallow year. Yes! --CF with little cover, can dry down the seed zone moisture. I haven't found that it dried deeper than CT; however, it's harder to reach. In our operation moisture has improved through increased surface residue, --it's a priority for us. Moving to ULD (ultra low disturbance) is helping. Using the stripper header where possible is helping. The main factor in making winter wheat a high yielding success for us is to seed for early emergance in the fall. Don't wait and let seed zone moisture escape. That may mean seeding in August. We have not gone that extreme yet, but some have. No-till takes different management thinking to be successful.
FARM JOURNAL, Oct.2016: Article by Darrell Smith reports on experiment done by Farm Journal's field agronomist, Ken Ferry. The experiment compares two fields, --one with 4 years of no-till and the last two years featured cereal rye as a cover crop. The other field had three years of no-till with the fourth year either having one or two tillage operations. The implements used were, a soil finisher, moldboard plow, chisel plow. There were several conclusions made by Ferry. Among them, --cover crop (rye) did little to improve infiltration, --top few inches were dryer than the no-till prior to termination, but wetter after termination. --tillage hurt soil structure resulting in less infiltration, --the moldboard plow sole restricted water percolation into lower soil profile, --in their soils, more water ran off the surface with that one tillage year in four, compared to four no-till years. Consider what those conclusions mean for us in the Palouse Hills when translated from the flatlands of Missouri.
FARM JOURNAL, Oct.2016: Article by Darrell Smith reports on experiment done by Farm Journal's field agronomist, Ken Ferry. The experiment compares two fields, --one with 4 years of no-till and the last two years featured cereal rye as a cover crop. The other field had three years of no-till with the fourth year either having one or two tillage operations. The implements used were, a soil finisher, moldboard plow, chisel plow. There were several conclusions made by Ferry. Among them, --cover crop (rye) did little to improve infiltration, --top few inches were dryer than the no-till prior to termination, but wetter after termination. --tillage hurt soil structure resulting in less infiltration, --the moldboard plow sole restricted water percolation into lower soil profile, --in their soils, more water ran off the surface with that one tillage year in four, compared to four no-till years. Consider what those conclusions mean for us in the Palouse Hills when translated from the flatlands of Missouri.
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