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Post by slipclutch on Oct 2, 2024 5:47:03 GMT -6
let us know what the moisture is on the corn. I got no time right now to pick cobs. Lol. Did about 20 acres last night just to get enough so I could start the dryer this morning. Outside rounds were like 17.5% moisture. Once in the field where the plants were still quite green it went up to around 20-21%. Should be able to giver today! F’en rights! Thanks! |
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Post by jcalder on Oct 2, 2024 5:50:30 GMT -6
Finished soybeans last night. Time to set up everything around the dryer and then go pull some cobs and see if we start corn tomorrow or if it's time to sit in a tractor for a few days. Hoping the corn is ~27 or less. Hammer down then. Calder how did your headers work in the wet ground . My friend is harvesting by st malo and they are having problems with dirt pushing . Maybe his pressure is too low . I ran my pressure quite high . 1900 psi. Didn’t miss anything cutting two inches off the ground . Beans podded high this year with the planter . It also allows us to drive faster . My neighbour had his dragging the ground and had to drive 3.5 mph We were in that 4.5 -5 mph I kept trying to tell the French connection to slow down !!!!! Harvest went so smoothly it was a joy ! I truly believe the planter is hands down the best way to seed beans !! In poor years you don’t see the difference but on bumper years , the planter out yields the disc drill ! Glad you got your beans done Calder . Man I can’t imagine harvesting 30 percent moisture corn . Good thing fuel has. One down in price this year . If beans are 40-60 bpa range this year corn should do quite well ! Do you think 175 bpa dry bushels is possible . I thought corn took all the moisture well in June and July . It’s nice to end of on a good note . This year I might ask my friend if I can ride along in his combine . I have no idea what corn harvest is like ! Cold morning ! Our ground was actually quite dry, I never had to get out of the combine once to dig mud out of the header this year. I was running 1500 PSI on our 740FD, our other guy was a bit higher at 1650 PSI on our old 630F. We drive 4 to 4.5 mph. I know in the past when I've had bulldozing problems I've tilted the feederhouse face plate back just a hair, you may lose some really low beans that way but at least you don't spend the entire day digging mud. 2016 comes to mind where it was so wet we couldn't even travel on the field without tracks on the combine. In those conditions I was running 1700-1800 PSI. Sometimes wish our S680 was one year newer so it would have the hydraulic fore/aft tilt feederhouse but I also like not having to put DEF in so I guess it's a trade off. (Our 680 is an early 2014 before they had to put the final tier 4 emissions crap on) The 20 or so acres of corn I did barely broke 22% moisture which surprised me in a good way. Nice starting point with a nice forecast, it'll only get better. Was in P7389AM Pioneer stuff. I'm sure our 7822 and 7844 would be wetter. Not sure on what the yield would be, the little bit I did yesterday was all over the map and with the wet/cold spring who knows. I'll have a better idea tonight I think. |
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Post by Oatking on Oct 2, 2024 6:08:12 GMT -6
Open them up. You’ll thank me later. I said before I tried to zero till in the RRV. 25 years ago. I stoped cuz the chem bill was throw the roof and the water don’t go down. You may get by on canola stubble.. everything else open it up. Been zero till going into 5 years . Never go back to tillage . Water goes down better less soil compaction and I can seed into a nice firm seed bed . My ground is smooth to seed as well . Plus I save at least 20 thousand dollars on my fuel bill . I have not seen any disadvantages others speak of . Actually in the dry years I seen huge crop yields compared to neighbours who dried out their ground . I think my bean fields are more even across because less compacted soil. Our red river valley soil compacts so easily ! You need a disc drill to seed in the spring . A hoe drill will not work as good . You also should spray your borders at least so you don’t get quack grass creeping in . I think 25 years ago guys did not have the technology to properly work a zero till program . 25 years ago nobody had disc drills or heavy harrows or cheap chemical options. Yes I do spray round up after harvest but I see the benefits plus I don’t pre harvest my crops . It’s not for everyone I guess . But I like my system . I have been involved in a carbon credit program with General Mills for several years . They soil test my ground and give credit based on organic matter preserved and energy saved with zero till practices. Ha ha ! I think slip clutch and I will be debating this till we retire ! lol Good stuff . I do see guys going back to tillage after all the rain we had this summer . I won’t tell guys what is right or wrong . It has help me . I know General Mills would like me to stop baling straw and keep that organic matter . But on our big cereal crops , not even a super 7 Elmer’s will spread that . Also they would like me to seed winter wheat . Winter wheat doesn’t work so well on my low land . The spring flood water or water or ice kills the winter wheat . The money I get is not big money . 13-15 thousand a year , but it does get you thinking of better ways to do things . Another advantage is no rocks on my land ! |
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MBRfarms
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Post by MBRfarms on Oct 2, 2024 7:24:45 GMT -6
Was so dry last fall we tried no tilling our bean stubble. Caused issues this spring, wetter while seeding and took the following rains the worst and took the longest to recover. Have successfully done it in canola stubble a few times, that is also a gambling game with wet springs. Now we aim more for a min-till approach. Put narrow spikes on the cultivator and only go deep enough to make a good job on the straw and any wheel tracks. Leaves some stubble intact for erosion and snow catch but still black showing to dry up. Seen some U of M studies on RRV gumbo and it took surprisingly little tillage to do significant drying/warming in spring. I also get to deal with enough piles of black powder on our field edges from neighbors that go for the 100% black finely tilled garden approach to know I don't want that.
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Post by Oatking on Oct 2, 2024 7:41:24 GMT -6
Was so dry last fall we tried no tilling our bean stubble. Caused issues this spring, wetter while seeding and took the following rains the worst and took the longest to recover. Have successfully done it in canola stubble a few times, that is also a gambling game with wet springs. Now we aim more for a min-till approach. Put narrow spikes on the cultivator and only go deep enough to make a good job on the straw and any wheel tracks. Leaves some stubble intact for erosion and snow catch but still black showing to dry up. Seen some U of M studies on RRV gumbo and it took surprisingly little tillage to do significant drying/warming in spring. I also get to deal with enough piles of black powder on our field edges from neighbors that go for the 100% black finely tilled garden approach to know I don't want that. I hear you ! Yes it is a challenge zero tilling . I don’t want to get into the science of zero till and all that talk of keeping it green to increase carbon in your soil and what not because every farm is so different and has different opinions on soil science . I am a product of dr Martin enns at the u of m. I got my major in soil science so it’s nice to try and apply that science to the farm . He still is pushing zero tillage ! The funny thing , he has family who farm near me and they rarely if ever zero till . They like their tilled land and that okay !!! One thing I do consider and do sometimes in the spring is burn off excess straw . Canola germination loves that and you don’t get frosted out in the heavy straw areas . It would be interesting to get burnt stubble tested for carbon . I think the ash has a positive effect on soil quality . Just look at regrowth after a forest fire . To keep honest I do till one quarter but have noticed poorer crops . I started out one third and than went 95 percent zero till . I notice the guys that complain about zero till don’t own a sprayer, don’t own a disc drill and don’t like to burn . |
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Post by slipclutch on Oct 2, 2024 9:40:44 GMT -6
There are places in the world zero till works 100% when you got gumbo land it’s a different animal. Obviously oldking you have lighter land in Morris area than I do closer to Winnipeg. My cousins in SE Saskatchewan been zero till for 45 years and works for them 100% but they also spray well over 200,000 acres a year (about six passes I reckon)yes that’s one farm and they always bitch about the chemical bill now you talk about resistance weeds. Putting steel in the ground is cheap!
I agree on overworking the land is no good either. You have to leave some trash.
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MBRfarms
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Post by MBRfarms on Oct 2, 2024 20:26:48 GMT -6
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Post by slipclutch on Oct 3, 2024 4:30:50 GMT -6
Nice! MBRfarms. Your boy looks very interested in the operation. Nice to see.
jcalder did you grind away on some corn yesterday?
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Post by jcalder on Oct 3, 2024 5:45:09 GMT -6
Did about 80 acres of corn yesterday, seeing a 150+ average and the moisture is staying in that 20% range. Variety was Pioneer P7389AM. Just checked the dryer on my phone and the out of grain timer expired so either something broke on the load side or the bins are empty, haha.
If the bins are empty then the dryer is moving things along nicely, it's a 500 bushel Farm Fans and we run dry/cool cycles and we had just shy of 6000 bushels of wet grain to put through last night. Stopped dumping hot in 2019 and while it's slower it sure keeps the mess down.
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Post by bob123 on Oct 3, 2024 6:34:29 GMT -6
We've kinda been dabbling in no till the last couple years and just set our all time wheat yield record with no till this year near morris. No fancy drill setup required, just 3/4" boots on a non independent hoe drill, wheat did just over 100 averaged across a section in the bin and oats did 170. We spread our oats straw this year too and with the 30 degree days we had while combining it turned to dust, other years that wouldnt have worked. I think there are still some times to till and, on dry years the fields that got their fertilizer deep banded seem to hang on longer but no more recreational tillage here
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jaymo
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Post by jaymo on Oct 3, 2024 7:03:00 GMT -6
Hopefully wrap up today. The soybeans are yielding best ever for our farm but we've only got about 4 years of soybean experience. Its beating canola yields, so that's something.
I like how this conversation has turned into a no-till/till debate! We've been basically no-till since 2008.
Lately the thing I like best about it is seeing a lot of tilled fields blowing away and my fields slowly collecting their topsoil! haha
Even this fall some canola fields that had some disease issues and aggressively harrowed were blowing on Monday! Which is a bit of an exception but even makes you reconsider harrowing when the straw and stubble is that brittle.
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Post by meskie on Oct 3, 2024 7:18:59 GMT -6
I don’t get the harrowing of canola stubble.
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Post by Oatking on Oct 3, 2024 7:41:44 GMT -6
There are quite a few fields now that are a prime candidate for blowing ! More vertical tillage has increased the chance . I can see the pride in having a black field like a garden .
I think they are counting on an early cereal crop next spring .
The biggest advantage of no till is
Less compaction
Firmer seed bed
Better water infiltration
Less wind erosion
Bring up less rocks
Less hours on your equipment
Less diesel fuel spent
Cleaner fields due to spraying roundup after harvest
Super smooth fields
Moisture conservation
Qualifies for carbon credits
Some agronomists point out with no till your ground heats up faster in the spring due to microbes and earthworm activity in your soil . This statement I have not seen in my soils yet . Takes years of undisrupted soil activity for this to happen .
I am probably forgetting several others .
I am always amazed how little crop material is left in mid summer after zero tilling !
Only disadvantage I dislike is the canola stubble is brutal on my disc drill tires and tractor tires .
Oat stubble is pretty soft .
I might switch to a track tractor next spring . Not sure yet .
That is an expensive decision .
Managing excess trash on the ground is crucial in a good zero till program .
Big Al said they chopped the cereal straw to dust . Sometimes that is not possible !
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Post by bob123 on Oct 3, 2024 8:13:49 GMT -6
I don’t get the harrowing of canola stubble. It gets losses germinating much quicker, we try and harrow everything as soon as possible behind the combine so it has the most time to grow now, better now then next spring. It looks worse to the neighbors if it's all germinated but it's a free cover crop. Even a combine that's doing a good job will loose multiple times normal seeding rate. We floated on some oat seed infront of harrow too on canola ground to help with cover. Had a 5+ bushel bump on a field that had been split bare tilled corn ground on one side and oats on the other last year and then soybeans across it all this year |
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Post by hardrockacres on Oct 3, 2024 8:18:26 GMT -6
We finished yesterday just after 6 last night but the combine gods were working against us right from the morning to try and keep that from happening. Started off with my farm 1/2 ton almost lighting on fire when it blew the trans dipstick out and sprayed fluid on the manifold. Had lots of smoke from under the engine but no fire. Washed it off and topped up the tranny and all seems well. Left it sit for the remainder of the day and will check the trans breather to see if it is plugged today as I don't know what else would build pressure to push it out. While cleaning my truck up my buddy calls me and says "guess what, we just broke a LHS rear spindle on the 9090....on the hiway". So I head there to see what we need to do, luckily the local CIH dealer had a spindle upgrade kit in stock, (which tells me this is a known issue) - Upgrade is quite a bit beefier than the original). I could not be a tow truck driver as changing bearing races on the side of the hiway with traffic flying buy was not much fun. They are hauling gravel to the BHP mine so there is a steady stream of gravel trucks going by at a rate of what seemed like a truck every 2 min. While changing the spindle I get a call that the 8090 blew a fuel line and almost lit on fire. One of the clips that holds the plastic low-pressure line broke and the line rubbed threw and was spraying fuel everywhere on the engine. We got lucky that the cart driver saw a puff of blue smoke and asked if he had hit a wad of canola and had him stop and check where the smoke came from.
Least we didn't have any issues with the other 9090, and we got everything fixed and back operational by around 12:30 and working fine. Just ended up finishing about 3 hours later than what we had thought would be a short day. All in the rearview mirror now as we had a few laughs about it with much needed cold beverages in the shop once we all got back to the yard.
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