Friday Crop Report on a Thursday!

[sumdumguy]

I have to ask this as some of you don’t get farming and weather cycles. Yes you got rah. This fall but wha if you get oh say 10 years of below rainfall or drought. Sort of like the 80s. How intelligent will you be. Yea we might be dry next year again. Great our flooded areas are back. 2019 would be a bad year.

Some of you just hate.

Ain't that the truth! Some of you on here ought to chill out. SF3 goes into a lot of effort to update us every Thursday, which I for one really appreciate. It would be really nice to have a free, open and respectful interraction, just saying!

[Guest]

Just asking any one use this in a wetter area and what results.

No it’s not a high speed tillage system

guys did it here a few years back and was a complete waste of time and fuel and hours . water laid in it next year same as the ones not done . expensive also when he hooked an underground line . she's cracked and subsoiled here already . our inch and a half is long gone and fields are dry . cracks about half as big .
anyone burning (other than flax straw) now should be slapped on the side of the head , hard!

[hobbyfrmr]

I don't think it does tweet. At least in loamy soil anyway.

Long term Zero till was supposed to create an incredible amount of dead root mass underground and have a water perculating (?) effect. lt was logical but I never followed up on it and cannot confirm.

[grassfarmer]

Why not try tillage radish if you have time.....they would do the same thing plus add to your soil....quite an amazing plant...

Seed is too expensive, use sweet clover instead - fixes a pile N and the roots go deeper than tillage radish.

[grassfarmer]

So far the rein we’re gettjng us perfect so far

How did you determine that direct seeding caused hard pan?

That exchange was a bit like a Far Side cartoon - bizarre! What prompted that question from tweety in response to that statement by SF3? And what rein are you enjoying SF3 - did you mean Justin's reign?

[sawfly1]

do you know how much rock i would have to pick if i used that thing.

[furrowtickler]

Grassy as far as a English professor and cattle farmer you get A marks , as far as remarking about full time grain production against grain producers that have been there and done that with their families for 100 plus years , sorry man , F - .
S/F has his points here on what he is doing , it's not haphazard, some of us give him a hard time with his over exaggeration at times but he knows what he is doing.
If there were 2000 ac of grain land you had 1000 and he had 1000 he would crush you . If there were 2000 head of cattle and you had 1000 head and he 1000 I am sure you would school him . Learn some respect from those who do it solely . Not very many on here bash the cowboys , most of us respect what and how you do things . Respect those who grain farm , even just a bit . It gets very old Grass .
And Tweety , well he floats his own boat and thinks he is alpha male at times no different than other strong minded grain farmers not unlike myself . We have all learned a lot of things from others on here , respect that . A lot of the best ideas in farming don't come from a text book or English class .

[grassfarmer]

Grassy as far as a English professor and cattle farmer you get A marks , as far as remarking about full time grain production against grain producers that have been there and done that with their families for 100 plus years , sorry man , F - .
S/F has his points here on what he is doing , it's not haphazard, some of us give him a hard time with his over exaggeration at times but he knows what he is doing.
If there were 2000 ac of grain land you had 1000 and he had 1000 he would crush you . If there were 2000 head of cattle and you had 1000 head and he 1000 I am sure you would school him . Learn some respect from those who do it solely . Not very many on here bash the cowboys , most of us respect what and how you do things . Respect those who grain farm , even just a bit . It gets very old Grass .
And Tweety , well he floats his own boat and thinks he is alpha male at times no different than other strong minded grain farmers not unlike myself . We have all learned a lot of things from others on here , respect that . A lot of the best ideas in farming don't come from a text book or English class .

Was that in response to my comment about tillage radish? If so there are more cowboys using tillage radish than grain farmers.

[Guest]

Seed is too expensive, use sweet clover instead - fixes a pile N and the roots go deeper than tillage radish.

sweet clover is the one of worst weeds going ! i sure wouldn't seed it .once you seed it , it is there FOREVER alfalfa really works good , though
how does tillage radish work , know nothing about it ? seed costs ? when do you seed it ?

[farmaholic]

Is it for intercropping or an alternative to an annual crop...like summerfallowing? The wake up call on our farm was you need rain to be successful no matter what.

Anything that would continue to tap out the moisture In the dry areas until freeze up in this low rainfall year would almost seem counter productive.

[grassfarmer]

sweet clover is the one of worst weeds going ! i sure wouldn't seed it .once you seed it , it is there FOREVER alfalfa really works good , though
how does tillage radish work , know nothing about it ? seed costs ? when do you seed it ?

Presumably the regular applications of glyphosate would take care of any volunteer sweet clover?
Tillage radish grows a big taproot which scavenges a lot of nutrients from the soil and holds them over the winter to release for the next crop. It also leaves holes for water to infiltrate and the dead leaves cover the ground surface holding back weed growth. That's the theory anyway.
We experimented with it a bit and found that it couldn't penetrate the hardpan in many cases - just went sideways when it hit it. It has to be seeded after the longest day or else it puts all it's energy into above ground growth and flowering versus growing the taproot. Seed cost ran about $30 an acre - not so bad for us as we were grazing the leaves off but I guess tough to justify for someone with no livestock. Needs about 40lb of N to grow a strong crop.
Typically seeded after an early harvested grain crop farma, and as you say you need moisture to get a crop. Works better in the US where they get all the cover crop seeds for free under the guise of soil conservation but really just another hidden subsidy.

[farmaholic]

Thanks Grass