Last week I told you there would be planting pictures from the farm this week. I was right! Planting season 2014 began on Wednesday and continued through Thursday. Rain delay all day Friday, and then back to the fields on Saturday. Sunday morning we ran a few hours to finish a field ahead of rain that will come early Monday morning.
Planting Progress
We go a lot done in short order, and being a big Iron Maiden fan the lyric in the photo above came to mind.
On Wednesday we went out to try our hand at planting. Other than one small issue pulling vacuum because a seed plate wasn’t locked down tight we had no issues, and we just kept on planting. Put in 195 acres the first day! Thursday socked another 208 acres of corn seed in the soil. We tried to go out Friday evening, but it was too wet. Saturday we finished an 80 and a 50 including a test plot, and started another field. Sunday we finished up with around 650 acres done already with just one 170 acre corn field left to plant. We’ll be just over a third done by that point. Soybeans and popcorn still to go.
Busy Work
While we waited for things to dry out Monday and Tuesday we spent some time fixing up the landscaping around Grandpa’s mailbox post.
Fire Good!
Last year we had some of the row cleaners on the planter contact the rubber gauge wheels causing some damage. Since then we’ve added steel plates to space the cleaners further from the wheels. While prepping the planter this year I noticed a few of the worst offenders were bent for some reason. Nothing we couldn’t fix with heat and blunt force!
Tire Trouble
Two tractor tires were repaired earlier in the month, and here the vertical till didn’t even make it out of the shed without rolling a tire off the bead. Turned out the tire had a hole in it. Hopefully we got all our tire troubles taken care of before the season gets going.
Seed in the Planter
Some of the first seed to be dumped in the planter for 2014. The purple coloring is a seed coating that prevents disease and insect damage to young plants. Based on recent history we likely won’t be having a sprayer loaded with fuel, water, and pesticide making an applications over the top of our corn crop. The white powder is talc with helps the seed flow through the planter easily.
Fuel Up
The service trailer we assembled in recent weeks was finally put to work in the field. Here I’m fueling up the planter tractor while I wait for the field cultivator to work ground ahead of me.
Our shop is centrally located to our fields so it is often convenient to stop by the fuel pump between fields.
Prescription Filled
We can bring up the variable rate seeding prescriptions we created ahead of planting as a background map while we plant. Different colors represent different plant populations. Blue areas show the ground already planted. The white line is the autosteer guidance track I was using. A lot of seat time in the office comes before seat time in the tractor creating these customized maps.
Marker Mishaps
I had a little issue with the folded up row markers on the planter. Again. They tend to bounce when turning on rougher ground and no-till end rows. I had one get over center and it crashed down onto the planter frame. Luckily the only casualty was a warning light that is easily replaceable. This is the second instance of a marker flipping over. We had one come over last year too. Now we’ve taken some precautions to prevent more damage. If a marker flops over when not in use it would come down in a place where it would easily slice through a wiring harness or hydraulic hose. It’s pretty much a guillotine at that point rather than something to draw a line in the dirt.
This is what a marker looks like when folded up and not in use. The arm on top is what causes trouble. The first thing we did was to move the saddle each one sits on out towards the end of the arm so the center of gravity is lower, and that has made a big difference on the bounce issue. In no-till fields I may still tie them down with a rubber strap just in case. I rarely use the markers now with GPS keeping things straight (or curvy) so it wouldn’t be much trouble to take a strap off now and then. For those who don’t know, the markers unfold to make a line for the center of the next pass.
See that little gray splice in the black air line and the rusty spot behind it? That’s where the marker came down last year, cutting the line in two. You can see how close it came to the bundle of hoses and wiring on top of the frame. I came up with a solution for that.
A little bit of scrap metal, some existing bolt holes, and some John Deere green paint, and we’ve built in a protective plate on both sides of the planter that will prevent a costly breakdown if a marker jumps ship again.
As for next week…..
Related articles
Where abouts is the 88 acre you bought?