Weed Zappin'

If this hot, dry weather has been good for anything, it's at least given me an opportunity to kill some weeds this week. This sounds easy enough, but it's not as simple as dumping some chemicals into a tank and taking off across a field. Each herbicide has detailed "do's and don'ts" that we must adhere to. Different rates/concentrations will have different effects in different conditions. Protective clothing must be worn when handling these herbicides, and they often have to be mixed in a certain order when used with liquid fertilizer, adjuvants, or other herbicides in the same tank mix. We use GPS assistance to minimize application skips and overlaps in the field, and keep records that include the time, temperature, and wind speed/direction while making applications.

My first herbicide applications this week were in a large 60+ acre heifer pasture. I used a selective herbicide, primarily targeting pigweed, ragweed, and dog fennel. The weeds showed signs of stress within an hour of being sprayed, and 24 hours later it was obvious they were wilting. Using a selective herbicide to kill weeds removes the competition for soil nutrients, thereby improving the quantity and nutritional quality of the pasture grass (bermuda in this case). Once I finished applying this particular herbicide, I thoroughly cleaned the tanks and sprayer lines as per the instructions on the the herbicide's label.

Today I applied a different selective herbicide on our silage corn crop down in the bottomland. This time it was in an effort to kill and control broadleaf signalgrass, cocklebur, and morning glory. Though it's hard to tell from the photo, quite a few broadleaf weeds have already popped up between the rows. The herbicide I applied should kill them and have enough residual effect to prevent more from sprouting. There are pockets of johnsongrass here and there that this herbicide won't effect, but I can control that with glyphosate in a couple of weeks since the corn is a Roundup-Ready variety.

Speaking of glyphosate, that's likely the next herbicide application on the agenda. We'll either use a minimal- or no-tilling planting technique for our sorghum crop, but first we need to kill all the grasses and weeds that have grown up in the fields. We can't begin the planting sorghum, though, until we get some rain to improve the soil moisture. With that in mind, I probably won't be in any big hurry to get the sprayer back into the field until a couple of days prior to a favorable rain forecast.

Spreading fertilizer and waiting for rain

The local co-op delivered a fertilizer buggy full of ammonia nitrate to our farm this morning, along with 900 pounds of 0-20-20 in bags. I spent most of the morning pulling the buggy across hayfields (still 3 more acres to go) while one of our employees spread a mix of the bulk and bagged fertilizer on a few acres of our bottomland that was too wet for the spreader truck to cross last week.

We aren't really hurting for moisture down in the bottomland.  The corn we planted last Wednesday has already emerged, and it looks as if we'll have a good stand down there.  The land around our dairy is a different story though.  Our hayfields are green, but the bermudagrass isn't growing as quickly as it needs to due to a lack of water.  The current forecast calls for a slight chance of thunderstorms Saturday through Monday, so hopefully three days of 30% equal a 90% chance we'll get at least one shower.

Regardless of if we use a no-till or minimal-till method to plant our forage sorghum, that job is also on hold until we get some rainfall.  Our target date for planting had been mid-June, and that's still a possibility if we get any substantial rain within the next 10 days.  We do have a fairly forgiving planting window on the sorghum, though, as we've planted it successfully as late as early July.

So until it rains, we'll tinker around in the shop, maybe spray a few pastures, and keep the cows as cool and comfortable as we possibly can as the heat creeps towards 100 degrees later this week.  

Wordless Wednesday: planting corn

It's finally time to plant some corn!

It's taken a while, but we're finally making some progress in the corn fields. We're only planting 45 acres of silage corn this year, but all of it will be in my great-uncle's fields in the Yellow Creek Bottom.  Even though there hasn't been much rain in May, the land is just now dry enough to begin working. As my great-uncle said to me yesterday, "It's as dry as it has been since last fall...and it still ain't that dry."

making the "1st cut" with the disk in the bottom

We moved two disks down there on Monday morning and spent the day turning the soil and cutting up the weeds and grass. This paved the way for the local co-op to spread fertilizer on it yesterday, save for one 2-acre spot that was too wet for the spreader truck to drive over.  One of our employees started "cutting in" the fertilizer and smoothing the ground with the disk (we attached a heavy drag behind it) mid-afternoon.  I decided to run the disk for a couple of hours following my son's tee-ball game last night, and was able to operate until well-past dark thanks to GPS and some fairly good working lights on the tractor.

disking at night by GPS & worklights

So that brings us to today. I'm about to head back to the field and resume the disking, which hopefully will be finished by early afternoon.  Dad will be in the field with the planter by mid-morning, and I'll probably take over that job around lunchtime and run while he milks this afternoon. We expect planting to take 12 hours, so we'll probably each take an evening shift until we finish the job. With rain in the forecast tomorrow, it's imperative that we finish sometime tonight.  If all goes well today (knock on wood), we'll be able to start turning our attention to something else tomorrow.