Thursday, May 21, 2009

Seeding Update

Isn't it funny how little motivation there is to blog after working all day on the tractor. Actually today wasn't all day on the tractor, I actually had a couple of other jobs to do as well. But for a start I was basically on the tractor.

First thing is though, to load the Ford tipper with seed and super. So I headed over to Bob's to do that. I got there, untarped the truck (which has the "old fashioned" tarps where I actually have to get up on the truck to roll it forward - not like the lovely modern ones, roll tarps, that can be opened and closed from the ground) and first loaded the Correll wheat seed into the front section. Then took it over close to the super shed and then used Bob's old Massey front end loader and loaded the super into the back section of the truck. This is what happens every time I load her up.

Back to the paddock I went with it where I then had to load the air seeder, as I ran out of seed last night with only a little bit left in the paddock. So loaded up and finished the hectare or so I had left to do there and then moved onto the next paddock. About 10ha in the main rd paddock at Wendelbournes. Needless to say that paddock didn't take long. I did have to refill just before I finished that paddock and that's when I noticed I had broken a tyne (well actually lost a tyne - that's what happens when the pin that it pivots on breaks. A short time later I was lucky enough to find the broken tyne (I should really say missing not broken, cause it was only the pin that was broken) so I found the MISSING tyne and as it happened I had a spare pin with me. So it wasn't too much of a task to replace it and get going again. In fact it would be more of a task to actually describe to you how I replaced it.

I started on the next paddock, and as we are coming to the end of the Correll seed I was working towards finishing the seed off, and working in the truck loading and field bin emptying and all. So when I was half way through the northeast paddock I was off to Bob's again, and did empty out the Correll bin, so it was all in the truck. I had also emptied 1 of the 2 super bays in Bob's super shed. As I still had a load of fertilizer in the semi-tipper I got that out and backed it into the almost empty bay and tipped it up and unloaded that, and also cleaned it out. So I was over there for a while.

When I eventually made it back to the paddock I finished off that one, just before dark. It was just over 22ha. Then onto the last paddock of Correll wheat. The front east paddock here on the home place. That one's nearly 9ha and in that time I emptied the seed section of the tipper ready for cleaning out tomorrow so I can move onto a new variety of wheat. Any seed I had left in the air seeder after I finished that paddock I drilled into the pasture paddock next to it. Just to run it out. The air seeder also empty now and back home ready for a clean out tomorrow.

Dad's been busy on the boom spray as well. We use a "double knock" method of weed control - well we are for the current paddocks anyway. We didn't for most of the Correll wheat, where we used Logran, but will for the rest of the cereals. So that means that a day or so before seeding we spray a glysophate knock down, and now I remember that I have told you all this, because of my "glysophate/glyphosate" dilemma. Anyway he's been doing that. Glysophate with oxyflurafen 240 a day or so earlier, then trifluralin and paraquat in front of the seeding operation. Today he did the "1st knock" on the front east paddock (and front west I think - that's where I'll start with the next variety tomorrow), the middle and back paddocks at Glackens and number 20 on Bob's.

He did the 2nd knock on the paddocks on Wendelbourne's that I drilled and the front east paddock. I think the spraying has basically been incident free, besides the usual trouble that everyone has sucking glysophate out of envirodrums in the cold mornings, and he also cracked a boom line late this afternoon. He ended up taping it up to bet by but did also buy a new one that he will install in the morning. The boom line is what carries the chemcal down to each nozzle. The nozzles are connected to the boom lines.

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