To keep up to date with the latest crops and varieties on the farm from time to time we need to buy new seed. This year we have actually started 3 new varieties, actually 4 if you include the pasture seed. Generally new seed comes in in 40kg bags and I usually buy a tonne of each new variety.
The four new varieties I have are;
- Garnet - canola (I started seeding planting the canola)
- Mace - wheat
- Commander - malting barley
- Bladder clover - the pasture seed
All but the canola was sown on the same day, which made for quite a tiring, fiddly day. See it's quite a task loading the bags into the air seeder, then calibrating for that particular seed, sowing roughly 10 hectares with the new seed and then doing a full clean out (which isn't real easy with a shearer airseeder). And repeat those steps for each new seed variety.
I have to admit that I was quite pleased when I had finished with all the fiddling around and could get back onto seeding the barley. Maritime barley is the last variety I have to go this seeding, so I am on the home stretch now, with only the 32mm of rain we had a coupla days ago to hold us up. A few more days now should see us out.
Glad to hear you've almost finished seeding - it's a great feeling when it's all in the ground! We've been gettting rain every week we finished sowing 6 weeks ago - the paddocks all look lush and are growing perfectly. Farmer Phil is just chasing some weeds at the moment but with rain, fog and frosts he's getting behind.
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