Seeding Update

I know I've got a couple of days worth of blogging to catch up on... again, so I'll try and remember what I've been up to. Being seeding time we've covered quite a few paddocks in the last few days, and the problem I have is that I cant remember what my last blog actually said, so I cant remember what paddock I was up to.

Well we were coming to the end of the Correll wheat, and I know we finished off in the front east paddock here at home. I then went and emptied the airseeder box by sewing the "left overs" into a pasture paddock. I think I did mention all that.

Here is a picture inside the airseeder seed bin, with just the dregs left in the bottom ready for clean out. Actually I think I was actually part way through the clean out.

In there is the Correll Wheat seed. It has a pinkish colour to it because it was treated with a seed dressing when we cleaned the seed. It prevents the plants getting some diseases. Now what else can you see in the picture?... There is a baffle in there to stop the seed moving across to one side with the gentle vibration as it goes along. Attached to that is the white seed level sensor. This sets off an alarm in the tractor when the bin is almost empty. If you look closely you can see the "stars" that turn in the bottom of the bin to control the flow of the seed out to the hoses. And my knee is in there as well... Yes I was inside the bin with the air vacuum cleaning out the remaining seed.

And there is the bin all emptied out and cleaned up ready for the next variety of wheat which will be Kukri. (I say will be, but we have already started on that and done a couple of paddocks, so I should have said it is Kukri).

I finished the Correll Thurday night. Did the clean out Friday morning. Reloaded the tipper truck (which I also had to clean out that morning) that morning, calibrated the airseeder for the new seed and then started on the front west paddock. The boom spray has been working in front of the airseeder for each paddock so in that time Dad has been out there spraying the paraquat and trifluarlin. He's also being spraying the initial knock down on paddocks a day or so in front of the airseeder. So with that he's covered Glackens river gum paddock and back paddock, Bob's 20 and 15 and 12.

Late Friday afternoon I moved up to Glackens and sewed the back paddock and the river gum paddock there with Kukri Wheat. And that's as far as I've got with the airseeder.

The next day the wind had picked up to a point that using the boom spray would cause too much spray drift (although I did notice that a few of our neighbours still did a little bit), so we put that on hold until the wind dropped out a bit.. which it never did on Saturday.

Instead I headed down to Honiton to pick up the John Deere 4440 and prickle chain to bring them back home. I had 1 more paddock to do with the prickle chain, and that was at Wendelbournes, and that would have all the chaining done. So that's what I did, in the west paddock at Wendelbournes.

That's what the prickle chain looks like all folded out behind the John Deere. It has a chain laid out in a diamond shape that has spikes... or "prickles" and the chains roll as it moves along. It moves the soil levelling it all out and covering the furrows that are left by the air seeder bar. We wouldn't normally use it, but we did this so the chemical we are using to try and control barley from growing with the wheat, will be controlled.