My Second Home

Now that all the crops are up and growing (except where I had slight mis-haps with the air seeder) it's time to really start thinking about crop nutrition and weed control. Each crop we grow requires a certain amount of different types of nutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sodium. Granular fertilizer that is sown in with the seed at seeding time is based on these nutrients, but during the growing season sometimes a "top up" doesn't hurt. Nitrogen is the main nutrient we're concerned about, especially on the higher yielding cereals and high protein crops (such as durham wheat). There's 2 main methods of applying more nitrogen to the crops. 1st involves using a spreader to broadcast Urea. 2nd method is to apply a liquid form using the boom spray. Yes that's right,.. I use the liquid form and boom spray. The last week has been spent spraying out 50litres per hectare of UAN (that's the liquid fertilizer) with 50litres per hectare of water. I can even do this on rainy and/or windy days, unlike general weed spraying. It does, however, get a little difficult if it has been too wet, the paddocks get too boggy, and I'm there to spray fertilizer, not for trench digging in the tractor. Rye grass is a common weed that rears it's ugly head at this time of year in crops as well, so I have a few herbicide plans for some of the paddocks to try to control it. So that will be the next job. So between fertilizer spraying and rye grass spraying I think I'll have enough boom spray work to keep my busy for a few weeks... The old Ford 8401... it's just like My Second Home.