Still seeding, but we're gettin there

Still seeding here, but we're not too far from the end now. All the wheat has been planted, I should finish the barley in the next coupla days, leaving only the peas still to plant. So by this time next week I'm hopin it'll be all done and dusted.   I've been pondering lately the importance of what I'm putting in the ground. Ya see, the seeds that I plant are the seeds that will grow - sounds pretty basic really doesn't it? I don't want to be planting wheat, for example, that has been contaminated with other seeds, such as peas or even weed seeds.  I didn't mention in earlier posts that before we plant any seed we get the local seed grader to come around and clean all our seed to ensure its quality and purity for planting.  I find my life is a bit like that too... just like the seeds that I'm putting in the ground I need to make sure what I'm putting into my life is high quality and pure. If the seeds I sow into my life come from bad influences say on the internet or tv, bad music, even less than desirable friends, I will only reap greed, jealousy, anger, violence etc. But when I sow good positive things into my life I reap love, joy, peace, patience, kindness etc.  So just like the crops I'm planting in my paddock, in life I will only reap what I sow.

seeding

Well seeding is still underway with plenty of wheat being planted at the moment. I grow 2 varieties of wheat.. Mace, which is a general run of the mill bread wheat, and Hyperno, which is a durum wheat used for making pasta. 

Now it's a generally well known fact, almost an unwritten rule, that farmers are never satisfied. They always have something to complain about and it usually relates to the weather. If it's not too dry then it's too wet. If it's not too windy, then it's not windy enough. If it's not too hot, then it's too cold etc. You get what I mean. It does apply to all facets of farming, but mainly weather because we are so reliant on it to produce a crop. Well it's my turn to complain now because after good early rains, we haven't had any to speak of in the last few weeks and so the soil has really dried out and gone quite hard making it really difficult to get the disks on the air seeder to penetrate into ground to plant the seeds.  In fact in quite a few places I've seen seed sitting on top of the ground in the furrows. The worst paddocks are ones that we've had sheep grazing on, they tend to pack the soil down when it's damp leaving it hard as rock. 

  Speaking of rocks, I've been dealing with quite a bit of solid limestone in paddocks lately, but I think I'll save that story for another day.

Seeding Continues

A few images from the tractor seat (yes I know the windows need cleaning)

Yes it's full steam aheah with seeding out on the farm, and everything is running smoothly. The New-Holland TM155 tractor is pulling the Hardi 4228B boom spray which goes ahead of the seeder to spray out any weeds and also prevent more weeds from germinating. The chemicals we're using are paraquat, trifluralin and diuron (pron. die-you-on). With the rains we had earlier this year quite a few weeds had already germinated and had already been sprayed out with knock-down sprays.   I'm operating the seeding unit.. a John Deere 8200 tractor pulling a Simplicity 9000 TBT air cart and a John Deere 2200 cultivator which I've fitted out with K-Hart disk modules. I also need to keep up the supply of seed and fertilizer to the air seeder. To do that I have a seed and super unit (or grouper) on the back of the Atkinson, and the Kenworth has been getting it's fair share of work too, ferrying fertilizer around from farm to farm.   A quick calculation and I've worked out that I've covered about 740ha (1800ish acres) out of  just under 2000ha (4940acres) the I plan to plant all up.