more tillage

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  • May 10, 2011 at 12:27 pm #42709
    Andy Carson
    Moderator

    With all the rain and muck I have been very delayed getting field work done. I tried to disc the field that will be planted in buckwheat this year. I got it “half way” disced before the rain hit, but then got really behind. It currently has a cover of rye which was planted last year. I am discovering that the disc tends to knock it down and cut it up in general, but penetration and uprooting action is pretty limited. My springtooth does a pretty good job of uprooting it though. I am ending up discing once and following with a springtooth. If I go straight in with the springtooth it plugs more than I would like it to. This sequence seems to work pretty well so far. I’ll probably end up having to do this in most of my plots. Trying to stay flexible and do the minimum tillage needed to get the job done…

    May 10, 2011 at 3:32 pm #67251
    Tim Harrigan
    Participant

    Andy, this is a rough spring to be experimenting with cereal rye as a cover crop. One of the biggest drawbacks is the way it can really jump and get away from you in just a couple of days if you can not get in the field to control it. Good luck with that. I am in Costa Rica this week but I see another line of storms moving across Michigan today and in your direction.

    Costa Rica is an interesting country. They have several huge tracts of land set aside as national parks, but they are not exactly like our national parks. Basically, they are not tourist attractions. There are roads through them and it seems like you can drive through them but there is no development and apparently no management of the land or timber allowed. As a nation they are committed to carbon neutrality by 2021 and have a well developed sense of resource conservation and use. Just like in the US :rolleyes::eek::o.

    Tomorrow I will be speaking to a group of agricultural engineers and engineering students. I am planning to discuss animal traction in the context of sustainable management of timber resources. There are some great pictures of draft animal logging on this site, I think I will use a few of them.

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