I got all the plots at the farm ready for seed. I had disced them up previously, so this weekend I spread the fertilizer and tilled them up. They are all ready for the planter in 2 weeks.
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Curse you and your rock-free black dirt, Sticker! I hope all the beautiful soil clogs your tiller and that all your deer go out and eat bad Mexican food and drink cheap beer and poop in your plots making them smell like bad taco/Blatz combo farts.
Not that I’m bitter or anything. 
Grouse
Just got my last spring plot done now all I need to do is plant I’m doing some Milo millet and sorghum for a big 10 acre field then peas and corn in the other two smaller plots
I got all the seed in the ground this weekend. everything planted and cultipacked 
Nothing left to do except wait for Ma nature to rain.
Last i checked it is Suppose to rain today and tomorrow up here. You should be good.
DT
I’m still easily 10 dry days away from being able to even turn dirt. The farmers in my area haven’t even turned a wheel in the corn fields, there’s still standing water in places even after 5 rain free days.
I loaded up the tractor bucket with bags of lime and drive down to one of the plots and as soon as I got the front wheels off the field road and out into the plot itself, I sunk in about 4 inches. That put to rest any ideas I had about hooking up the disc and doing a few rounds after I spread lime.
One more reason why I like having the plots in strips, I can’t get in to plant, but I still have nice clover strips and rye strips from last year that the deer can feed on.
Grouse
I hope we cut off all the rain for the next 10 days at our farm. It’s a dust bowl up there already. It’s a win/win if we get rain and you don’t. You hear that Ma Nature?
All the corn beans and peas planted now I get to start with the sweet corn up at the house 
Little bro was at the farm over the weekend and checked the plots.
The corn is coming up and the beans are starting to pop. Going up in 2 weeks for the first round of spraying.
We put a plot saver fence on half of one of the bean plots. First time using it so it will be interesting how it works.
It appears that some of the rye I planted last fall, then disced in this spring wants to come back too.
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Looks good Sticker. Can’t wait till we get our plots finished.
Looks good. That volunteer rye will get burned down with the first application of roundup.
ooks good Sticker. Can’t wait till we get our plots finished.
Heck, I can’t wait until I can get STARTED. Other than spread lime, I’ve had no ability to get a tractor into my plot without sinking to China. I got about 3 more inches of rain in the last 5 days, so I need a solid week of dry weather to have any chance of working any ground.
Grouse
I have the same problem with the plots at home. Over 5″ of rain last week. It will be a little while before I can get the planter in them. Heck, I might even need to hit them with gly before I even plant. I have had them worked up for 3 weeks, but was waiting for the soil to warm up. I guess I am ahead of you there though Grouse, mine are worked up.
I have to be so dang careful because I have a pretty big (for plotting standards) tractor that’s 2WD and I have the rear tires filled, so it’s HEAVY. Then add on the 900 pound disc on the back. If that baby gets stuck, I have nothing else that I can even get close to it with, much less use to pull it out. I’d just literally have to leave it there until it (hopefully) at some point dried out enough, which would create an even longer delay than waiting.
I’m not really in that big of a hurry anyway. All I really need to do is cover crop the brassicas plots. It just starts to bug me, I start wondering if this will be another year where it NEVER drires out.
I’m going to feel really bad if I have to ask Tegg to lend me back the ATV disc I sold him…
Grouse
I’m going to feel really bad if I have to ask Tegg to lend me back the ATV disc I sold him…
Grouse
At least we know it fits in the trailer.
We just leased our 15+ acre home field to one of the neighbors for a clover/hay mix. He was out turning dirt last week but was dealing with rain/wet conditions as well. Sounds like it will be a two year project. Soil amendment & cover crop this year with the hay/clover mix for 2018. We just had 23 acres logged this winter so it should be good timing.
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The first round of spraying is done at the farm. Plots were looking good. Corn about 4-6″ tall and beans from 2-4″.
My one biggest plot that I have had issue with gly resistant weeds in got a new recipe this year. Ragweed has been my biggest issue in this plot and as you can see from the picture of the corn plot, there was a complete carpet of young ragweed coming up with the corn. This year I sprayed that plot with Halex GT. It has gly in it but also has 2 other chemicals that kill weeds in different ways. It also has a 3-4 week residual affect. I could hear the baby ragweeds screaming bloody murder as I drove over them with the sprayer and it was music to ears 
I am hoping this is the end of my ragweed problem for a few years.
The beans were not that weedy yet, but there were some and they all got hit with a good dose of gly.
Grouse, I hope this eagle beans can hold up to the browse pressure. The cam in one of my bean plots with eagle beans had constant deer activity. We will see how they hold up to it.
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Yes, an excellent real life trial for the Eagle Forage Soybeans. I’ve sold to numerous customers in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and even Iowa who have had excellent growth up to 4+ feet high, even with browsing pressure. Will be interested to see what your results are.
I just sprayed all my Mega Clover Plus plots with clethodim to kill the grass. These plots are 1 and 3 years old, so I’m really interested in seeing if I can keep the oldest plot going for another year. I have almost no broadleafs in that clover, it’s all grass invading, so hopefully, the cleth does its thing.
Hope you can get the weeds under control with the new spray.
Grouse
Latest update, weeds are dead or dying in the plots. Beans and corn are doing real good.
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Wow, very nice looking plots!
Any early thoughts about the effectiveness of that plot saver fence?
Plots look great.
I was up to my farm on Saturday just turning over last years brassicas plots. I wanted to spray, but it was way too windy for that. I did get the brassicas plots turned over with the disc, so that was good.
I forgot to take pictures of my clover plots. I sprayed clethodim 2 weeks ago and it really zapped the grass in the clover plots. Except for the damn sedge. The bigger clumps of sedge in my older plots just laughed at the spray and kept right on growing. I guess an 80% kill isn’t that bad, but I hate the looks of that sedge grass, it’s like it’s taunting me.
I have 2 areas that are cover cropped in the most beautiful rye. I’ll have to take pictures, these are terrific examples of how rye cover cropping keeps weeds at bay. There are virtually no weeds in the rye. 20 feet away in the same plot, but in a strip that was brassicas last year and so has had nothing in it this year, and the weeds are a thick carpet.
Grouse
Any early thoughts about the effectiveness of that plot saver fence?
Grouse
There was zero browsing inside and outside the fence according to my brother, so not yet.
Finally finished all our plots over the last few weeks. We have beans planted ,Rye and clover plots in. First few are from when we first got them in.
First is Rye and clover after 5 days. 2nd two pictures are beans planted .
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Our rye and clover is coming in great just after two weeks
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Our beans are getting hit hard by the deer and Turkey’s. This is after a couple weeks we checked them last night.
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Made it back to the farm over the weekend. We planted brassica in the standing oats/rye plots, hit them with urea, rolled them with the cultipacker, then sprayed them with gly. The theory behind this is the oat/rye straw laying in the plot will keep moisture in and keep weeds from growing. This is my first time trying this method, so we will see how it goes.
The oats grew very well. I had to hold my spreader up about head high as I was planting in them just to get the seed over the oats. The rye I was very unimpressed with. Here is a picture of the oats in a plot before and after rolling it. They were close to 5′ tall in places.
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The corn I was very impressed with. I had 2 plots planted in corn and they both looked great, some of the corn was taller than 6′ already.
Beans plots were decent to outstanding. I am not sure why but one plot was fantastic. The beans were fully canopied and about knee high. This was the plot with the deer fence in half of it and the beans inside the fence were about 6″ taller. This plots was browsed some but was quite impressive. For some reason I don’t have a recent pic of this plot 
The other 2 plots were not quite as impressive. One of them is ag beans and they were absolutely hammmered with browse pressure. Not one plant in the plot that wasn’t nipped off. I also have a little issue with red root pigweed in this plot. I will need to address that this fall. The other plot is the eagle beans which are coming along nicely. They haven’t canopied yet, but they should fairly soon. Both of these plots were sprayed with gly Saturday so they should be weed free in 10 days. Well except for the red root pigweed which is gly resistant 
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Ran up to the farm Thursday night to spread the rye seed. I overseeded some of my beans that are getting heavily browsed. For the most part the plots looked great. Corn is the best I have ever seen, bean in 2 plots are great, but one plot is really getting browsed hard.
The plot called Daves plot is eagle beans and they are getting browsed pretty good too, but seem to be able to keep up with the deer. Tons of trail came pics of a group of bucks in this plot.
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Getting some serious browse pressure on the beans now
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Looks like you will have some fat deer this year. There is always next year for me. 
DT
Oh yeah, there is a 60 acre beans field that borders our south line and it looks the same way. Maybe I should show the DNR the browse pressure so they let us start taking some does 
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