Saturday, October 17, 2020

Weedy Beans

 It snowed a bit right after I took the video, though none stuck around. I need some sun and wind to dry all that material out before I can run it through the combine. Hopefully in a couple of days. Once these 35 acres are combined, I'm done harvesting for the year. 

I feel like I've worked hard on these weeds over the last 5 years by growing different crops and trying different agronomic practices. Here's what I've done/will do to try and reduce the foxtail, which is prevalent in about 1/2 of the field - Grew clover/oats, sorghum sudan, tillage radish; chisel plow end rows, put in a grass waterway to help with drainage, spread lime to raise the pH. I did what I thought was a perfect job of tine weeding this year. Almost all the weeds are in the row, so evidently I didn't. 

I'm guessing that there is at least a 10 bushel/acre hit to my yield, due in large part to weeds. I'll move on. Next year this ground will be in (spring) wheat, underseeded with red clover.

I welcome the advice and support of other organic farmers. Geiger Farm, who I only know through YouTube, is one of them. He left the following comment on the video I put on our YouTube page titled "Weedy Beans".

Run hard! I have had worse to combine. Through time, foxtail will disappear, as you learn to not encourage it. For me, it LOVES compaction, low pH, working ground wet, soil crusting, and planting too early in cool weather! The combine will eat it like candy and next year is a new start🙂!


 




4 comments:

  1. those peers and colleagues facing the same challenges and being curious observers and trying things are a great resource for you (and you for them).

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  2. Lookin good, Bruce! What are going to do with all of those beans? Peter of Greenhouse

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    1. I combined them yesterday, the 18th, with good results. They are USDA organic, being trucked to Cashton Farm Supply to be mixed into feed.

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    2. Hi Peter, Just made the connection between you and the comment. I've put up a couple short, "barely watchable" clips of the combining on our youtube page - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQObrMTlbj5MzrPcDDzMyYw/videos I'm driving the truck 12 miles down to the field to clean up the combine, take the head off and put it on the cart, then drive the combine home. I'll take a little video of what the combined field looks like now. Pretty dramatic.

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