On the farm there's about 120 total acres in their first year of transition to
certified organic production. The regulations require a 36 month period between the time of the last "prohibited substance" (in this case it was a herbicide that was applied last June) and any USDA certified organic harvest.
Oats and red clover were drilled together earlier this spring on roughly 90 of those 120 acres,
with the oats acting as a "nurse crop". Now that they've done their job
of helping to establish a relatively weed free stand of clover, I'll
mow them and leave the residue in place to act as a "green manure". There is no economic benefit to harvesting "conventional" oats. Also there is a potential boost to future cash crop yields by leaving the chopped oats in place. So I'm not combining the oats.
Next
year the clover will return, fixing additional nitrogen for the corn
that I'll plant in the spring of 2021 and that in turn will be harvested as USDA organic in the fall of 2021.
Tomorrow morning Nick, from BP Ag Solutions, will come to the farm and install autosteer/gps along with a planter monitor in the 8100 tractor (pictured below, hooked up to the Deere 520 flail mower I'll be using to cut the oats).
I'll be using Ag Leader products. Specifically, the monitor is a InCommand 1200 and the RTK guidance system is a GPS 7500 with OnTrac3 Assisted Steering.
Here's a short video, not mine, showing the technology in use.
I'm going to use the technology for at least two things. One, so I can repeat my passes precisely, within a 1/2", between different activities in the field. When I plant, I want all the 15' wide passes to be exactly 30" apart so that when I go through the field 3-5 times cultivating I can follow the exact same route. This lets me put the metal shovels of the cultivator, which remove weeds, within an inch of the cash crop plant I want to thrive.
Secondly is so when I'm planting I know exactly how many seeds, how far apart, are going (or more important to know, not going) into the soil. After you go over it with a planter, a field looks exactly the same whether or not the right number of seeds have been planted per acre. A good seed monitor is essential.
