Mid July Update: Oats that Were Underseeded with Medium Red Clover

They are Morton Oats, drilled at 2 bushels/acre between May 7th and 9th, on a total of 102 acres. At the same time the grass seed box was putting on 10 lbs/acre of clover.

We will swath the oats in a couple of weeks, then run them through the pick up head on the combine. The clover will continue growing this year and next, getting mowed to keep it from going to seed. In 2022 this ground will be ready for it's first certified organic cash crop, probably soybeans.

Row Cultivating Organic Soybeans, Third Pass

I've owned this field for 5 years and it has always had heavy weed pressure - foxtail, thistle, pigweed, lambsquarters. With my crop rotation I've been able to reduce the weeds by about 75%, but it's still a challenge. I tined weeded this twice, at the "right" times, but still have some weeds in the row. They will go to seed.

I would like to modify my cultivator for next year by adding two more sweeps on each row tool bar,/tube for a total of 5. Even with wider sweeps on the three existing shanks I don't get enough coverage.

Next year this will be in oats, underseeded with alfalfa.

For this pass the cultivator sweeps that are closest to the plant are about 10" apart, as I don't want to get too close to the roots. The 1st 2 passes those sweeps were 5" apart. Going as fast as I am (4.8 mph), autosteer is a must.

Garden Update #2

(Click on any picture to make it bigger.)

Garden Update

Most everything is established, including the weeds. I don't see a lot of pest pressure, though I'm going to put a floating row cover over the squash to hopefully keep away the squash vine borers.

Broccoli, garlic, radishes, mustard greens, collards, onions, beans, tomatoes, potatoes, winter squash, corn, peppers, cilantro, parsley. I think that's everything.

Row Cultivating Organic Beans

This group of fields is a work in progress. There is fairly significant weed pressure - foxtail, canadian thistle, curly dock, white cockle, pigweed, lambsquarter - that I've been slowly removing over the last five years by my rotation and crop selection. Still, I need to produce a cash crop on this ground, so this year it's beans, Viking O.1202NP from Albert Lea Seed.

This is my first row cultivation pass, there will be at least one more, maybe two, before the beans canopy.

Modifying Deere RM6 Row Cultivator

In order to get the sweeps close enough to the crops in the row, I had to lengthen what Deere calls a "Crosshead Arm". It was 1.25" solid bar stock, with each row needing a different length welded on to it. (Part number 8 in the schematic below)

There is something off about this configuration of row cultivator and tractor. I could never get it to sit "right" on the row. I can only guess that something got bent before I owned them. This meant that I needed to make this last minute repair so that I could do my row cultivating. Fortunately it all worked out.

Going Over the Combine