Improvised Coffee Maker

 My old drip coffee maker broke down so I came up with this. I like the contrast between all the different elements.

 

Hurry Up and Wait

 We're so close to getting this organic spring wheat in the ground. Two days ago we starting taking equipment and seeds the twelve miles to the fields, but it started to rain, making it impossible to continue. It's been a couple of days of light rain, with up to 1/3 inch tomorrow, but then there should be 3-4 days of sun and temps in the mid 60s, which should give us a chance to drill the wheat.

 

 

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The wheat will be underseeded with Berseem clover via the grass seed box on the drill.

 

To give you a rough idea of our plans: The approximately 15,000 lbs (or 250 bushels) of wheat seeds should yield around 225,000 lbs (3,750 bushels) of wheat at harvest. We're planting the "Bolles" variety which will give us the best chance of making "food" grade, for which we'll get paid a premium above the "feed" grade. I wrote more on that here.

Loading Seeds into the Tender

 A long couple of days. I'll come up with a less taxing way to do this in the future. I'm hoping that the rain holds off tonight and we can drive everything 12 miles down the highway and drill the 90 acres of wheat over the next couple of days.

Forgot to say in the video that I'll be underseeding the (hopefully) food grade organic wheat with Berseem clover. Once the wheat is harvested in mid August the clover will continue fixing nitrogen and stabilizing the soil until its winter killed. In 2022 I'll plant organic beans on this ground.

Seeds Delivered Today

After getting an unexpected call this morning that the delivery semi-trailer was five minutes away, I went out and started up the loader tractor.

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First off the truck were six pallets, holding a total about 15,000 lbs of organic wheat seeds. Shown in the picture below, they will get drilled - and underseeded with Berseem clover - on roughly 90 acres. As soon as it dries out, probably in 3 to 4 days, Dad/Gramps and I will get that done.

The seeding rate for wheat is much higher than for corn.  The corn seeds pictured on the pallet below, roughly 2200 lbs, will cover about 100 acres. They won't get planted until the soil is much warmer, probably at the end of May.

Below is the invoice for all the seeds I bought, which includes grass/hay and oat seeds in addition to what is pictured above. The grass/hay/oat seeds will be used to rejuvenate a small area of pasture. My neighbor, Rodrigo, of Cala Farms, has plans to rotationally graze sheep on that ground. Before that can happen I want to improve the ground, first by adding lime and turkey litter that the soils tests require and then reseeding it with the Deere 750 no-till drill.

I wrote a little bit about how I chose all the different seed varieties, here.

Time to Sell the Boom Lift - (updated: the online auction will be May 17, 2021)

 It's a 2006 Genie Z45/25 with ~4550 hours. I had the local Genie shop repair several things on it last spring - injectors, muffler, cam sensor - see the work order below. I haven't used it much, though it was invaluable when I did, so I think it's time to sell it to free up money and space for other equipment.

The money I've spent on repairs, as well as the potential loss from selling it, is probably about what I would have spent to rent one.  On the positive side, I've learned a bit about a different kind of equipment and gone a long way toward overcoming my fear of heights.

 

The above work order took about $1800 to clear up. Aside from the small leak in the timing cover gasket, things seem to be running as they should.

One of the few jobs involving the boom lift that I filmed was taking down the old farmhouse chimney.  You can see that, here.

Somebody Left the Tractor Door Open Before Pulling into the Shed

 Easy... easy... eeeeeasy....... BOOM! "What the hell was that!?!".

Still need to level out the ground in front of the new double doors.

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The only real damage done was to my ego - a new glass door for the tractor is on its way.

Seeds Ordered

4/5/21: Updated the seed order, shown at bottom of post.

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Below is the seed invoice for the corn and wheat that we're growing this year. Once I figure out what cover crop mix that we'll plant in mid August into the wheat stubble after harvest - probably a mix of the left over sorghum sudan seed I have, plus turnip, radish and winter peas - I'll add that to the order and Albert Lea Seed will ship everything here by mid April, which I think is the earliest we could plant the wheat.

Hard to believe sitting here in the midst of a three week deep freeze (daily temp range is -20º to 0º F), but spring isn't that far off. 

(Click on image to make it bigger.)

There's approximately 18,000 pounds of seeds (which, if all goes as planned, should yield something like 950,000 lbs of grain) on that invoice.  Occasionally I'm asked why the equipment is so big/expensive. One of the things that's hard to convey is the relative scale of things; even on this "small" farm the numbers get big, fast. To give you an idea of how much we'll produce, there's about 50,000 lbs of grain in a full semi-trailer. So we'll be shipping/trucking almost 20 full semi-loads this year.

In multiyear trials of various wheat varieties, Bolles has shown the highest potential to be sold as "food grade", as opposed to "feed grade". To find out if we've "made the grade", we'll have to harvest it, get it in a bin and then take samples to find out the test weight, protein, falling number, and vomotoxin levels. The price paid for food grade (~$11/bushel) is several dollars above that of feed grade. If we don't make the numbers needed, we'll sell the roughly 3600 bushels into the feed grade market. 

To help us make food grade we'll be adding an OMRI/USDA Organic approved treatment, called SabrEx, to the wheat seeds:

SabrEx® for Wheat and Cereals is a formulation of two (2) specific and carefully selected, patented proprietary strains of Trichoderma. The Trichoderma colonizes with the plants’ root system and develops a symbiotic relationship with the plant, feeding off the starches and sugars produced by the plant. In turn, the plant benefits from the Trichoderma as they exude enzymes and proteins for the plants use.

Because the Trichoderma, fungi, found in SabrEx® for Wheat and Cereals work symbiotically with the plant to efficiently utilize moisture and nutrients, the treated crop is able to maintain healthy growth during periods of drought.

Larger Root Systems

The first thing farmers point out when harvesting wheat treated with SabrEx® for Wheat and Cereals is the difference in root mass and fine hairs in comparison to untreated wheat of the same variety. The Trichoderma colonizes in the root system, maximizing the utilization of nutrients. The enzymes and proteins exuded by the Trichoderma result in a larger root system.

Increase Tillering

One of the most important benefits of SabrEx® for Wheat and Cereals is the increased tillering which ultimately leads to increased yields.

Improved Yields

The number one benefit of harvesting winter wheat treated with SabrEx® for Wheat and Cereals is the increased yields. Over the past 4 years, SabrEx® for Wheat and Cereals has averaged 5.3 bu/a over untreated crops.

In addition to the 179 acres that will be planted with the seeds listed on the above invoice, we have about 100 acres that is in it's 2nd year of red clover as part of the transition to organic production. This summer the only thing to do on that ground is mow off the growth a couple times (which increases the amount of nitrogen fixed by the clover as well as cutting down weeds before they go to seed) before terminating it with tillage in the fall. In 2022, in keeping with our crop rotations outlined here, the clover ground will be planted with organic corn.

UPDATE: 3/9/21

After talking to an experienced producer who suggested I'd get better weed suppression and final yield with a higher rate, I've decided to plant the wheat at 165 lbs/Acre as opposed to the 120 lbs/A that I originally thought. That means another 79 bags of wheat seed. I'm also underseeding the wheat with "Frosty" Berseem Clover. It will continue to grow after the wheat is harvested in August, building organic matter in the soil and fixing nitrogen for 2022's crop of organic soybeans. I also will be planting another 21 acres of organic corn on the new rented ground. I'll be reseeding the hilly hay parts of that rented ground with about 35 lbs/A of grass seed, 200 lbs total.

The changes throw off some of the numbers I gave for total acres on the farm, etc. The latest count is 89 acres of organic wheat, 104 acres of organic corn, 102 acres of transitional clover and 8 acres of reseeded grass hay.