Amber waves of grain... almost...

I planted this wheat a few weeks ago, no fertilizer on it now, going to fertilize it in the spring.

picture perfect day to sit in a lawn chair and watch the wheat grow. I love how this field is flat as a pool table on one end, then goes to a 2:1 slope through the middle, and back to flat on the other end.

Looks like it's off to a great start. What's the fly free date in your area?

Here's the bigger picture I was looking for!



Fly free is Oct 1, but we were dipping near freezing at nights around sept 15th-20th, and the rains started coming hard, so I jumped it a little bit. Only had 5 1/2 acres of wheat planted last year, not other wheat fields within 10 miles or so... I put in 14 acres this year, just enough to have something green to look at this winter.

Sept 21st 2010 picture:


That is Allis Chalmers 190 serial #194. Dad was the first one in the area to have a 190. It attracted a lot of attention back then.

Sept 21st 2011 picture:


Ford 1910 pulling a MF #33 early built with single disk openers, rope trip lift. Notice the trees aimed at the sky, compared to the slope of the field. It's one of those places that you can't plant corn because the combine slides down the hill out of the rows if there is even a little bit of mud.

Good looking wheat. What part of the state are you in?

Thanks!

25 miles west of Pittsburgh, PA. only a few miles from the West Virginia panhandle.

Looks nice.

I planted a couple (literally - 2) acres of rye & other plowdown here in southern MN around the 24th of August. It was an area we tiled through. Dirt is just as black and bare as the day I planted it - no rain since late July here, went from way to wet spring, to way too dry fall. Ditch through the property was running full through all of June, it just quit trickling a couple days ago, and my ditch had only gone dry 4 times in my lifetime - 10,000 acres of wet MN fields flows past my house.

Anyhow, looks nice, nothing green around here unless it has very deep roots.

--->Paul

Paul,
This was a bugger of a year. I didn't even try to plant any corn or beans. Oats? forget about that, I couldn't back the tractor up to the plow without rutting, so I never got it put on. Same story... July and August so dry that the grass burned to a crisp. Went to plow first week of september and the gauge wheel never touched the ground. turned over the top 4 inches some spots 6 inches with the plow, disc once, howard rotospike once, and the rain let loose. The last field I plowed was clay and made bricks. I tried 2 times over with a howard HB120 rotospike(like a 10 foot wide rototiller with spike bars instead of cutters) to break up the clods, but they just bounced off the spikes. I am surprised I got good seed-soil contact in that patch, as it was new bought FS seed at $16 per 50 lb. quite a gamble for my 35-40 bpa average. Especially true with the added tractor cost of having to go over the ground so many passes to get something reasonable to work with.

Did you get corn and beans in? For those guys that got it in, and are looking to make a decent yield, I think the payday might be worth it. I can't imagine corn dropping below $7 July 2012. There is a big oats shortage this year. I bet elevator prices hit $4 by April 2012. But then again, I am so small, I can't speculate well. Just what I see locally in the other small farms on this end of the state. Saw a guy list a WTB ad on craigslist for 15,000 bushel of oats around $3. Really REALLY wish I had them to give. With wheat hitting the $10 mark, it doesn't pay to put in oats, but if the market starts a nice climb, I may just make it a point to at least get a few acres in. Just more time to play with the combine! LOL

John,
I'm just a little west of you in east Ohio. I can see the landing lights on the planes as they come in at the Pittsburg Airport.
Send me an e-mail if you want.
Keith