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barry county mi | Im 66 and remembering hoeing corn behind a old boy culvating corn with a horse in the 50s now that got pretty old after a while then got on my own farm and used 1 lb of atrizene 80% weatable power and it killed all the weed in the corn including the grasses and some of next years oats and alafala ha. I desided I could live with this so have run the whole gamic beef cow calf man to dairy notill corn in 1969 to hog farming in the later half of the 70s to chisle plowing heavy gumbo clay in mich to notill soybeans to roundup soybeans with jd drill and so on sound flimiliar a few years ago my bro got a stone burr mill and or course my 2 bros and I had to get it going so I rounded up some wheat and buckwheat and some corn and made some flour any way 3or 4 winters ago I went to a meeting in lansing about some marketing or farmers markets I sit in on a corn growers meeting and they werent to heavy preaching organic farming but you could grow corn without chems and kill the weeds and that it would yeild if you could get enough manure and fish and so on well I talked to the speeker after the meeting, and he said it was true alot of farmers were doing it well I said like hell they were of course I always have to speek what I think. well a friend of mine was doing some transing to organic we done some visiting and so on and a neighbor bought a farm prety close and said I got a farm he would rent to me for organic just 55 acers so I desided to give it a whril .Well the beans were weedy as hell .then ferterlizer everthing went through the roof . and I desided 30 years of corn soybean rotation had taken it toll on my soil with no hog manure for 16 years or any hay I strated tran with wheat frost seeded clover then corn first 20 acers corn in soybean stuble to see if I could really kill the weeds I could only loose 20 acers what the heck I had 2 tons turkey manure put on all my corn ground and used 5 gals fish some micros on all the corn ground but the conventionual corn I had the elevator put 20 gals 28% to carry lumax and atrex well the corn was all fall chisled I hoed and culvated the 20 acers and to my suprise I did kill the weeds pretty well except head lands where I rode down . well it was a dry year and I measered the no chemical feild and it averaged 127 bus here is the kicker the convential also averaged 127 bus and it had 20 gals 28% and the herbicide well to say the lest I was sort of pissed how could this be. well since then I have change my tune I only farm 450 acers so with 12 row planter hoe and culavator and abundance of turkey manure in our area and a good corn and bean market I.m back to where I started when I was a kid and having fun farming first time in many years, and it works for me My beans are still a problem not as bad with cover crops and so on and wouldnt change right now for nothing. and I wouldnt want anybody do anthing they dont want to do. Be happy in what you do it will all turn out in the end | |
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What is wrong with Organic food?
