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central, Il. | Well Mike I still plow also. I have never totally given it up in my 30 years of farming. But everyone says i am still doing everything wrong also. Even the ones that went broke in the 80's. Been plowing with a $1500 IH720 while watching notillers in my area buy $30,000 to $60,000 no till drills cause a notill guru north of where I live(whom at one time was a chem rep) said that's what everyone had to do and it would work everywhere. Then weed control got out of hand and some notillers went to 15inch skip row planters and got rid of their $10,000 to $15,000 notill drills. But i still have my $1000 IH720 plow. Then some of the notillers found out that even 15 inch rows did not control weeds either and went back to 30 inch rows and bought a rowcrop cultivator.(something else that I never got rid of either)Now we have RR soybeans that are around $43 a unit and everyone complaining about the price increase yet i still have my $800 IH720 plow and planting non gmo bin run seed and most of the time getting a $1.00/bushel premium for them.
Also my ground is all gumbo that gets everone elses water and weed seed. Now if i notilled(which I have tried years ago and it was TRUE notill)my soil would never dry in the spring. And this past spring of 2008 is a perfect example of why I still plow in the fall.
I did no till some beans on a new farm this year.(with a $4000 JD 7000 12r/30) I had no choice because I could not get on the farm untill March 1st. The ground never truely dried and it made me sick planting in those conditions. They were RR beans and were about 7 bushels an acre less than my non gmo bin run of the same maturity on my other farms. I V-ripped it this fall(with a $600 IH#10 V ripper) 10to 11 inches deep. The whole farm ripped up in chunks. And BIG chunks. On my other farms where I have been plowing for 30 years that I ripped also this fall(corn/soybean rotation, plow stalks only)the only chunks I had was where water stood.
So don't feel alone Mike, guess I have a chip on my shoulder also.
Sorry for my ramblings. But now I feel better also. :) | |
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Recreational tillage ... feel better already
