oil barron
Member
- Location
- Aberdeenshire
I'm working in the San Joaquin Valley in California at the moment. Some pictures of the agg stuff Ive seen while out and about so far.
The area used to be all river bottom and is deep alluvial soil. The climate is very dry with an average of 6" of rainfall for the year. Temperatures get very hot in the summer with July and August often over 100degF and sometimes upto 110degF. Irrigation is provided for by farmer Cooperative built canals taking predominately snow melt from the lakes in the Sierra Nevada range and deep water wells.
Everything is irrigated. Traditionally Cotton and Corn (Maize) were the main crops; but Nuts and fruit are now very big business. Almonds especially are grown everywhere and are said to be like growing gold at the moment. Carrots are also big business and two crops can be grown in the year.
There is also some mega Dairys feeding Alfalfa hay and Maize silage; and Fattening feedlots. I think they get about 7-8 cuts of the Alfalfa hay a year and folks are still making hay even now in November. There are still a lot of small square bales and they use self-propelled Newholland chasers to gather them in.
First up some photos from the local JD dealership. It is not uncommon to have quite large cabless tractors; but I wouldn't like to be driving them between the heat here and the dust in the air.
A Band sprayer that is used in row crop applications.
A deep ripper. They get quite a heavy pan from the irrigation I think; and need to deep rip before planting almond trees.
US price for a JD gator for comparison
A nice simple set of JD disks; and a Poor boy JD direct drill.
JD Swather. All the Alfalfa is cut with swathers and just left for a few days. Then they row up with giant Vicon acrobats ahead of baling with the small balers.
A deep ripping ridger type device.
The area used to be all river bottom and is deep alluvial soil. The climate is very dry with an average of 6" of rainfall for the year. Temperatures get very hot in the summer with July and August often over 100degF and sometimes upto 110degF. Irrigation is provided for by farmer Cooperative built canals taking predominately snow melt from the lakes in the Sierra Nevada range and deep water wells.
Everything is irrigated. Traditionally Cotton and Corn (Maize) were the main crops; but Nuts and fruit are now very big business. Almonds especially are grown everywhere and are said to be like growing gold at the moment. Carrots are also big business and two crops can be grown in the year.
There is also some mega Dairys feeding Alfalfa hay and Maize silage; and Fattening feedlots. I think they get about 7-8 cuts of the Alfalfa hay a year and folks are still making hay even now in November. There are still a lot of small square bales and they use self-propelled Newholland chasers to gather them in.
First up some photos from the local JD dealership. It is not uncommon to have quite large cabless tractors; but I wouldn't like to be driving them between the heat here and the dust in the air.
A Band sprayer that is used in row crop applications.
A deep ripper. They get quite a heavy pan from the irrigation I think; and need to deep rip before planting almond trees.
US price for a JD gator for comparison
A nice simple set of JD disks; and a Poor boy JD direct drill.
JD Swather. All the Alfalfa is cut with swathers and just left for a few days. Then they row up with giant Vicon acrobats ahead of baling with the small balers.
A deep ripping ridger type device.
