Farmer Roy's Random Thoughts - I never said it was easy.

Kidds

Member
Horticulture
829438


Sainsbury’s
 

Doc

Member
Livestock Farmer
I drink Fosters in the UK. I quite like it compared to the other mass produced lagers. Our village off licence sells more Fosters than any other brand (and it’s not all me).
We all like different things.
My favourite colour is blue but I won’t mind if yours is green, or red, or yellow etc, etc.
I also like my steak medium/well with plenty of fat. :oops::oops:
 

cows sh#t me to tears

Member
Livestock Farmer
I only saw one broken extra cab ute on a truck. That was at William Creek and I was surprised it was heading north.
We were going to go to Dalhousie springs, but decided to do the Oodnatta Bronc Branding instead.
Talking to some lads at Parachilna on the way up. They saw a new Nissan NP300 dual cab out in the Simpson with a snapped chassis. Seems Nissan didnt learn from the hideous D40 chassis....
 

czechmate

Member
Mixed Farmer
first crop ?
looks good
are they monos. polys or birdseed ?
do you think you will have any problems with birds as the seeds mature ?, they can really wreck havoc here with large parrots, especially if planted near trees like that

we have two distinct planting windows for sunnies
Spring - then harvested late summer
Summer - harvested late autumn

the physiological maturity & dry down varies considerably between the two. Harvesting in late autumn can be difficult / a lot slower to get them to dry down

im not familiar with your climate, so it is hard to say how long you've got.
looks like the bracts have dropped off & im assuming the seed heads are full ?
we wouldn't be harvesting until the heads have dried right out / turned brown & the leaves have all desiccated & fallen off

we wouldn't harvest / store sunflower above 9% seed moisture, as it has a tendency to self combust if moisture is too high

on the other hand, if the heads are too dry & brittle, they tend to break up a lot as they go through the combine & result in high levels of admixture in your sample, as its hard to separate . . .

as the seeds are relatively large & so light, it is easy to blow them out the back of the combine trying to clean the sample up

rough rule of thumb, their bushel weight is about half that of wheat

with the heads hanging down like that, you do have to be careful of wet weather once the heads do dry out, as rain can collect on the back of them & cause the heads to rot or go spongy if wet for too long. We aim for varieties with heads that don't hang down so low at maturity. What row spacing / plant population do you have. We normally plant on 75 - 100cm rows, with about 40, 000 plants / ha or 4 / m on 1m rows. ( 16,000 / acre ), so usually have much thicker / stronger stalks

when harvesting, be aware of static electricity, dust, & fire risk. Sunflowers are probably the highest fire risk crop to harvest. Static electricity & the very flammable dust causes spot fires / smouldering clumps almost anywhere, not just around the engine bay. I know of a few people who have melted holes through plastic fuel tanks on JD combines due to this, & Ive seen little spot fires on the SIDE of vertical external bodywork, from static electricity, so cleanliness & carrying a fire extinguisher / water cart is essential

good luck & I hope it goes well for you (y)


Thanks for all that input Roy.
The variety is not oil, this is after grass (and was organic) so I was worried about weeds. This is a variety that stands good herbicide for blw and grasses.
I wouldn’t mind the heads filling with water if it meant the rest of the farm got rain (y).
I can’t store them so will take them straight to the coop. I was hoping they would take them at about 12%.
Yes heads are full. Not much (hardly any) bird damage yet. Not a lot of wild parrots in these parts:).
A week of 35 deg again now, so that will speed them along a bit.
 

Deerefarmer

Member
Location
USA
I drink Fosters in the UK. I quite like it compared to the other mass produced lagers. Our village off licence sells more Fosters than any other brand (and it’s not all me).
We all like different things.
My favourite colour is blue but I won’t mind if yours is green, or red, or yellow etc, etc.
I also like my steak medium/well with plenty of fat. :oops::oops:
Ahh hello there fellow normal human ??
Except I like my steak just medium with plenty of fat :hungry:
 

Yale

Member
Livestock Farmer
I drink Fosters in the UK. I quite like it compared to the other mass produced lagers. Our village off licence sells more Fosters than any other brand (and it’s not all me).
We all like different things.
My favourite colour is blue but I won’t mind if yours is green, or red, or yellow etc, etc.
I also like my steak medium/well with plenty of fat. :oops::oops:
If there’s a choice I’d go for the Stella.o_O

Picked up some Carlsberg export lately and that was good.

Best lager around here is from the local microbrewery,chilled to perfection,oooh.:happy:
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 81 42.2%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 68 35.4%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.6%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.6%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,294
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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