Sowing peas...!!

[hendrebc]

You wouldn't like a tractor if it only had two gears that worked!
They are a good start, of course because one fills in for the other - most of the time.
But what grows when they don't?

That's why folk have issues, and extra costs, to fill all these UhOh's...
I believe you need a variety of plants with a variety of different root depths and types to really cover your butt, and get full potential out of the soil.
Fortunately most of "the competition" think that's hogwash - which suits me fine!!
Seed is expensive but so is fert, and supplement, and another acre...

Im cinvinced younneed variety for the exact reasons you say. This field is the best growing field we have hasnt been reseeded since the 50s when it was done with a little grey fergie and sungle furrow ploughs. Theres a lot of variety there i have no idea what most of it is but its dedinetly not ryegrass and clover. Parts of it look likena conservation mix we could buybfor herbal leys. Stock love it and will graze this in preference to the one year old ryegrass and clover ley the other side of the fence over the hill. Bare now ewes with tups need moving today.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Still no more rain since last update, but this is 4 weeks post sowing.
Nice warm soil and good fogs/dew is doing the job thanks to the grass holding the moisture in the root zone.
Hopefully be mowing it mid December - will play it by ear.

 

[hendrebc]

Coming along well. Is that a dock i spotted in the front one picture
Not that im one to talk about weeds peoplw in glasshouses and all that

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Aye.
Still haven't been up with me digger chipper to pull them out, better hurry up!!
Been doing too much tractor play at the neighbours - can definitely see the advantages of min till.....
Currently getting the last paddock of fert incorporated as the beet planter showed up.

Since I had the nerve to put this in the direct drilling forum, for anyone still watching -

...here's a good example of what can eventually be achieved without tillage (even though I'm tillaging it.)
Direct drilled several times in the past 30 years, beet last year, second pass
To quote Penfold: "Crumbs!"
I've done one pass with the rotospike, fert on, fluff it up.
So, you all did a good thing parking your ploughs up have faith.

 

[JD-Kid]

Aye.
Still haven't been up with me digger chipper to pull them out, better hurry up!!
Been doing too much tractor play at the neighbours - can definitely see the advantages of min till.....
Currently getting the last paddock of fert incorporated as the beet planter showed up.

Since I had the nerve to put this in the direct drilling forum, for anyone still watching -View attachment 596498...here's a good example of what can eventually be achieved without tillage (even though I'm tillaging it.)
Direct drilled several times in the past 30 years, beet last year, second pass
To quote Penfold: "Crumbs!"
I've done one pass with the rotospike, fert on, fluff it up.
So, you all did a good thing parking your ploughs up have faith.

ummmm a plough is just one of many tools in the tool box a screwdriver is useless on nuts as it a ring spanner on square drive screws ...

 

[Kiwi Pete]

ummmm a plough is just one of many tools in the tool box a screwdriver is useless on nuts as it a ring spanner on square drive screws ...

That's too true.

Is that better, Pete?

 

[JD-Kid]

That's too true.View attachment 596524
Is that better, Pete?

HAHAHA may have to go for a wee lie down after seeing that were are the rocks and stones HAHAHA

 

[Kiwi Pete]

HAHAHA may have to go for a wee lie down after seeing that were are the rocks and stones HAHAHA

Came up alright, that one

 

[JD-Kid]

oh thats right some places i don't have stones but not a flash plow job ..

 

[Kiwi Pete]

View attachment 596528
oh thats right some places i don't have stones but not a flash plow job ..

It's all turned over, you should see how one of the local contractor ploughs wouldn't recommend him to drive anything bar a jetboat.
I'd be proud of your efforts there to be honest - there's boy's ground and there's men's ground
Mine was a preschooler's ground, and shallow as rocks aplenty underneath.
About 5 and a bit inches with my wee Clough 3 furrow (the one at the gate you liked)
(I don't even think @ploughman1963 saw it hiding there ) but it still works

 

[hendrebc]

I can do a half decent job on boys ground as you call it with our old 3 furrow ransomes. If dad (a bit of an expert) sets everything up first
Dont plan on ploughing for much longer if i can find a drill that so not too bothered about it either. I could pribably make a field mostly brown on my own and hope the seeds come up quick enough to hide everything . Give me sheep work any day over sitting in a tractor

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I can do a half decent job on boys ground as you call it with our old 3 furrow ransomes. If dad (a bit of an expert) sets everything up first
Dont plan on ploughing for much longer if i can find a drill that so not too bothered about it either. I could pribably make a field mostly brown on my own and hope the seeds come up quick enough to hide everything . Give me sheep work any day over sitting in a tractor

I hear you there.
I've done I don't even want to guess how many hours in the saddle.
It gets a bit old, even though I still love doing a good job, it's more a means to an end than something I look forward to.
Uncle was the tractor man and Dad was the stock man
Probably had my first try at ploughing about 7 and the bug bit me, but they didn't plough very often at all - a 30 year gap!!
They'd made a homemade DD out of a grubber, seedbox, and pillaged every old ridger in the district so, occasional ploughing is very good.
Constant ploughing, can be very bad
They did really forward things really, makes me smile to see threads on here, 'dad was thinking of that 60 years ago'
Right down to this thread, really, just a modern take on old practice.
Thought, if I took pictures, then maybe folks who are sweating about no GLY and how they're going to manage, might see that you can grow something without pulling out the sprayer and plough.
They did once, and will again
5 weeks ago, there were stock in there, and should be again by Christmas all going well, for 12 hours in the tractor and some seeds (counting a wasted 1 with the second aerator pass)
"More ways to kill a cat than drowning it in cream"

 

[hendrebc]

Plough is very good for breaking new ground and inly having to do it once. The tops of the Berwyns were a good examole i did a lot of work yp there in my late teens with a farmer who had ploughed all his mountain land and apent a lot of time and money doing it in then70s. Their bit was green mostly with some kind of grass the patches done by other people all around were all brown and heather and bilberry that was done with a disc or rotovator apparently. And sprayed off i think but it didnt look very good to think it was meant to be improved. My place is all grass or mostly is see no reason to use a plough. Especially if i have to drive the tractor pulling it!
Most thjngs we think are new are just old recycled ideas. I started reading a book caled fertility farming by newman turner. Punlished in the 40s he was doing what yourndoing discing up grass and thats it. Its a good book youshould resd it its right up your streer @Kiwi Pete

 

[JD-Kid]

do have a DD too

 

[JD-Kid]

 

[Kiwi Pete]

View attachment 596546 View attachment 596546 View attachment 596552 View attachment 596546 View attachment 596552 View attachment 596554

That's more like it
Looks disturbingly similar to our family farm, there was a reason they threw in an extra 300ac compared to the neighbours...
Trouble was uncle had no concept of fear and neither do I... remember breaking an axle on the old Same on one occasion and the duals were over half a mile where they stopped proper stuff.
Nice looking farm though none of this fairy bread flat stuff and looks a lot more productive than you suggested

 

[JD-Kid]

 

[JD-Kid]

can grow OK rape crops

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Plough is very good for breaking new ground and inly having to do it once. The tops of the Berwyns were a good examole i did a lot of work yp there in my late teens with a farmer who had ploughed all his mountain land and apent a lot of time and money doing it in then70s. Their bit was green mostly with some kind of grass the patches done by other people all around were all brown and heather and bilberry that was done with a disc or rotovator apparently. And sprayed off i think but it didnt look very good to think it was meant to be improved. My place is all grass or mostly is see no reason to use a plough. Especially if i have to drive the tractor pulling it!
Most thjngs we think are new are just old recycled ideas. I started reading a book caled fertility farming by newman turner. Punlished in the 40s he was doing what yourndoing discing up grass and thats it. Its a good book youshould resd it its right up your streer @Kiwi Pete

Haha funny you should mention that book, I have a strange feeling the boys both had a copy of that one as a "five finger discount" from dad's days at Lincoln (which is the south island equivalent of say Harper Adams (with imagination))
There's nothing really that new, is there, folk just got reliant on horsepower, chemicals and other slower more reliable stuff got thrust aside.
It'll come back, with bells on, the current ways aren't going to be the best ways for much longer.
Dad told me "watch the UK farmers, they'll be like the canary in the cage" which may or may not be true.... he said reliance on stuff is generally the beginning of the end.
I tend to agree with that sentiment, but keep it to myself

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I guess I sound a lot like Newman Turner, on the forum, don't I?



Stands the test of time, then

I look around and think - how do you make decent money from farming like that?
And the local lady who used to do accounts died, so I do a few farm accounts for old scrooges who don't want to pay the team in town
Twice a day lambing beats on a quad, with a trailer, frig those lambs better be worth a few bob! but folk do it, and never question it.
I'm mad.