Friday afternoon (the 8th) was the official start of 2011 corn planting! Although the 1.2″ of rain received Friday night has suspended field activities, we were pleased to plant 120 acres of corn. Dennis described planting (soil) conditions as good, and spot-checked kernels all appeared to be at adequate depth. Before each corn field is planted, we are applying a 32% fertilizer and herbicide mix with our sprayer (referred to as a “weed and feed” mix). At roughly 29 gallons per acre, we can apply 40
acres per sprayer load (sprayer has a 1200 gal tank). After the sprayer, we are running a vertical tillage tool over the field to incorporate the mixture into the soil. I am roughly 50% done spraying, and Craig has incorporated 20% of the corn ground.
I’ve included a picture of the flood tips used to apply the “weed and feed”… this was taken when we calibrated the sprayer early in the week. The tips are on 20” spacing across the 90′ span.
Prior to spraying, we used the Kubota to seed
grass on farms that had fall ditchwork and also in waterways… so I guess this means that we actually started spring 2011 planting on Monday!
With the current forecast calling for additional rain tonight, I anticipate we will not be participating in field activities Monday. If this is the case, we will most likely return to delivering corn from the bin.