The Newfarm Forums

[CP Knerr]

Thanks Julie... After fixing things I'm pretty much right back where I started, but with some work done.

Friday night I did some disking and got the new tractor stuck in the field with the disk. It was dry on the surface but with the rain there must be something under the surface which swallowed the tires so I was fairly quickly stuck. I unhooked the disk and the next morning pulled it out backwards with a chain and avoided that area. Now I have some cleanup to do there. The rest of the field disked nicely. I still have not fixed the disk tires.

Saturday my welding held for 5 or 6 acres until I hit a rock and the weld went "pop" and that frog became 3 pieces again. I was dragging up some pretty nice sized stones, probably 250+ lbs with the plow. I loaded those in the bucket so I won't continue to hit them year after year.

I was surprised at the area where they were welding anti-static devices on the natural gas pipeline last year, how hard the ground is. The plow tears up big sections of soil like it's plowing bricks. I think they will continue into my alfalfa field this year with their welding.

I got the Ford back in shape Tuesday night and planted my buckwheat which should bloom before frost and then get killed before setting seed or so is the plan. Hopefully the field will dry out as I plan on disking it in after it is killed.

The hay is ready to cut again in a week or so, so I have to fix the mower-conditioner so I can mow it.

Also on the list of things to do is to get the combine working again as it has a problem with the fuel system getting air in it and then the fuel pump won't work.

The field corn is doing well and has set 2 ears on most of the stalks. I'm not sure if this is normal or not.

The bees are fairly grumpy every time I check on them now. I'm not sure why that is.

[Carriage House Farm]

CP

Sorry for the late response...

It is not unusual for corn, almost ANY type of corn to set more two ears. Usually one be dominant.

It happens in sweet crorn, field corn, GMO super hybrids that grow 14" in length, organic, heirloom dents and native maize types.

I have about 8 types of corn growing this year and all of them have double ears at some percentage or another. Not all but at a glance well more than half.
_________________
Richard Stewart
Carriage House Farm
North Bend, OH

An Ohio Century Farm
http://www.carriagehousefarmllc.com

[Fred]

CP Where the hell are you??

TIF

Ed

[CP Knerr]

For this winter's planting, I'm working on the following:

14 acres winter barley
4 acres soft white winter wheat (Frederick variety)
4 acres hard red winter wheat (Expedition variety)
11 acres winter triticale
12 acres oats/vetch cover crop for corn next year.

The barley is in last Wednesday and Saturday and is germinated and emerged today. We planted 10 pecks/acre.

The Frederick wheat was planted Sunday and has not emerged. We planted 9 pecks per acre.

We're planting with an old Ontario grain drill from the 50's pulled by the Farmall Super C.

The ground is worked and ready for planting for the 7 acres of the oats/vetch at this point. The oats will die but should protect the vetch crowns over the winter so they can build up nitrogen for the spring for corn.

I still need to finish working ground for the wheat and triticale. The wheat should go in real soon, but for the triticale it's OK if I'm into the middle of October.

The barley and triticale are for animal feed. I also found out a place near Niagara falls which gets $12/bale for the straw, as they sell it for algae control in ponds.

I also have some rye and vetch for the vegetable fields to plant yet.

[CP Knerr]

The barley is up pretty well at this point. We did have a minor goose invasion (about 100 geese camped out in the barley field) for 2 days, but after chasing them and shooting one the rest flew away.

The first planting of wheat has just emerged in a few rows which got planted shallowly due to one of the planters being tripped.

I planted the oats/vetch on Saturday morning and afternoon right before the rain. We got a nice gentle rain the rest of the day Saturday then again on Sunday morning. This should really help things along. Of course now it's supposed to rain for the next 4 days so getting ground prepared for the rest of the planting should be interesting, but I have a couple weeks now to get it ready so hopefully there will be a break in the weather.

[contraryfarmer]

CP, Are you still raising open pollinated corn? I see from past posts that at one time you planted Wapsie Valley and Bloody Butcher. Did you have a good experience with it?

[CP Knerr]

Yes I am still raising it. I did not raise those two varieties this year due to lack of seed close by.

I have in 10 acres of VK13 which is a 90 day OP corn. I'd have preferred Wapsie Valley but the seed place was out of it when I went to get seed.

Here is the description from Lakeview:

[contraryfarmer]

I’ve experimented with Nokomis Gold, (an OP variety from Wisconsin) on an organic farm along side hybrids. The hybrids out yield the OP varieties but the Nokomis is probably higher protein according to Michael Fields research. One interesting observation with the OP corn is it showed less stress under drought conditions than the Hybrids.
I’m not sure how many day the Nokomis Gold corn is but it was too long for southern Michigan, unless you don’t mind harvesting in snow or putting some heat on it.
I need to stick with a 90 day corn and would like to try Wapsie Valley.
Will you be able to get a premium price for your corn considering it is OP and higher in minerals, protein etc.?

[CP Knerr]

I had heard the same about the OP corns with the minerals and protein, which is one good reason to raise it for me. I'd rather handle and store less of a higher quality thing.

I feed all my corn to animals so I don't sell it so I don't know if I'd get a higher price. The one thing I would think about is the Wapsie Valley has some red ears, so that may be an off color if you were trying to sell yellow corn for instance. I'm not sure how that would affect things.

I was in contact with a whiskey producer from the southern tier who said the red corns have more oil in them and make a smoother whiskey. I'd think the increased oil would also be good for the animals.

I also do not want to use heat to dry things... last year I just stored ear corn.

The VK13 is all yellow so I don't have the problems with the red and yellow Wapsie Valley ears.

[contraryfarmer]

That is interesting about the higher oil content of red corn. Must mean Bloody Butcher would make the smoothest rot gut!
So if you harvest ear corn I assume you store it in a crib or wire bin. I would like to grow about a quarter acre of OP corn for chicken feed but I’m not sure how to best store it. I’d probably harvest by hand so I could set aside the best ears for seed.
Do you have the soybeans you grow roasted or extruded to mix in your feed ration?

[CP Knerr]

I wired together some pallets so there were 3 sides and a floor off the floor and stored the corn on that. The bottom layer molded a bit but other than that it worked well. I really didn't have a lot last year (2 acres) so that worked fine for me. Still took a whole lot of time to harvest by hand. I have a corn head for the combine this year.

The soybeans will be roasted and fed whole or we may try to send them through the hammermill. I need to see if I can combine them at all because they got super weedy this year... at this point I'm afraid to go look at the field.

Next year we're going to try drilling them on 8" centers rather than in rows on 30" centers, after the barley comes off in late June/early July and we disk and harrow a few times. The rows were just way too wide with my limited time to cultivate and the weeds overtook them. There is this one plant with yellow flowers which infested everything this year, it has super-tough stems which don't break and just clog everything up.

[Carriage House Farm]

What kind of combine did you get CP?
_________________
Richard Stewart
Carriage House Farm
North Bend, OH

An Ohio Century Farm
http://www.carriagehousefarmllc.com

[CP Knerr]

It's a John Deere 55. I have a 10' small grain head and a 2 row corn head for it... the corn head is for 38" rows.

[CP Knerr]

I've been having trouble with hunters these past 2 years on my land.

Last year there were a couple of groups hunting my alfalfa field from my property without permission. I took a couple of their stands down last year on my trees and I shooed them off the property once and a neighbor did again.

This year one of the guys who was inquiring where his stand went came back to see where the property line was. So I showed him on the map where it was and he tried to get me to allow him to hunt on my land but I said no. He left arrows in my field last year that he had placed for tracking something he shot, and also cut down a bunch of branches on some of my trees to clear firing lanes so I wasn't too keen on letting him hunt.

Last night he showed up again with a 6 wheel gator on a trailer and said he set his stands up again. I asked where and he said, "Same place as last year, in the apple tree". So then he talked a little about his gator, how much he spent on it, how he will need to keep it in the garage at his town house because he doesn't have room for it anywhere else, and was gone.

I went out to the field I just plowed and he had just driven across it to set his stands up in my cherry (not apple) tree again, after I told him he could not hunt on my property.

I'm really not sure what to do with this guy. I tell him where the property line is, and that he cannot hunt on my side, and he sets up anyway after motoring all over my freshly plowed fields and then comes to tell me about it!

I was going to just leave him notes on his stands to get them off my property, but instead I've decided to go out tonight and take them down myself and post the whole property line because I'm sick of having to spend time keeping people off. But that will take hours tonight to do. When he comes to reclaim his stuff I'm going to get his license information and give the Dept of Environmental Conservation a call.

At least it's bow season... last time when he came and I had to confront people it's shotgun season so everybody is armed at that point.

Anyone else have hunter relations issues? I take all this time to try to work the land and improve it, all the money on land payments and taxes, then people just seem to march in and consider it theirs to do whatever with so they can hunt for a couple weeks.

[Carriage House Farm]

Shoot him.

OK, just kidding...more or less.

Trespassers piss me off, especially hunters. I careful assign areas on my farm to hunters. Its a sort of reward for those that help me. In a way they rent it though I never ask. I buddy dropped off two cords of wood split.

He got a sweet spot and 45 acres of his own.

When we get poachers we usually run them off.

I would seriously contact a local law enforcement officer, ODNR type. Here in Ohio its a First Degree Misdemeanor. If he gets caught with a migratory birds its a that AND a felony per count. Most States have similar deals. If he is hunting on YOUR land (including tracking onto) then its poaching and that is a usual no-no.

The other thing you can do is mist diesel fuel or deer off and pee all around till you get an ODNR guy out there to ticket him. Figure out past 50 yards is a REAL tough bow shot. That should keep the deer away...then start loosening nuts and bolts on the stand.

Do it legally and its the best route.

Don't forget to charge him for damages either way.
_________________
Richard Stewart
Carriage House Farm
North Bend, OH

An Ohio Century Farm
http://www.carriagehousefarmllc.com