[Tim Harrigan]

That is great. Like to see a video of it in action.

[Tim Harrigan]

I thought about these past posts when I read your comment about converting brush to pasture/crop land.

http://www.draftanimalpower.com/showthread.php?170-Grow-grass-and-graze&highlight=brontosaurus

http://www.draftanimalpower.com/showthread.php?2859-Winter-2009-2010&highlight=brontosaurus

[Tim Harrigan]

Glad things are progressing well, Andy summed up the horse/ox assessment pretty well. No question that horses are more numerous than oxen, but they can both get the job done.

[Tim Harrigan]

That is great, Andy. I was just thinking tonight as I was walking in from stacking logs how things were going with your team and if you had any regrets switching from your single horse to the oxen. In some ways they are very different, but I think the similarities out weight the differences. I was also wondering how things were going with Kevin and his team.

[Tim Harrigan]

Good luck with that. What can you get for Cherry now?

[Tim Harrigan]

Looks good, Andy. The only problem I can see is it will not clear much crop residue with the tines being that close together. At some point you may want to go with 2 gangs with wider spacings between the shanks. There is going to be a lot of torque on those tines, I guess you will see how the wood holds up. Might need a little weight on it to hold it in the ground in firm soil.

[Tim Harrigan]

I can’t see very well. Is he walking land side in #4?

[Tim Harrigan]

Here is a picture that I snatched off the HPD site that looks like Triple-K style tines with rolling harrows front and rear. In plowed ground so weed control is hard to assess.

[Tim Harrigan]

@Countymouse 34299 wrote:

If I have zero tolerance for quackgrass, I will be moldboard plowing every year, which defeats the purpose. I need to figure out how much is too much. I think corn is pretty sensitive to grasses, I am not sure about sunflowers. Both would provide alot of shade if they can get a good start, and I can cultivate between rows, which I am hoping will give me a chance to cultivate in a way that might approximate a summer fallow.

I agree that your expectations will drive your approach. Of course, the quack grass and other weeds will take nitrogen and water, and these are usually the limiting inputs at least in corn production, not sure about sunflowers. Not sure what you are thinking about for nitrogen management, but that can be a challenge with organic corn production. How much reduction depends on how much you can suppress the weeds. The fact that you will probably plant in wider rows will work against you as far as row closure and shading out the quack grass, and cultivation can do a good job between the rows, not always so great in the row.

There are some modern tillage tools that do a better job with surface weed control, one I am familiar with is the Kongskilde Triple-K field cultivator. It has spring tine shanks and goose foot sweeps and they do considerably more surface mixing than the springtooth harrow. I am pretty sure I have seen it at HPD but it was probably on plowed ground so hard to assess for weed control. I think speed of operation will influence how well it works, and I have only used them with tractor power so faster ground travel.

If you get good with a cultivator you will be able to throw soil into the row between the plants which would help somewhat. Weather has a big impact on how well row cultivation works, in a wet year you are going to have a fight on your hands.

[Tim Harrigan]

Andy, sounds like you are finding our first-hand how tough it is to control quack grass with tillage. Quack grass reproduces both by seed and underground rhizomes that are very aggressive and extensive. So they have extensive root reserves to re-grow after you disk them down. As you are finding out, if the top growth is not buried it will regrow. But that is not the tough part. New plant emerge from the roots. And even if you cut up the roots, plants can emerge from the cut pieces of root. So with tillage the technique is to till it, and then when it begins to regrow, till it again until it exhausts the root reserves. And you will have the weed seed bank to deal with for a long time. This time of year tillage is tough because there is adequate moisture to keep the plant going, and it is cool and moist enough that the exposed plant pieces do not dessicate. Field scale tillage control is probably more successful in summer.

From what you describe, it may be best to moldboard plow and then disk and harrow as necessary to keep the weeds knocked back. The other option is chemical weed control to get back to a manageable situation and start from there. Good luck.

[Tim Harrigan]

I have been working single for about the last 6 months since I lost the mate for Will. This is a more traditional American style neck yoke with brichen. It works fine, comfortable, and Will has a lot of freedom to move his head and I like that. Better than a forehead yoke or other type of head yoke? I guess it depends on what you like or are accustomed to.

[video=youtube_share;E3XnddNrWCc]http://youtu.be/E3XnddNrWCc[/video]

[Tim Harrigan]

Should not be a problem. Not sure if it is the best for the $, beet lime might not spread as nice as other lime so you should find out who will be spreading and check with them. Also, if you need magnesium dolomitic lime might be better. But if it is primarily neutralizing ability you want it should be OK.

[Tim Harrigan]

Geoff, we use a lot of sugar beet lime in Michigan.

http://www.michigansugar.com/products/lime.php

A lot of sugar beets are grown in the Saginaw Valley, the lime is a byproduct of the processing operation.

[Tim Harrigan]

Mark, I am glad you are getting them sorted out.

Oxman, do you have any pictures of the whips?

[Tim Harrigan]

@dominiquer60 34100 wrote:

I understand that this test is a snapshot like Tim states, however is there an ideal time of the spring, soil moisture or tillage condition that one should take into consideration when taking samples for a test like this?

Erika, I am not sure I was clear about this. I assumed this is a measure of soil microbial respiration. I said do the test a few weeks after planting. That was to give the soil a chance to settle after tillage and planting, and to warm up. Warm, moist soils will be most active so this test probably involves some measures of water infiltration a day or two before taking the soil sample. If you want to track changes over time the key is consistency of timing and location.

[Author]

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