Fall work has begun in the "
Palouse" and here are some videos that I took of the winter wheat being planted on our Genesee farm. At the time of this blog (Tuesday, 10/12/10) we have now moved down to the Tammany farm, which is about an hour away from our home and we hope to be done seeding in a couple of days.
Our rotational crops on our farm are winter wheat, spring wheat and then a legume (usually garbanzo beans). As mentioned in earlier blogs, this is to help soil health, weed control and pest control by rotating crops. Winter wheat is planted now in the fall and will be harvested next August.
In these videos I had just come home from work and saw the tractor and seeding drill working around our house. We live on the Palouse, which is a rich farming area that encompasses parts of Washington and Idaho. Our rolling hills mainly grow wheat, pea, lentils and garbanzos. Anyway, I hurriedly changed clothes and literally ran up the steep hillside to capture the videos and pictures as this was the very last patch to be done on our farm before moving down South to the Tammany farm. I was standing on the hill behind our house and this is my brother-in-law, Jay in the tractor which is both seeding the wheat as well as fertilizing it at the same time. We can plant about 200 acres a day if one person is in the tractor and one is on hand to keep the drills filled with seed and fertilizer.
Here is a video clip of Joe in the tractor pulling a spike tooth harrow implement in the same field . The purpose of this piece of equipment is to ensure the soil has covered the wheat seed and to spread out the crop residue from the recent garbanzo harvest. It is sort of like using a rake to cover the seeds when you plant them in your garden and smooth out the soil, only of course, on a much larger scale. =)
|
This is what a freshly seeded field looks like up close. The red seeds
are treated wheat kernels. Note the crop residue from the previous
garbanzo crop. This is like "composting" and it helps the ground to
keep moisture in the soil and reduce erosion.
|
|
The seed truck and fertilizer truck on hand in the field to fill the drill |
|
A view of the harrow implement |
|
A view of the rolling hills of some of our farm ground |
|
A view of our house from the top of the hill that I climbed when
I shot the footage of the tractor seeding wheat.
It's a great hill for sledding =) |
The weather forecast is great, sun and no rain for the rest of the week. This means we will finish seeding the winter wheat this week. It's a relief to get the seed in the ground as in this part of the country, it can start raining and not stop until the snow flies. So everyone hurries to get the fall crop planted as "Mother Nature" can be somewhat unpredictable. Procrastination is not in a farmer's vocabulary when it comes to getting the crops planted or harvested, as our livelihood depends on timely work to be accomplished. When the snow flies, then we can relax! =)