During my short lifetime in my cold wet corner of the world, I never fully appreciated the challenges of farming when moisture is the limiting factor. Too much is nearly always my limiting factor. When I read, for example, something about the width of the opener affecting moisture loss, it all sounds like irrelevant hair splitting, till this year. Now I can see everything I did wrong that lost moisture. And really, I only did 6 things wrong, not bad.
1) I seeded too early.
2) I seeded too late.
3) I seeded too shallow
4) I seeded too deep
5) I Performed tillage
6) I didn't perform tillage
Well, a few other things. Had lots of weeds, particularly quackgrass to control after so many non stop wet years, left everything to spray in the spring, trying to get as much growth as possible, usually a good thing to suck some more moisture out too. Part way into seeding I realized the rains weren't going to happen and changed my strategy and made spraying a priority to conserve whatever moisture was there. Now I can see those quackgrass patches clearly, since they robbed so much moisture. That has never been a concern of mine before. Should have taken them out sooner, however I also grazed cows on them after spraying, so the growth was appreciated at the time, since pastures weren't growing.
Compaction, I am fully convinced that compaction is my biggest enemy, except this year. Wheel tracks, headlands, seed truck parking areas, land that was rolled after seeding, all came up faster and more even, normally they would be a write off.
All the fuss about seeding depth seemed uneccesary, just try to seed as shallow as possible while keeping as few seeds on the surface as possible, but they germinate on the surface just fine. This year, small variations in depth are visible from a mile away. took weeks longer to germinate if too shallow, almost couldn't be too deep, at least for the canola, I think they all came up eventually. But barley, I did end up too deep on a few humps and ridges. The slightest difference in soil depth is huge, od dead furrows are pitiful, old plow strikeouts are excellent. Anything with manure added is excellent.
I shouldn't have even attempted to work up the ruts from last year(s) what should have been the best land ended up too dry to germinate after any kind of field work. No till is doing drastically better. The only feild work that didn't do much harm is where I just skidded the sweeps along the top to level some lumps from fall subsoiling( came up as basketball sized boulders last fall) or spreading manure on the surface, anything deeper than that was a catastrophe. That said, I should have somehow tilled everything to level out the ground so seeding depth would have been consistent, but can't have your cake and eat it too. On a side note, the subsoiled ground does look very good compared to any other year, and I was doing that for wet, not for dry.
Neighbors who I thought were nuts for seeding in April look smart now, had a bit more moisture in the ground then. Seeding before the one shower we got in May made a huge difference also. Or seeding late enough to hang on until the rains eventually come( have been forecast for over a week now.......Perhaps they will come. Spread things around enough I thought something would be timed right.
I suppose the biggest mistake I made is not having the farm located under one of those million dollar freak thunderstorms, not sure how to fix that. All that said, crops looked excellent, but late and uneven as of about 10 days ago, going downhill fast now as we continue to miss most showers. Canola that germinated on time mostly looks very good, but mostly just blanks so far with all the heat. The cotelydons beside them may be in for a disappointment if winter happens to come before January...
The good news is that the weeds couldn't germinate either, but the insects sure did.
My respect to the people who have to deal with this most years. Not sure which I would prefer.
New found respect for true dryland farmers, and everything I did wrong this year...
1) I seeded too early.
2) I seeded too late.
3) I seeded too shallow
4) I seeded too deep
5) I Performed tillage
6) I didn't perform tillage
Well, a few other things. Had lots of weeds, particularly quackgrass to control after so many non stop wet years, left everything to spray in the spring, trying to get as much growth as possible, usually a good thing to suck some more moisture out too. Part way into seeding I realized the rains weren't going to happen and changed my strategy and made spraying a priority to conserve whatever moisture was there. Now I can see those quackgrass patches clearly, since they robbed so much moisture. That has never been a concern of mine before. Should have taken them out sooner, however I also grazed cows on them after spraying, so the growth was appreciated at the time, since pastures weren't growing.
Compaction, I am fully convinced that compaction is my biggest enemy, except this year. Wheel tracks, headlands, seed truck parking areas, land that was rolled after seeding, all came up faster and more even, normally they would be a write off.
All the fuss about seeding depth seemed uneccesary, just try to seed as shallow as possible while keeping as few seeds on the surface as possible, but they germinate on the surface just fine. This year, small variations in depth are visible from a mile away. took weeks longer to germinate if too shallow, almost couldn't be too deep, at least for the canola, I think they all came up eventually. But barley, I did end up too deep on a few humps and ridges. The slightest difference in soil depth is huge, od dead furrows are pitiful, old plow strikeouts are excellent. Anything with manure added is excellent.
I shouldn't have even attempted to work up the ruts from last year(s) what should have been the best land ended up too dry to germinate after any kind of field work. No till is doing drastically better. The only feild work that didn't do much harm is where I just skidded the sweeps along the top to level some lumps from fall subsoiling( came up as basketball sized boulders last fall) or spreading manure on the surface, anything deeper than that was a catastrophe. That said, I should have somehow tilled everything to level out the ground so seeding depth would have been consistent, but can't have your cake and eat it too. On a side note, the subsoiled ground does look very good compared to any other year, and I was doing that for wet, not for dry.
Neighbors who I thought were nuts for seeding in April look smart now, had a bit more moisture in the ground then. Seeding before the one shower we got in May made a huge difference also. Or seeding late enough to hang on until the rains eventually come( have been forecast for over a week now.......Perhaps they will come. Spread things around enough I thought something would be timed right.
I suppose the biggest mistake I made is not having the farm located under one of those million dollar freak thunderstorms, not sure how to fix that. All that said, crops looked excellent, but late and uneven as of about 10 days ago, going downhill fast now as we continue to miss most showers. Canola that germinated on time mostly looks very good, but mostly just blanks so far with all the heat. The cotelydons beside them may be in for a disappointment if winter happens to come before January...
The good news is that the weeds couldn't germinate either, but the insects sure did.
My respect to the people who have to deal with this most years. Not sure which I would prefer.
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