Fall planting annual ryegrass

The days are shorter and the nights are colder and we have rain. 

Over the years I have had two main goals. First is to move to Florida or Costa Rica and ditch this stressful life. But, that involves buying lottery tickets and I am too cheap, My other goal has been to have all out annual ryegrass planted before October first.

I had come to believe that the former would occur before the latter.

But, with the collapse of the three-tie straw market, no silage to chop, and me not having a real job, we are getting closer. 

We worked ground pretty much right behind the straw baler. I was able to get my daughter a job raking the straw for the big baler while she was home. I ended up finishing that myself.

Then I went right to farming. Or at least the Nephews did. I farted around with a straw sale that I have yet to see money for.

We worked 120 or so acres and packed it down and waiting for rain so we could plant into moisture. Two weeks ago we got two inches in an evening. So we got the sprout. I of course jumped the gun and started working ground before the sprout was out of the ground and so it wasn't a perfect kill.

Next we reclaimed a 40 acre corn field which we had been subleasing as our landlord wanted corn patches for his goose hunting. This year he didn't ask for corn patches so we planted annual ryegrass. Annual seed is not a good price right now but it is generally a quick sale. It is much cheaper to grow than anything else and grass seed in general is in the crapper.

My Nephew was pretty determined to get it farmed so that was a big plus in the decision. The ground was pretty wet so the trucks left ruts. We disked it twice with a drag harrow behind the disk and then used the Forest City Machineworks Do-All to take out the remaining corn stalks and do more leveling. The Do-All is a field cultivator with a stalk chopper and a harrow in one implement. It works amazingly well for minimum tillage. I really wish ours was 16foot wide.

I used the no-till drill for the final pass. The Great Plains 1500 cuts through corn stalks and wet clods like butter. Should be a good seedbed unless it rains another two inches and the loose soil covering the seed trench turns to concrete.

I planted 130 acres in three days. The Nephew did another 40+ with the M670 Super and conventional drill. I think we did a good job this fall. Now we wait...

Now I have to work on crap I have been putting off all summer. Like cleaning my shop. Putting skirting around my house, fixing the bathroom floor, making 6 ton of oat/alfalfa pellets at 400lbs an hour, and other stuff I have been avoiding for the past decade.

1967 M670 Super and unmentionable named grain drill. We really need to get a big Minneapolis-Moline drill. Or a new Great Plains conventional drill or an International or anything but this Green and Lemon-Yellow abomination.

2-155 number two with the Forest Machineworks Du-All and a sprocket roller. It did a nice job of leveling and knocking down remaining stalks.

Now I have to work on crap I have been putting off all summer. Like cleaning my shop. Putting skirting around my house, fixing the bathroom floor, making 6 ton of oat/alfalfa pellets at 400lbs an hour, and other stuff I have been avoiding for the past decade.Getting a reasonably early start. The Great Plains works pretty good for final tillage.

The A/C drain tube plugged and dripped water out of the cab climate control box. This is not coffee. It also doesn't smell that great!

This was a 100 percent FarmerGPS job. I could not see a change in color in the dirt. If I got out I could see a difference in clod size and texture but in the cab it all looked the same. Mechanical markers didn't help either. Might be an interesting pattern later.