Here is the pigweed in the morning. It looks red as the leaves are folded toward the sun exposing their underside and the stem.



You can see the purple underside of the young plant on the left.



Outside the old cattle pens, back in the back, things aren't doing too bad despite any additional rain. Here is one of my half & half plots. Have for fall/Winter & half for Spring/Summer. The entire plot had been turned with my 8' tiller about a month before planting the left half. Sorry about the picture, camera was into the morning sun but the cereal grains and peas are up and going.

Oh, decided to make lemonade out of the lemons. I turned the sprinklers on the irrigated plots. In that I can monitor them from the house I will see if the deer will use them. If not I will deal with killing the weeds. Checking on a wiper system as well.

Good looking machine.

Just planted some oats. Here is one of the latest pics.

Ranch Dog did the rains yesterday catch you? They went just east and then north of me. Today they built up just west of me and raining pretty good as they move SW.

George, looks good!


On Thursday afternoon we got .2", nothing since.

That is .20" more than I got out those two days. I did get a little over an inch in Live Oak County yesterday though.

Looking for some advise from the "Food Plot Nerds". I have 2 fields that will be planted in wheat soon. One is about 100ac the other 15 ac separated by several hundred yards of native brush/pasture and was thinking about doing a more traditional food plot along the edge (one side) of the wheat fields totaling about 10 ac. Do you think this will be any more of a draw than the wheat? I would think that the food plot would provide some late season nutritional value that the wheat will not. Thanks in advance.

How much are the foreign models and where are they available (near Tx.) ?? I really do not mind changing attachments that much.
okiehuntr

May be someone from northwest Texas can offer advice but I do not see any negative to providing the variety.


Mine came from China. The only tiller based planters that I'm aware of being sold are those imported by Trucking Enterprises Imports. A 7' tiller/planter is $4150 plus trucking from MO. They also offer 6' & 7' models as well.

My planter is back from the welding shop with a couple of additions.

1. Added the plate that the I had suggested and the factory starting to incorporate into newer machines. They supplied the mount brackets. I decided to reduce the lower end of it as all I want it to do is eliminate the trash being kicked up against the disc openers and not act as a blade ahead of them.
2. Jack stands
3. Grease fitting on the middle sprocket axle.
4. D-rings on the front and aft frame so that I can use straps to lift the tiller into my trailer or move it in my barn with the pallet forks on my loader.

Jerry, the sales guy in China, and I emailed back and forth last night. I suggested that they come up with an assortment of upper sprockets sizes (different tooth counts), the sprockets mounted on the fertilizer and seed box augers. These things are super easy to pull. Loosen a nut, slide the holding bracket out of a groove on the sprocket shaft, pull the sprocket, and replace it. I think they are going to do that. With the seed meters being easily changed from small to large and the existing opener adjustment, this would provide a crazy (good) range of possibilities.

I think I will use the planter to till up the pigweed next week just to see how the plate performs.

JERRY ?????? lol

He can call himself whatever he wants. The customer service he provides is first class.

Update on the pigweed wars. Used the tiller set at about 3" to remove the redroot. Plot sat for 30 days with no further growth so I planted replanted on the 16th with oats from Pogue Seed. My seed supplier said to just use my tooth harrow to break up the soil, my broadcast spreader to spin the seed out, and then my packer to set the seed bed. I wish I'd of thought about this a bit more before I started and just used my planter.

Ended up going over the two plots totaling 1.6 acres twice to get the soil right. The pass with the broadcast spreader was easy but another implement to hook up and take off. Things changed with the packer. 50% of the seed was still on the on top of the ground which isn't good for seed that needs to be 1" to 1½" deep. So off with the packer and back on with the tooth harrow for two more passes. Then packed it. Took 3.5 hours of tractor time and with the equipment change I was out 5 hours of work. It would have taken the planter an hour. Oh well, live and learn.

Had a morning of gentle rain from the south that should have set the seed bed pretty good and now getting frontal passage. The temperatures are supposed to come back up next week and if the pigweed reappears I will spray it with 1 pint of 24D/acre. If it doesn't, any work prepping these two plots in the future will probably be done fairly close to the surface so as not to wake up the pigweed.

The planter manufacturer in China liked my idea about the set of auger sprockets and asked me to suggest the extreme rates, low and high, that food plotters would encounter for both fertilizer and seed. Given the current rate adjustment of the seed and fertilizer meters, two sizes of sprockets will more than cover the ranges. Crazy how fast they bring something into production and as a thanks, my set is on China Air crossing the Pacific right now. That's crazy customer service.

Love the grease run add on.. Lots of new equipment these days lack grease fitting in the most obvious spots. Auger ideas are well thought out too. Do you still pack even behind the planter? Do you see big results from it or more just to keep things level fewer slump spots for water to gather?

Thanks.

Don't run my Brillion packer behind the planter because the planter has it's own. Packer rotation is what drives both the fertilizer and seed augers.



I like firm seedbeds, good soil contact with the seed gets things started right and fast. The flat seedMy beds create the bonus of no low spots like you mention. My oats are up and growing.