Hagen Brothers farms,Goodrich ND | We do no tillage,We are no till,not direct seeding,no means NO,not even a heavy harrow pass. We do not grow corn,this is central ND and is very iffy for corn as to growing season and rain (15 average-5 this year) . In this area,field pea, Spring wheat,barley,canola,sunflower,flax,and marginal for soybean do well.
We rolled the ground first,then seeded it with a 750 drill,so the drill opener could loosen a any surface compacted soil over the seed slot.
Compaction from a roller can be a problem if the soil is a bit wet when you roll it,but it is something we need to do to avoid serious harvest damage to the combine. We DO have major rock issues on part of our land, the nasty little softball to football size granite beauty's that you always miss a few of when doing rock picking,that will do serious damage to a header or combine.
If you wanted to see rock issues,you should have been with me Friday and Saturday. We were working on a field that is composed of glacial moraine soil,that is where a glacier stopped advancing and melted back,dropping all the rocks it pushed ahead of it. We had cleaned the surface rock off years ago,and were working at removing the remaining little 1000-1500+ pound beauty's that stick an inch or two out of the ground,ready to snag and break any implement that makes solid contact. Brother horsed these things out of the ground with our little Hough 30 B payloader and closed the holes, while I carry them to the nearest rock pile with the tractor with front end loader. Some were so large that I could not lift them without the rear tractor wheels lifting off,I had to leave the bucket on the ground and skid them to the nearest rock pile. Feel very blessed if you have no rocks :)
We need some fall rains very badly,we had 1/3 normal rainfall this year along with an unusual for this area solid month of 90-100 degree weather. Our subsoil moisture which grew our crop is gone. some of those rocks we dug out ment digging three ft deep,the soil fell away from the rocks as dry powder,nothing stuck. we need a slow two week soaker.
Edited by Jon Hagen 9/4/2006 23:04
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Landrollers Solid vs spiral
