Plowing to Planting Timeline and Technique 1946

[Bill VA]

Not sure when no-till came out or when roundup hit the scene.

It’s 1946, WW2 is over, you’ve got a dairy and it’s spring. You want to take an older pasture and spring plant some corn or soybeans or maybe alfalfa. Farmall M in the shed and a JD model A you can use.

How does the timeline look from plowing the sod, discing it down, cultipacking and drilling the seed to achieve a successful fall harvest?

What plow, disc, etc are you going to use? What about fertilizer, how much and when?

What am I missing that a farmer in 1946 would do to get in a spring crop from rotating out an old pasture into row crops?

Just curious.

Thanks!

 

[jwal10]

Plow in the fall, let set until spring and disk or better yet cultivate to breakup sods, lay on top of ground and let dry between passes. A spring tooth worked good for this. Manure? Corn is a heavy nitrogen crop. Soybeans then, probably just used what nutrients were in the ground. Alfalfa would have been inoculated to set nitrogen nodules for itself and/or the next crop. Called rotation farming....James

 

[Charlie M]

As mentioned fall plowing works well for sod. I have been able to plow sod early in the spring and not worked for a few weeks works pretty good but that timing can be tough depending on the weather. If you plant corn you can plow up the sod and plant as soon as you can get on it but the field will look soddy with the equipment you have and if the field starts to grow and the ground gets dry it will plow hard, maybe too hard for the plows used on the tractors you mention. In 1946 corn would have been the best crop for a field that was sod for along time.

 

[valleview]

Farming practices varied some depending on soil type and what part of the ountry you are located. Back in those days, most farms had animals, so you had manure. Crop rotation was common. Your best yields came from corn growing on old sod that was manured. Grew up in Minnesota where fall plowing was the norm. Then moved to Wisconsin where spring plowing was more common - thought to have less erosion that way. If the snow didn't get too deep, manure was spread every day all winter. That is not considered good practice today because of potential run-off. Weed control consisted of mechanical cultivating. Raising beans was less common and meant the family was put to work walking the rows, hand pulling or hoeing. There may have been some differences in other areas?

 

[crooked rows]

Had to get the oats planted first...then on to plowing the sod for corn, if the manure wasn't all hauled yet you had to finish that before you could plow. After plowing was done you had to hit it with the disk and then probably at least once over with a spring tooth drag...then on to planting with two hundred pounds of 12-12-12 applied in the row with the planter.....and the as soon as the rows were visible cultivating started.

 

[DRussell]

Not sure when no-till came out or when roundup hit the scene.

It’s 1946, WW2 is over, you’ve got a dairy and it’s spring. You want to take an older pasture and spring plant some corn or soybeans or maybe alfalfa. Farmall M in the shed and a JD model A you can use.

How does the timeline look from plowing the sod, discing it down, cultipacking and drilling the seed to achieve a successful fall harvest?

What plow, disc, etc are you going to use? What about fertilizer, how much and when?

What am I missing that a farmer in 1946 would do to get in a spring crop from rotating out an old pasture into row crops?

Just curious.

Thanks!

With either the Farmall M or a JD A you're looking at pulling a 3 bottom plow with 14 inch furrows, then a disk, probably 9 or 10 feet wide. A 12 foot disk might just be pullable, but would really make either of those tractors grunt in plowed ground.

Where I grew up in northwestern PA no one did fall plowing, it was all done in the spring. Plowing started as soon as the ground was dry enough, it was common for enough time to pass from plowing time to disking that weeds started to grow on the early plowed ground. Later in the year, the disk might be running the same day as the plow or the following day.

Twice over with the disk then you could plant corn for stubble ground, three times for sod ground.

Only a few planted soybeans. Hay/alfalfa was planted with oats as a cover crop. The better off farmers had a cultipacker to get a really smooth finish for the future hay field. Usually at least 3 times disking for oats, maybe 4 depending on soil types or conditions.

In the late 40s, most are using a 2 row planter and putting dry fertilizer in the row at planting time. By the time I came along, 4 row corn planters were pretty common. Oats/hay planted with a grain drill, probably a 13 hole drill with a hay seeder attachment. A lot of the drills back then had the high wooden wheels, and rubber wheels came a bit later.