Field Work

[IaGary]

To cold and wet here to do any tillage or planting.

Heard on the radio yesterday that 3% of the corn is planted.

Is that in your area? It's sure not in mine.

Gary

 

[Anonymous-0]

warming up here, started hauling liquid manure yesterday. Had to watch where you went with the 3250 gallon tanker.
haven't seen any corn planted yet, but i'll bet some oats is in.

 

[Chooch]

Still soggy in Southern Indiana. The only thing you could plant here is rice.

chooch

 

[cj in wisconsin]

Still snow on the ground in places, frost in the ground and 2 feet of ice on the lakes. Went ice fishing saturday. Another week and I hope to drop the plow.

 

[Steven f/AZ]

SW North Dakota still has frost in the ground, unable to move any equipment yet. Just big chunks coming up... Next problem is that it is going to be too dry in some places for the crop to come up. Desperately needing some rain...

 

[Anonymous-0]

Gary,

I haven't seen anyone working soil yet in Middle Tennessee. It's still too wet here. According to my little rain gauge in my back yard, we've had more than forty inches of rain since the drought broke last October, plus we've had two snowfalls of more than two inches of snow each. Our reservoirs are starting to catch up from what we lost last year. If we have a "normal" year, we ought to be in good shape.

I plowed my garden about a month ago, but it's still to wet to work.

Tom in TN

 

[Dave from MN]

Frost isnt outa the ground yet here. Hauling manure is quite interesting. They got 32" of snow in parts of MN the last few days.

 

[IaGary]

Did they get the rain they needed southeast of TN? Down in the Carolinas and Georgia.

Gary

 

[TractormanNC]

We have gotten some rain here in piedmont NC. Lakes and rivers are up, watering restrictions are being lifted, but ground water is still low. A normal rainfall year would be great. About 2 inches last week.

But it is cloudy and COLD! High temps only in the upper 50s and low 60s. Should be in mid 70s now.

Some notil corn ground has had burndown herbicide applied, but that is about all the field work that I have seen been done.

Want to start cutting hay next week but it will have to warm up a bunch to get it cured.

 

[derek in al]

I got mine in in southern alabama

 

[john in la]

While the farmers are just planting now I have seen some gardens with corn 2 to 3 ft tall in the past few days. But we have tomatoes planted already.

If you guys do not slack up on the snow the mississippi river is going to top the banks.
They have been talking in the past few days about opening one of our spillways to relieve some of the presure from the river.
While they have not opened it yet there is still 9000 cu ft of water per second leaking threw the gates. This is just a drop in the bucket though since when the gates are open it allows 200,000 cu ft of water per second threw. And that is just a drop in the bucket when you consider the river is running at about 2 million cu ft per second right now.

 

[John S-B]

That's a lot of water to be looking UP at!!

 

[Ken Macfarlane]

I cut some logs on the weekend. Got the tractor stuck, snow is still 3-5 feet deep in the woods. Fields are about 18-24" deep.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Yes we received much needed rain. Once in the last couple of weeks we received a little more at one time than I would have preferred. Our hay fields look a lot better than they did at this time last year.

 

[VADAVE]

Been rainin' here for the last week and chilly. This week is looking up and I expect to plant Wedensday or Thursday.

 

[Anonymous-0]

It's close here, you could start turning ground, but I think you'll find more wet areas, then in a few weeks, when things warm up and the ground dries a little more. Some fields would not be any problem, the flat fields will have a few hidden places to make a mess and get stuck.

 

[Levi Keech]

Still wet and cold in the middle of Iowa. Talkin rain today, thursday, friday and saturday. Got all the manure hauled, some old bales burnt, and some fence pulled. I don't know of any guys in the field yet. Some farmers up the road hooked up the field conditioner but then unhooked it, seeing how it was already a lost cause for this week.

 

[Anonymous-0]

It was borderline ready to roll around here yesterday, but down came the rain today. Gotta be close to an inch by now. I'm east and a little north of you in north central IL

 

[Anonymous-0]

Started plowing yesterday,having lime spread today. Gravel soil in this part of NY dries out fast.

 

[Bill-NNY]

We spread some liquid manure today and then hooked on the disk. Had my father disk over a field that was fall plowed. I have to get some stones picked before the next pass. Should be able to drill some oats in tomorrow. The ground here is dry enough to start emptying the lagoon and getting the "cow" fertilizer applied. I would like to get after the alfalfa seeding fields, which were fall plowed. The sooner the stones get picked on them, the sooner they can be planted.
There is still snow melting in the heavy drifted areas and the shaded spots.
Bill

 

[john in la]

Yes it does make for a weird site to stand on flat ground looking at a levee 20' high and you can still see a push (tug) boat pushing 35 to 40 barges (thats about 250 wide by 1/4 mile long)down the river.

The river is a 16.1 ft right now. They will not open the spillway until they perdict 17' and rising. The levees protect us to about 23 to 25'.
It is nothing like St Louis or Memphis though. We have 3 spillways we can open to drain the river to prevent a flood. One of them was opened last in 1997 (I think) and the other 2 have never been opened.

 

[730 virgil]

nothing happing in nw il. won't be for several days as we got lot of rain today, to turn to SNOW overnight. dry wed rain thurs. thru sunday.
we were already wet fields had started to firm up if we hadn't got rain maybe would have been some field work by weekend.
i was talking to neighbor this morning he is starting to get a little nervous as he doesn't have any fertilizer spread. he has about 1100-1200 acres of crops to plant. he will no-till most of it , but
he has several hours of chores every day. he and his wife do most of work without much other help. co-op will spread some dry fertilizer for him

 

[Dairy Farmer in WI]

pssshht! YEAH RIGHT! it will be at least 2-3 weeks before i can drill some oats in and haul my manure piles after that. then gotta get all my corn in. thank god i'm not gonna do any beans this year to put more work on me.
P.S it is supposed to be rainy and crappy the rest of the week and we are supposed to get 5-6 in more snow this weekend. AND I STILL HAVE TO TEAR MY CORN PLANTER APART! just ain't been able to find the time yet!
DF in WI

 

[Anonymous-0]

This time last year alot of folks were done with corn round here for the first time, we got a HARD freeze when alot of it was about 2" tall. I have not seen any activity as far as dirt work. Some people were spay'n wheat today. If the rain holds off that were are suposed to get tonight, somebody some where will be putt'n smoke down tomarow. About a week ago I heard that a few countys east of me got some work done, but that 4.5" I got last thursday was about 6" up there so they ain't do'n nothing yet.

Weather man is give'n us a chance of rain every day this week, I ain't even got pastures fertilized yet. Should have gotten tobacco ground turned 2 weeks ago or more, don't see it happen for another two weeks. This is going to get bad, mid May is going to be here and I am going to be try'n to plant, cut hay, and set tobacco at the same time. I feel alot of sick days come'n on here at my night job.

Dave

 

[HAYBOY1]

turned over 20 acres today here in W. Mass, found 8" of frost in the last 5 acre piece. Can't wait much longer, may start snowing again!!

 

[Anonymous-0]

Kyplowboy, Down here in Western N C I have not seen any farm dirt moved either. It is not because of wet ground though, it is because everyone has just quit farming. I drove over half my county last summer and saw 2 little tobacco fields. 5 years ago there were hundreds of tobacco fields. With the buyout, everyone just quit. And fertilizing your pasture, how do you do it and come out. I am not even going to fertilize my hay. At 950.00 per ton it would cost me $10,000. With the cost of fuel and always the chance of getting a bunch of good horsehay rained on, I am just not going to deal with it anymore. I am sure my fields will turn to weeds, briers, and other crap, but whatever grows I will roll it up and sell it cheap for cow hay. I sorta hate to give up but I am beat when it comes to farming.

 

[GeneMO]

Hope not, but may be some prevented planting claims under crop insurance.

FYI, Make SURE, if you have crop insurance to report PP acres to your crop ins. agent. Make 100% sure you get a copy of your report. Best to report to FSA first. Compare the reports. When you get your Declarations, or Summary of coverage from the crop ins. company, that you have not made any mistakes or ommisions. If you find any, contact the agent and or company immediately,


Gene

 

[kyplowboy]

It ain't as easy to pincle out as it was but here goes. I can get a ton of 9-24-30 (dap and 0-0-60) for $725. Two ton will make a big diffrence in 30 acres of pasture at 130lbs/acre ish. If put this on keeps me from selling 3 cows, I have saved money at $500 a calf. If I don't fertilize I should sell 4 or 5 cows now.

Dave

 

[Bruce Hopf]

An old Johnny Cash song comes to mind.
"How High Is the Water Mom Ma" "Three Feet High and Rissing"