Late morning, Wednesday, March 29, 2017

The sprayer was able to run yesterday evening.  John took off with it late in the afternoon.  The soil was not as dry as we would prefer (< perfect), but it was do-able.  The best part was that the wind was very low, almost calm.  He is back at it this morning.  So far, so good.  But the wind is picking back up and may drive him from the field soon.

He is applying a mixture of herbicides on some of our fields that are potential for early-planted soybeans.  These herbicides are blended together in the sprayer tank, and this particular mixture requires a waiting period of 10-14 days before the planter can run.  So, we are applying now in late March in order to be able to plant these fields soon after April 10.  We are convinced about the success of early soybean planting, as it has proven year-in and year-out that the earliest-planted fields provide the highest yields.  Only once in all these years have we lost an early-planted field of soybeans to a frost.  So the incentive for early planting of soybeans is > the weather risk.

Tuesday evening, John works to fill the sprayer from the nurse truck.

He uses this “Chem-Blade” cone-bottom tank as an inductor to mix the different herbicides and adjuvants to be pumped with the water into the sprayer.

These weeds, mostly henbit and other winter annuals, with some tiny marestail among them will be history after this pass.  The marestail is the main culprit that must be stopped early!

It may be such that the NH3 applications can resume this afternoon.  A progress-stopping rain is predicted for tonight and tomorrow.

In March, we only have small windows of opportunity.    Baby steps…

#plant17 will arrive here in a couple weeks… or that’s the plan, anyway.