Drilling Wheat

       Riff raff.  Trash.  No, not another political add.

      This trash is debris left over from the 2019 wheat crop--stubble, straw.

 

     It was a dry year, but we did have a half an inch of rain plus the snow that came with the cold on Labor Day weekend.  We had a similar Lavor Day snow and cold front in 1959. 

      The storekeeper in Genoa kept a farm in Washington County a good twenty miles north.  He had a new tractor hitched to drills, still trying to plant wheat (Labor Day was considered late planting in those days when everyone planted in August).  Marvin trekked out in heavy wet snow to drain the water out of his new tractor lest it freeze and crack the block.

     One of the wettest years in memory, ’59 and ’60, followed that early snow.  It seemed it snowed every Friday of football season.  I don’t think we have to worry about that this year.

     But the 2020 Labor Day storm did provide enough moisture to get wheat up, maybe.  The problem was that with the dry summer, I didn’t have to “work” the wheat ground much, only twice by September.  That’s good for the fuel bill, but not so good as far as preparing a good seed bed.

     I could have drilled into the twice-worked ground, except for the trash on top of the ground.  There weren’t any serious weed problems—wild purslane which will finish dying with the next hard freeze, and a few sprigs of volunteer wheat.

      I took the drills for a dry run to see if there was a chance of getting through the trash.  In a hundred yards, I plugged up three or four times. “Plugged up”—the drill acts like a hay rake, the straw catches in the drill shanks and forces the drill shovels out the ground.   Scratch that idea.

     Eventually, I broke out the oneway disk.  It turns the soil over, which buries some of the trash.  The downside is, it turns up damp soil, moisture, which dries out. 

     I drilled the third week of September.  All the signs were right.  The moon was in the waxing stage, good for above ground and cereal crops.  It had cooled off a lot.  And the neighbors all around me were planting.

       I plugged up a few times, but nothing to worry about.  A three-tined hayfork soon removed the straw.  The important thing is to stop and clean out the straw before dirt starts building up in front to the straw.

     I finished planting on September 25.  Some wheat is trying to come to life.

     It is hard to see any wheat in all the trash.  Will it make it?  It’s not up to me now.  I have cast the dice.  Nothing to do now but sit back and try not to worry about things I can’t control.  So goes farming.

     Sure could use a good rain.