Thursday, June 14, 2012

Adventures in the cornfield.

  Last year my corn grew with relatively few weeds. That lulled me into complacency.  So I planted some sorghum with the corn.  The corn is genetically modified so allow spraying with Roundup. However, the sorghum is not Roundup ready.  This year there is a bumper crop of weeds; Canada Thistle, Sunflower, Foxtail and Cockle-burr.
   The weed specialist, JW, at the Sinai Cooperative Elevator recommended Moxy, the generic form of Bucktill. With a borrowed four wheel sprayer from WN I was off. All went well until, with 13 rows left, the four wheeler died. Unable to restart it I decided to let it cool its jets and took out the 1950 JD B with the mounted two row cultivator.
  Now, if I was a real farmer, I'd probably have waited a few days from spraying to cultivating.  But with rain clouds in the south west and a desire to get back to Mpls. I set to cultivating.  With more than enough weeds to go around I thought it better to get it done.
  All was going swimmingly, with only 4 rows left, the right side of the cultivator fell off the tractor.  Nothing broke.  The nut came off the main bold holding it on.  The cultivator twisted in a way that I could not move.  So, there I was in the field with two disabled machines.
  Ah, the utility of cell phones, soon WN came to my rescue.  We fixed the cultivator and loaded the 4 wheeler into his pickup and I completed the cultivating. Back at home WN fixed the 4 wheeler and I was all set to finish spraying in the morning.  When I awakened to thunder and a nice rain I decided the spraying would have to wait.

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