New crops planted and sprayed.

Over this weekend our local farmers have been busy planting their next crops. The one that has the land directly opposite and to the left hand side of our house has planted something that was seeded in rows approximately 30 cms apart. What the crop is I have no idea! This morning it was time to give, I assume the weeds, a quick spray. He had just finished spraying his land at the far rear of our house when I first spotted him.

 The sprayer folds neatly from the picture above.

 

 Then it was on to the front and side, unfold the arms and away he goes....

The front took once up the field and once down the field. In the picture below you can see the marks left by the seed drill.

In the adjacent land at the front the farmer has planted a different crop which could be winter wheat as it was seeded using a different seed drill and is much closer together. Yesterday he was busy marking out his field using what looked like a large pair of wooden compass. He started at one side and measured 8 compass widths and placed a yellow marker. He then measured 16 compass widths and placed another marker. He continued throughout the field. It suspect it will be an aid to spraying as the 16 compass widths look about the same as the width of the spraying machine. I will watch with interest....

Memories from my youth.

A few days ago the farmer collected the straw bales from the field behind our house. It was significant to me as the method used was the same as I in my youth when I helped my uncle collect his hay bales. The only difference was that in my time (Circa 1970's) there were no loading machines as used here. ALL bales had to be manually lifted or forked to the top of the load.

The main problem with this arose due to a conflict of interests. My uncle used to have to pay an agricultural contractor to bale the hay and was charged by the bale!! The old style small baling machines were quite basic in operation, the hay/straw was picked up at  the side and carried through to a ram with a cutter on the input side which trimmed the excess material each time the ram went forwards to compact the bale.  The bale tension and weight was controlled by two screws at the back of the baler. The tighter the screws, the more material was in the bale and hence less bales per acre. The downside to this was the bales were heavier. So it was always a good idea for the collecting staff to get there before the field was baled to ensure the bales were liftable!!

 

All done and by my reckoning a good secure load. When you have loaded a load by hand the last thing you want is for it to fall off on its way back to the barn. So a good knowledge of the tracks and bumps was also of major importance. We did lose a few over the years.

It was hard work but I enjoyed every minute of it!! Great fun!

Nowadays this method is little used. Most farmers opting for large round or large square bales that are all handled by machines.

No fun in that!!