Tad- yes hex cabs are much more popular here on cats than square cabs. At least on ours I dont see how being taller would be a problem with the cab style but I dont know about you HD11. On the cats there is plenty of room between the angled doors and the brake pedals.

If you have a high speed connection........
check out this Hillco equipped Cat combine turning at:

Some other interesting links there as well....

A 1470 in action ( a little communication problem there at the end. )
listed as Dr Barry.........

Also some good stuff from Hillco linked there......(Hillside & Sidehill combines...)

Won't do anything to settle the Hex vs Square cab debate........
But fun to see if you have never seen a hillside combine in operation.

Thanks for the links 98J

Just got a break late today, rainstorm hit- been putting fertilizer on since Tuesday afternoon, it was so wet on the first field that the tractor spun out in a place that it never does. Had to pull the first truck load of fertilizer up the hill into the field too.

A week ago today, note the snow still in the shade of the track, put fertilizer on this field two days later but it was still way too wet to finish harrowing. Now been 2 weeks since planting this spring wheat and it has shoots only 1/4 of an inch long.

Out of the way of the fert spreader, hooked up to the rollers, literally ready to roll

Finally dried enough to go up on top on the winter wheat, wheat is pretty small compared to the usual size when fertilizing.

The spreader and truck auger were both made by barber engineering of Spokane WA. The fertilizer all the farmers use in this area is a dry mix of urea (nitrogen) and ammonium sulfate. The most common blend is 39-0-7 which is 69% urea 31% ammonium sulfate.

Did a bit of disking too to take a break from fertilizing. (A cab is really nice when it is in the 20s in the morning with a steady wind)

This ground we started renting was in CRP for ten years so it will take a few passes to beat into shape.

Nice shots NIF. You are well ahead of the cold north country. This week was decent spraying weather and that's as far as we got in the fields. Hopefully it will dry out after this batch of showers and we can scratch around by mid-week. We have 1,200 cases of wine to help bottle down at Julietta, hopefully when it is too wet to work up here.

Hi NIF Its nice to see you are managing to push on with some spring work. The crp land vegetation looks a bit dead ? Is this frost kill or have you rounduped it prior to discing. Do you use the plough after discing in the prep prior to seeding or no plough at all. all the best Atlas

NIF One more ouestion fertilizer 39 o 7. are your soils high in phosfate because of your zero phosfate compound. Atlas

bleedinred- yes it seems that there is always a certain point heading up into your area that it stays colder and wetter later on. I have been up through part of the palouse recently and around Pullman and north of there were alot of guys out in the field, several putting seed in the ground. However we are the only ones I know of around here that have seeded yet. Lots of guys putting fertilizer on this past week though, always a wait in line to get a load. Not much spraying done yet, freezing up hard most nights which makes it a pain.

Atlas- that CRP was not sprayed at all, there is a few inches of new growth but that brown color is how most grass around here looks in the early spring before it starts growing. We hit it once with a heavy disk last October but it was pretty dry then and it didnt go in the ground well, should have waited and made another pass but it was down around 10ºF by October 10th so we put all the tractors away for winter. That ground will not be plowed, it will be disked once more and then cultivated (if it will go through it). Roundup ready canola will be broadcast onto the ground and harrowed in. After harvest it will be worked again with chisel and/or disk and hopefully will be in shape for winter wheat.

As for your phospate question, yes we do apply a lot of phosphate. It will not leach out of the soil so we apply in the fall on winter wheat in the form of 11-52-0-0. We put it in the fertilizer boxes in the drills which gives the wheat a little bit of Nitrogen in the fall to get going. We do the same with spring wheat, dry ammonium phosphate applied at planting with the drills.

A load of 11-52, the phosphate gives it a green color

Non-existant user wrote:

Hi NIF

Points of interest

How do you keep the grousers so shinny during the winter?

Also what is all that oil coming from the rails? Do you guys lube them??

John

cojhl2- not really sure what you mean, I didnt think they stayed shiny myself.

That is actually water in the last pic, I had just driven through a crossing of Louse creek, about 18 inches of water right now this is what the crossing looked like back in January during runoff, water was at least 6ft deep in this pic.

It might look like oil because of the mud, ran through a few wet spots and mud gets thrown up there.

Non-existant user wrote:

cojhl2- not really sure what you mean, I didnt think they stayed shiny myself.

That is actually water in the last pic, I had just driven through a crossing of Louse creek, about 18 inches of water right now this is what the crossing looked like back in January during runoff, water was at least 6ft deep in this pic.

It might look like oil because of the mud, ran through a few wet spots and mud gets thrown up there.

Hi NIF,

I guess it's been too long since I've been around working farm Cats! All I see now are those like my two that have tracks so lightly used they are rusted up.

Glad to hear that was water, I was so surprised, it looked like oil..

John