When spring rolls around and the snow melts off and the fields dry out generally the first thing done is to put the fertilizer on the winter wheat, we put dry 39-07 on with a barber spreader or if it is a late spring we often have it custom applied with a self propelled floater, most neighbors have now gone to valmar machines that blow the fertilizer on rather than drop spread it.



Next we start working ground. Much of the chiseled ground will have roundup applied first to kill the volunteer. On heavy residue both chiseled and moldboarded a harrow is often used first to try to break straw up. Then at least two passes with a cultivator are made. For spring wheat and barley fertilizer is usually applied between the cultivations.





If you need to smooth the ground up more than the points will do or weeds need to be taken out then sweeps are used on the cultivators, we just use the old krause when sweeps are needed.





If the straw is heavy and not working down well a tandem disk can be used to blacken the ground up, we prefer not to do this because we are limited by time in the spring and disking takes a lot longer than cultivating. In this pic we were disking to chop sod rather than residue.



Once a seedbed is prepared, we seed - starter fert is used with spring cereals but not with legumes.









After seeding legumes the ground is harrowed to ensure the ground is smooth and to roll rocks up and herbicide is applied right after seeding either before or after harrowing.



Offset disks are used here mainly to disk up heavy sod.



After seeding legumes and spring wheat that will go to winter legumes we pick the rocks and then roll. In the palouse they often roll before the crop is emerged because they dont have to spend time picking rocks.



We prefer to roll once the crop is up with the D4D because the 1155 will tear the ground up more on the hillsides. This field is a long ways down the hill though so the 1155 was used.



Crops are sprayed with herbicides once and the legumes are sprayed with insecticide later. Wheat may get fungicide if we get rust which is not very often.




enjoy

NIF; great pictures and thank you so much the interesting write-ups. I've got lots to learn about the farming practices in your beautiful area.

NIF, keep feeding us pictures!!

Out here in the waste lands of KS, we do mostly aerial spraying when the wheat is that tall as in your last photo. We usually topdress our winter wheat in the early spring when it is just a few inches tall and not to the joint stage.

Do you get much damage from ground application at that stage? I can see where an aircraft would have problems following the contours.

NIF Thanks for your usual high standard pictures. 2 questions do you have to use extra nitrogen to break straw down as i understand burning is no longer possible.What does the word palouse mean is it an Indian word . cheers Atlas

D4Jim- We do get some damage at that stage, we normally try to spray when the crop is smaller but this year was too wet so we got on it when we could. There is some aerial application done, in fact an airplane sprayed that field for rust this year.

Atlas- we do put on a little more Nitrogen. Burning is allowed in Idaho but mostly just the bluegrass growers burn. One or two around burn wheat stubble and then no-till but most of us prefer to do tillage and put the straw back into the soil.

The name palouse name comes from the palus indian tribe that roamed that area.

NIF; The Camas Prairie looks to be approximately a quarter the size of the Palouse. They say that the Palouse is around 4,000 sq miles, so that makes the Camas 1,000 sq miles or 64,000 acres. Am I correct here or far off the mark?

Northern OR is also similar to the Palouse with it's rolling hills yet is not considered to be part of the Palouse, instead it is lumped in with the Columbia Basin. It is a large chunk of wheatland as well, all the way from Wasco county to Union county.

Oldtracks- Actually you missed a 0 so 1,000sq miles is 640,000 acres which seems a bit much. It would depend on the defintion of the camas prairie and whether to include pasture, timber etc. As far as farmland goes according to NASS (national ag statistics service) Lewis and Idaho counties together have about 190,000 acres and all that is camas praire along with a small part of eastern Nez Perce county. That does not include CRP but does include hay ground. Whitman county Washington which contains the majority of the palouse has about 840,000 acres of farmland.

Hi North Idaho Farmer,

I am interested in the D5B farm crawler you mentioned a few posts back. You can send me a private message, email me or call me.
email - <a href="This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." target="_blank">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
phone - Andy at (204)232-6241

Thanks

Non-existant user wrote:

Oldtracks- Actually you missed a 0 so 1,000sq miles is 640,000 acres which seems a bit much.

Thanks for the correction NIF.

I was getting a bit bleary eyed!

NIF:

What a wonderful collection of photos. There is nothing that warms the cockles of my heart more than a crawler working the land. My folks had this old encyclopedia with a drawing of a crawler ploughing on the inside front cover and I used to open those books and admire the picture.

Question: How many farmers in your area still use steel tracks in your area and what are the pros and cons. I far as I understand the running costs are higher (maintenance of tracks), maybe slower, but more traction, lower compaction. Do they run better on the sides of all those hills you have there than a wheel tractor? And then capital cost lower if you already have them opposed to spending big bucks on new equipment.

Thanks
Laurence (excuse my unimaginative username)