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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Spud diggers and cultivators, was Irriagation with Travellers

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  • From: Paul Bucciaglia <pbucciaglia AT yahoo.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Spud diggers and cultivators, was Irriagation with Travellers
  • Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 13:18:44 -0800 (PST)

Re: spud diggers: I have an ancient digger (does have rubber tires though...) that is so rusty I can't tell who made it.  I bought in PA for a couple hundred bucks and spent 20 hours persuading all the rusted parts.   I have used it for 4 seasons on about 1/4 acre of spuds with pretty good luck.  Doesn't like fingerlings, although Austrian Crescent does ok.  I wouldn't use it for onions, the digger chains would wreck em.  Maybe try an undercutter bar.
 
 
Anyone have any reccomendations for a spud digger to one row of regular and fingerling spuds?  I grow 2 rows of spuds in a 5' bed, and dig one at a time by straddling two rows (one 5' bed) and digging one offset row at a time.  I feel I am pushing my luck with my rusty digger....
 
Re cultivators on my farm:  2 basket weeders (one 3-row and one stale bedder), a tine weeder, big hilliing disks, small hilling disks, a finger weeder (mostly for onions and strawberries).  I think most of our success in weeding comes from keeping the soil weed bank low, stale seed bedding, shallow cultivation only, and prompt use of selected cutlivating tools.  I have an IH 140 (almost exclusively for stale seed bed prep) and 2 AC Gs (one 3-row basket weeder, one for seeders and other tools) and 2 utitlity tractors, one with a loader.
 
Re buried drip in New Mexico spud field:  interesting.  I can see how that could work in clay because water will wick UP against gravity in clay, to a limited extent.  If I buried drip below the plow line in my sand I feel like the water would never get to the plants!  Maybe I'll give it a try and see.  If I could leave drip in the ground for 10 years, even if I didn't use them every year, that could be a pretty cool system.   How do they plan to retreive the drip when its starts leaking all over the place?  For that matter how do they find leaks?  We have tons of varmints here that like to chew drip.
 
Paul
Fort Hill Farm, CT

Paul, tell me about your digger, what kind , how it works, would it work for onions? Just wondering Bill
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Bucciaglia

Message: 7
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 06:43:40 -0800 (PST)
From: Home Grown Kansas!
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Travellers vs. stationary guns
To: Market Farming
Message-ID: <20061219144340.5487.qmail AT web80607.mail.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Thank you Paul for taking the time to respond.

Your right, we do not receive as much rain here on the Prairie. In fact most of the time we are in a drought or near being in a drought. Not to mention our summers are brutal with heat, humidity and the ever present wind. We only drip crops that in the ground longer than 2 months, just as yourself. I also agree with the drip line being below the surface in the heat.

I might mention that the 110 acre sandy potato field with sub surface irrigation, that I mentioned, has been in use for 5 years. The irrigation lines are installed below the equipment use level and have not been disturbed by commercial harvesting equipment. It is my understanding that a life span of 10 years or more is not uncommon for such an installation. It has been a highly productive field, producing potatoes for an Indian reservation in New Mexico.

I am also curious what type of equipment you are using for cultivation. As we grow in size I see the need to consider how we cultivate on a larger plot of land. We are looking at increasing to the 15-20 acre size - as yourself. Any information you are willing to share would be appreciated.

Thank you,
Elzie Randleas
Home Grown Kansas LLC
Wichita, Kansas



Paul Bucciaglia
Fort Hill Farm
Organic Vegetables, Herbs, and Flowers
18 Fort Hill Rd.
New Milford CT 06776
(860) 350-3158
www.forthillfarm.com


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