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For those wanting to know how to setup a moldboard plow. This
site tells about how to setup as well as trouble shooting the plowing. Hope it
helps. Bill
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 1:20
PM
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] How to
Plow
I'm looking to convert four or five acres of grass at a former
horticulture vocational school near Baltimore, MD into an organic market farm
and agricultural education site. There are some hedges and trees (mostly
pine) in the mix as well. Being a younger grower, I've never attempted
to grow in soil that wasn't recently cultivated in one form or another.
My main concern is how many experts (both extension and several local
organic growers) are advising me to spray glyphosate on the perennial grasses
(looks like fescue, mainly) before I try to grow there. This brings me
to two questions:
1. Using a John Deere w/ ~ 35hp and renting/borrowing
any tillage implements other than a mower or rototiller, is there a reliable
way to mechanically break the sod next spring, grow some cash crops
there at some point in 2009, and not face overwhelming perennial-grass weed
pressure for "the next 10 years"?
2. If glyphosate is the best
way to go - now that the window has closed on an effective fall application -
when is the best time to spray in the spring? What sequence of soil
preparation would you advise pre/post-application?
I apologize if these
are naive questions. I'd much prefer to not rush vegetables into the
ground and deal with the grasses slowly and thoroughly, but the time-table for
this project is out of my hands. Thanks in advance for any advice you
have and for all the great posts as of late.
Greg Strella
Meristem
Farm
Reisterstown, MD
On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 9:17 AM, Carla Shafer <cs13 AT cornell.edu>
wrote:
In trying to wrap my head around all the ins and outs of
tillage (and non-tillage) I've run across some great resources. Here are a
couple of good ones relating to plowing:
- Steel in the Field: a Farmer's Guide to Weed Management
Tools -- This SARE publication is available in its entirety online,
but well worth the purchase price for your own farm library copy, in my
opinion.
- How to Use Your Tractor: Creating a Seedbed -- An
archived article from the Yesterday's Tractor magazine that covers the
basic techniques of plowing and discing. (While you're on the YT website,
check the archives for other articles that may be of interest, as well.)
- How to set up a plow -- a post to the SSB Tractor forum,
with a beginner's tip for how to adjust a plow the first time you use it.
- Finally, I seem to recollect a useful discussion about bringing some
fallow fields into production on this very list. I can't say exactly when
it was. But it might be worth a perusal of the archives, if my memory
serves me.
All the best,
Carla Shafer
On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 6:42 AM, Andy Fellenz <fellenz AT fltg.net> wrote:
I'm
scaling up and looking for information on setting up and
operating
larger equipment, specifically the best way to open up and
plow fields
which have been mowed, but not planted in a long (>15
years) time. Up
to now I've usually worked up 1/4-1/2 acre at a
time at the most and
used a 3pt mounted rototiller.
I'll be
planting larger areas next year and am looking for good how-to
guides.
On the equipment side for the larger fields I have an
Allis
Chalmers 180 (~70hp) with a 14" Oliver plow (plow can be set up
as 3 or
4 bottoms), 8' disk, 12' disk, 8' cultipacker, 10'
cultimulcher, 8'
S-Tine cultivator. I've mowed the field this
season and may have time
to get out and fall plow if it makes
sense.
Andy
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