You make Amerika great

I'm an IT guy, starting with Farming SImulator 19. I stumbled upon this video after searching for cultivation videos. I'll probably never (never say never, right?) be a farmer myself and the info in this video is probably irelevant to Farming Sim game, but i watched the whole thing. Very interesting.

We used to have a commercial dairy farm1100 acres, cropped 850 acres, 400 cows and 340 young stock. We sold it last year and moved to a tiny farm in Kentucky where my wife and I are intending to grow vegetables without herbicides and the like. We purchased a new 2 row Danish Tine Cultivator from I + J Equipment in Pennsylvania. It seems to be a well built little unit and it was priced reasonably. I expect that they make larger ones if you're looking for one.

I really needed this info. #Thank you

Amazing 🇺🇸❤️

Very well done and helpful, thank you!

why aren't cover crops being used?

@practicalfarmers

5 жыл бұрын

Actually all of the farmers we interviewed use cover crops in their farming system. They also have diversified crop rotations where they grow common cover crops - such as oats and cereal rye - for grain harvest. Sometimes this is to establish a perennial hay crop and sometimes they underseed red clover, which not only covers the soil, it fixes nitrogen.

@stewpidaso26

5 жыл бұрын

@@practicalfarmers oh, it doesnt look like it when they're cultivating bare ground. do any use the big roll crimpers? how are they killing off their perennial cover crops?

@practicalfarmers

5 жыл бұрын

@@stewpidaso26 Yes, some use roll crimpers. I don't know of anyone (anywhere) who has completely eliminated tillage from an organic grain operation - I think a lot of people would be curious about that though. There are certainly some that have planted winter rye ahead of soybeans, then rolled it. To my knowledge, the organic farmers that have done that in Iowa have had very mixed results in terms of weed suppression. We'll cover that in a future video. For killing alfalfa or clover, most either plow or disc, depending on their system. But, I think it's important to point out that research conducted on the Marsden Farm at Iowa State University in the long-term trials established by Matt Liebman show less soil erosion and better soil quality in the longer rotations than in the strictly corn-soy rotations even though they moldboard plow. One of the reasons could be more roots in the ground for more time in the longer rotation.

@stewpidaso26

5 жыл бұрын

I've listened to farmers that have eliminated tillage completely, for more than a decade. I think we have mixed results because Iowa has been a conventional tillage system for a long time. It may take our soils longer to recover, which may be why weed are an issue. Every farmer that I have listened to that is no till obviously had issues at first when switching from a conventional tillage system to no till. They all also incorporate livestock into their systems as well, and id be curious to know if the Iowa farmers have used animals in their systems? Animals are an underappreciated, vilified, asset to the farm. They bring many benefits if they are managed correctly.

@practicalfarmers

5 жыл бұрын

@@stewpidaso26 Are you talking about organic no-till? We definitely have a lot of conventional no-till farmers in the PFI membership that have been at it for many years, and they say a lot of the same things you have said here - there are issues to solve at first, but they can be overcome. Especially when you have friends that are doing it that you can share information with. If you know of farmers that have successfully eliminated tillage from an organic system, our members would be interested. Lots of PFI members do incorporate livestock onto their farms in one way shape or form. Might be grazing, might be manure from hogs, chickens, turkeys etc.