Tillage this fall?

[ECIN]

LOL --- Jeff -did you ever have to wash the planes ? When I was at V.U. In S. W Indiana --- many moons ago -- I could not stand town life - with in 2 weeks of school - I got a job at Klein Arial service - started out as a flagger - boy that was a fun job - air show all day long - Then  got moved up to mixer -  that didn't last long - Charlie also had 2,000 acres - 200 acres of green beans and 200 acres of potatoes !  Have you ever worked potatoes Jeff ?

The see potatoes --back then -- came in 100 pound sacks and you had to put them in this machine to cut them before they were planted - heck fire - back then - the sacks were just about as big as me - lol

Then you had to side dress  28 with a MTA and front mount cultivators = 4 rows . Charlie moved me to the farm division - because the other college help had never done that - also a lol

Boy them were the days -- loved working with the pilots and the others -- still friends with some of them and talk on the phone -

Dang it - what was your question ???  Oh yeah - -- No recreational tillage here

[idalivered]

In north iowa almost any coc field gets some type of tillage. (chisels, rippers, molboard plows) I can only think of one coc field that i've ever seen notilled. guys will run in the snow and frost to do it. I will do as much as I can. will have my first striptill coc field next year. that's the plan anyway.

[Jeff_a_Caldwell]

Man, ECIN, you had to get me started! Yep, we'd wash those devils about once a week. And, my boss had an unhealthy obsession with using lemon-scented pledge to wipe down the windscreen between runs. And, when the pit would fill up, he had an old Chemlawn truck that I'd pump the slurry in, then a local farmer had us dump it on the bottom end of a flood-irrigated corn field. Didn't have a problem with weeds there, by golly! Ha!

He had an ag tractor and a Dromedar, a big Aussie-made plane. It was a beast. About wore you out pulling through the prop before he fired it up! 

Man, I'll be telling my daughters about working 18 hours a day while Pencap spraying was going on. And, my old boss smoked about 7 packs of Kent IIIs a day. That was one of my jobs, too -- driving that old Ranchero to the store to pick up smokes for him! 

It was one heck of an adventure! Those guys are all nuts. Never met a spraying flyboy that I didn't like, but who wasn't a little bit nuts! What's that say about me?! 

But luckily, ECIN, he had a newfangled auto-flagger on his birds, so I never had to load up the Ranchero with toilet paper and head to the field...

[Shaggy98]

When I was attending FHSU I worked at the Hays airport as a lineman for 3 years, greatest part time job a college kid could have. During the busy aerial spraying season, I would also help the aerial sprayers do their thing on my days off from the FBO job. This is where I learned to fly, just gotta love those employee discounts on plane rentals. I was considering going into crop dusting, but thought to myself "Hmm, if your going to fly for a living, why am I going to school"? That being said, I finished my degree and went to work in an engineering dept. of an agriculture equipment manufacturing company. Yes, I often wonder where I'd be today if I'd decided to dust for a career.

[ECIN]

Jeff - One good thing - We didn't have any big round motors to pull the prop -- Charlie had a piper Pawnee and a Cessna Ag Truck - When I left - He was testing out a new Ag- Cat ( 600 horse ) = round motor , lol   But I think there are a lot of years difference between your time and my time on the line -- lol   Same deal thou , hard work -

[dairyfarmmn]

So shaggy..... You were one of those "stupid MFing guys" who designed some of this equipment we have to fix sometimes? You know where you have to stand upside down and be a contorsionist to just barely get a wench on the nut and it slips off like 10 times before you get it off? Bass tard

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

Is anyone tilling to deal with weed or insect pressure?  Anyone tilling to deal with Goss's Wilt?

[ECIN]

Jim - i attended a class at Purdue -- late summer - Kiersten Wise had us out in the fields teaching us about Goss;s Wilt - how to identified it and crop management of it -- she sad that tillage would not work for it - You turn it under - then what happens the next time ? You turn all the residue back up . Best management practice - is to buy corn that is resistant to Goss's .  That is why I was there to learn he best way to scout and know what to look for .

[dairyfarmmn]

So how long will it live in the soil? Let's say I chisel plow my corn ground, then plant alfalfa..... you know that legume we feed to cows, yeah figured you never heard of it......  So I go 4 or 5 years of alfalfa. Then moldboard plow the alfalfa after I sprinkle all natural homemade fertilizer on it...... will that just turn the Goss Wilt back up? Or will it die out over time in the soil?

[Blacksandfarmer]

Jim, Im not planning any fall tillage, but maybe some fall herbicide applications. Might try some 2,4,d or Canopy on cornstalks that will be going to beans next year. I need to start doing a better job managing winter annual weeds. Not just to control the weeds themselves, but the bugs they harbor. Spring chisel plow seems to knock out or disrupt pest enough prior to corn planting that I doubt I have any soybean stubble sprayed. Nematodes are what I worry about more in corn since traits don't kill them. I will be late to the cover crop party. Just haven't found a cover crop that fits my farm that I can apply in time before frost/freeze.