Fun question???

[Kay/NC]

I posted this on the women's page this morning, too.  Thought it woud be fun to see what people have to know to be farmers in 2012:

Google Guru

Mike has decided that this is my new job description. 

This morning's question had to do with his new rotary composter.  He checks the temperature gauges on the machine several times a day, to make sure it gets off to a good start. 

The equipment dealer has been advising over the phone...really good support...and says our C/N ratio is better than most of his customers.  We started the machine up with thirty huge tubs of horse barn litter.  Most people use clean wood shavings, to mix with the mortalities. 

We got the horse poop cooking, then added his recommended startup proportions.  Most hog farmers have to use the purchased shavings for C to balance out the N of the pig carcasses.  We've been paying for a rendering truck to pick up deads daily for years.  Daughter's stables generate tons of horse stable cleanings, which have been set in piles in the woods to rot.  This machine solves two issues with one strategy. 

There is a fine tuning of how many times the 30-foot drum should turn in a day, from two to five turns.  Mike has been trying to get the temp of the composting process up, but you cannot let it go too high, or you actually kill off the composting  microorganisms. 

The machine is set to turn on schedule, to keep the pile inside aerated.  I have composted in one way or another for years, but mostly in static piles, not doing a lot of turning.  Composting actively is an amazing process, now that I read more about it. 

I thought I needed to drag out some of my Celsius to  Fahrenheit conversion memory data this morning, then said, "Well, just let me Google that."   Now, we know that when he gets his machine to 140 degrees F., he needs to add another turn per day, to keep the pile from cooking itself to death.  Too many turns, and the composting process is slowed down too much. 

I have said for years that the average person has no idea what a farmer has to know and do to raise food.  Frankly, I never thought I'd need to know the optimum temperature range for composting.  Mike used to challenge me with planter plate ratios as I was waking up in the morning...my math skills usually peak after lunchtime. 

What is the oddest tidbit of information or trivia you've had to learn, in order to do your job of feeding the world? 

[Nebrfarmr]

Probably my stethoscope trick to find a leak in a pipe. I bet anyone watching thought we were pretty goofy, my 'boss' and myself, wandering around with a stethoscope listening to the ground. For all they knew, we were scouting for an Indian attack.

[nwobcw]

  Being able to tell if cattle are sick by watching them for less than a minute in the auction ring.   Being able to judge prospective tenants for rental housing by their looks and conversation rather than relying on a credit check.  Doing the seeds per pound math for planting soybeans with a drill before I got a planter to plant seeds per acre, not pounds per acre.

[k-289]

Nebr - next you will have those petroleum folks out scouting around and poking holes ---

[idalivered]

I had to learn how to cuss in german.

[tree fmr]

When we needed to build a fence my dad would always have me take the H tractor, run the purposed fence line and count the tire turns. He said 1 turn equaled 1 rod and this is how we would calculate how many posts and length of wire needed. To this day I don't know if the measurement was right, I never checked it, but that is what we always did!!

[smokeyjay]

Another farmer used a knife mark on his finger nails to track sow gestation times after breeding. Not sure what he did after counting past ten though.

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

To figure the volume of a cone, such as the pile of grain under an elevator or auger, you need to know the angle of repose, which you can get at various web sites, and the equivalent tangent.  I just plug the numbers into the formulas.  Multiply cubic feet times 0.8 to get bushels by volume.

It's easier to figure acres when working with 6X30 equipment if you figure it in rods and chains. An acre is one chain (4 rods) by 10 chains.  10 Chains is a furlong.  8 furlongs per mile (or 2 furlongs per 1/4 mile, the side of a 40 acre field).

The 6X30 implement is very close to a rod, so up and back twice is a chain's width.  It's easy to figure this all in your head while tilling, for example.

128 oz in a gallon - you memorize that when you do enogh spraying.

[Nebrfarmr]

I was taught a cone held 1/3 what a cylinder, of the same diameter and hieght would.  I don't know if it is 'exact', but it comes out very close.  No need to figure angles & such.

[Nebrfarmr]

Some years ago, before I was born, the drilled a test hole, within 2 miles of my house, and they hit 'something'.  However, at the time, they said it wasn't feasable to pump (or extract or whatever) but dad is sure that the guys doing the drilling said they hit petroleum of some sort.