[AT] Am I crazy?

[charlie hill]

Greg,

The closest thing to edible beans I ever farmed (except in the garden) is 
soy beans.   On them, in the old days, we used 2 small flat plow shares that 
ran shallow up close to the row.  The sliced through the soil and cut the 
little weeds off or dragged them out.
Then larger sweeps in the rear cleaned out the middles.  These beans were 
planted on fairly high rows (again this was in the old days) and we didn't 
worry much about hilling dirt on them.  By the time the weeds got another 
start the beans were big enough to shade them out and the next plowing was 
just to run out the middles.   The first plowing coul be done at about 2 to 
3 mph.  The 2nd (running out the middles) could be done at 5 or so if your 
tractor had a range that would handle that.  Our D-10 didn't.  Third gear 
was the only option at about 3 mph.   On  a few occasions I tried running at 
near idle in high gear but it was just too much load on the tractor and a 
bit too fast.

By the time we got around using herbacides we were all using 2 row equipment 
with rolling cultivators or spring tooth/tine cultivators.

Now days soy beans are flat planted in rows or drilled, sprayed and picked.

Charlie


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Greg Hass" <gkhass at avci.net>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Friday, February 24, 2006 10:30 PM
Subject: Re: [AT] Am I crazy?


> Actually, Charlie, with the weed controllers, you could go up to 50% 
> faster than with a standard cultivator tooth.
> 1. Because they push the dirt instead of rolling it, they thus were less 
> apt to cover the plants.
> 2. Because they went relatively shallow, you avoided the problem of slabs 
> of dirt being brought up from deeper down and covering the plants.
>
> Remember also that those were the days when cultivation was done at speeds 
> of 2-mph or less, and that these were only used for the first one or two 
> cultivations after which you switched to standard teeth.  You are right, 
> however, that they are not suited to 21st century farming.  Nowadays, all 
> the edible beans are sprayed and I only cultivate once (just before they 
> blossom) to take out any late-emerging weeds and to level and slightly 
> hill the ground around the beans for easier harvesting.  I generally 
> travel about 5-mph.  About half the people in our area do not cultivate 
> edible beans at all, but depend completely on sprays.
>
> PS: Sugar beet growers also follow a similar program in our area - depend 
> on the spray early on and cultivate once later to clean out the later 
> weeds.
>
> Greg Hass
> from the tip of Michigan's Thumb
>
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