[AT] Am I crazy?

[Greg Hass]

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