[AT] Check planting

[Francis Robinson]

    As I said we never check planted here on the farm but I have done 
"almost" the same thing. When I was farm manager at the Shelbyville IN Garst 
Research Farm we used a cable trip system to position our micro-plots. We 
strung the cable that had nylon balls mounted on it across the field. We 
kept it on reels on wheels. The original check wire was wire with knots 
every few feet based on the row width to be planted. Ours was multi-strand 
cable with the nylon balls spaced generally 20' apart but we could use a 
different cable if we wanted a different size plot. We mostly planted in 17' 
long plots with a 3' space between each plot. We planted 4 rows at a time 
but the actual plot was 2 rows wide. Two employees rode on the planter and 
dumped a little packet of seed in open special hoppers with each hand. The 
packets were held in long trays for each two rows. Special rotors in each 
hopper spread the seeds evenly around them so that proper feeding and 
spacing was maintained when the nylon ball on the cable tripped the sensors 
the electronic system started the flow of seeds. Each packet had an exact 
amount of seed in it, just enough to plant 17'. It traveled the extra 3 feet 
not planting then it was tripped by the next nylon ball. One of the 
employees would jump off when we got to each end to move the cable then 
climb back into their seat to feed the hoppers I always drove the tractor) 
:-)    The entire 4 acre plot existed on a virtual map of the field on the 
computer which showed the code number for each packet of seed. I said that 
the plots were two rows wide but in reality if you looked at the computer 
map the plots would have been wider but we did the plantings based on two 
rows. The two employes would be dropping different varieties from each other 
much of the time and the computer kept track of what belonged in each plot. 
There just was no room for error. It was the same when we combined it. We 
used a three row header but only ran two rows at a time except for some 
buffer corn around the outside of the plot. We would combine 20' of two rows 
of a plot and stop at the 3' open space . The combine didn't have a tailings 
section in it. The corn went into a little hopper where we took computer 
reading for total weight of yield, moisture and test weight then it dumped 
into the main grain tank. Then you let off of the clutch and combined 
another 20 feet and stopped again... and on and on etc. The combine cab was 
pretty crowded with the computer console and wire running all over. You also 
had to watch the printout for any anomalies. One of the more common ones was 
a piece of "green stuff" getting stuck across the edge of the moisture 
sensor and elevating the reading. The plots were replicated many times 
across the 4 acres and most of the time only the computer really knew which 
variety was being combined at any given time. I could read the code numbers 
as they came up but even back then I couldn't have remembered them.   :-) 
It usually took two of us at least 2 days to harvest a 4 acre plot. We took 
turns with one running the combine and the other walking the plots ahead of 
the combine with a portable computer recording information on dropped ears, 
down stalks etc. We had three four acre plots in Indiana, three in Kentucky 
and three in Ohio plus several on the research farm itself. It was an 
interesting job but was prone to be a bit boring at times. I often got into 
strange activities like crawling down corn rows on my hands and knees with 
hypodermic syringes injecting various pathegens into the base of cornstalks 
to see what it would do to them. I usually refer to those years as my "mad 
scientist days".   :-)
More than you wanted to know...   :-)


--
"farmer"

Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the
well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are
showing a new road.  ~Voltaire

Francis Robinson
Central Indiana, USA
robinson at svs.net