[AT] here I go again

[Ron Cook]

John,
     You should have tried convincing the agronomy professor at Iowa 
State University that it was done that way.  Get you a near failing 
grade.  I know.   The major implement manufactures all made the listers 
and the cultivators that went with them, so it had to have been done in 
other parts of the country where dry conditions prevailed.  It was 
prevalent here from probably the early 1900's with horses and tractors 
by the thirties on until around 1970.  It still has not completely 
disappeared, though.  I plant my sweetcorn with a lister.  Not very 
deep, mind you.  But it is the only mechanical planter I own and is 
better than a stick poking holes in the ground.  My nephew didn't know 
what it was that was taking up space in a shed he wanted to use and was 
going to scrap it.  So, I plant my sweetcorn with a lister, 4 rows at a 
time.  Silly, but fun.  I also use it to bed the potato rows.  It is a 
bedder, to start with anyway and I don't currently have a potato planter 
and likely never will.  That actual planting I do by hand.
     A cultipacker would be a big no-no here in these soils. Compaction 
is the enemy.  You need to stay off the soil in the spring as much as 
possible.  No spring plowing either.  That is another reason for the 
lister.  The soil displaced by the furrow covers the weeds, etc with the 
ridge.  After emergence, the sides of the ridges are cultivated with the 
cultivators discs and the shovels cultivate either side of the row with 
shovels.  Then the cultivator is changed so the next cultivation discs 
the ridges into the row to cover the weeds and grasses growing in the 
row.  From then on you would use a cultivator like you would have.  
Sweeps and hillers. Probably only once or maybe twice with that outfit.  
Chemicals stopped most of that tillage work and the fields became much 
cleaner and the yields greater.  No, or reduced tillage methods have 
practically eliminated the use of the cultivator and for sure eliminated 
the lister planter.  Anyone younger than I might not even be able to set 
one of the things to work correctly.
     These methods were only used on the flat river bottom land.  Not in 
any hilly or rolling ground.  Plumb flat.  A wet year caused many 
problems, too.  I had those problems with my sweetcorn patch this year 
as a reminder of times past.
     There is a little information here, 
http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/machines_06.html
Here is a photo of a Super C and lister. 
http://www.yesterdaystractors.com/cgi-bin/viewit.cgi?bd=farmall&th=863435
Ron Cook
Salix, IA
On 7/30/2014 8:27 PM, jtchall at nc.rr.com wrote:
> I have NEVER heard of anyone planting anything like that! Definitely learned
> something. Anybody ever try pulling a cultipacker? Looks like that would
> have done the job without packing the land so tight on top of the seed.
> Looking at some of the modern planters with the combination of coulters,
> press wheels, row openers, row closers, and trash cleaners, its been quite
> the evolution in planting equipment over the last 50 years.
>
> John
>