[AT] OT-now GPS

[Ralph Goff]

On 4/8/2015 7:11 AM, Indiana Robinson wrote:
> I learned a very long time ago to have a salt shaker handy when other guys
> (especially some of the big guys) were telling me how much money or time
> something was saving them so that I could take it with a grain of salt...
> :-)
> I had several other reasons to hire that work done. Not the least of which
> was that I was always working at other things myself, many of which payed
> me better than the $4 an acre I was paying for custom application.
> Another big reason was that I suddenly noticed that an excessive number of
> the farmers that I grew up around had died of cancer. Many were
> unbelievably careless in handling farm chemicals. One custom applicator and
> I were talking about it one day and he said that he had recently had a
> number of polyps removed from inside of his nose. While we were talking he
> was pouring some 2-4-D concentrate into the tank and it was running across
> his hand and down to his elbow and he just ignored it completely. One time
> when I was working in seed corn research for Garst Seeds we were planting a
> 4 acre research plot in southwestern Indiana and the farm owner and his
> grown son were getting ready to plant soybeans. The son had been disking
> all morning and spraying Trefflan (sp?) at the same time. The son was
> heavily covered from head to toe with the stuff and was as yellow as a fire
> hydrant... No eye-wear, no respirator... Nothing...  (shudder)
> I just decided that I wanted to remove that exposure from my lifestyle.
And what amazes me is the number of gardeners who don't have any concern 
about using
roundup or other chemical herbicides in their garden to control weeds!? 
To me that is just
ridiculous exposing the plants you are going to eat to chemical 
herbicides when there are
alternatives like mulching , the roto tiller or even the hoe.  My garden 
has not seen chemicals
or bug dust. I figure it is one small way I can avoid some of the risk. 
I get enough exposure
spraying my field crops. Obviously hand weeding or hoeing a hundred acre 
field is not an option.
I bought my GPS system a few years back mainly for peace of mind 
although no doubt it saves
me some herbicide. The frustration of not being able to see  where to 
drive with the sprayer in some
fields. I was having either tremendous overlap or missing wide strips of 
ground. With the guide
all that is eliminated. I set it on "contour" and it paints the ground 
on the screen I've covered a different
color to what is left to do. 60 feet, one foot over/under lap using the 
free satellite signal.
Good enough for me.

Ralph in Sask.

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