Cropping this week

Getting ready to spray wheat on Tuesday evening

Look, Garry is working so hard he has no time for haircuts!

A little field tour

Alfalfa field across the highway on April 2nd 

The road through the fields is a little bumpy on Wednesday (April 16th)

That's our wheat field across the pond! last year it was corn

Checking the new alfalfa seeding

baby alfalfa plants

Spraying the wheat fields for weeds

a little frost damage on the wheat leaves

After spraying the wheat fields for weeds, the fields that will be in corn and sunflowers were also sprayed for weed control, before they are planted. The sunflower fields will be cultivated again to increase the weed kill to give them the best start.

The old alfalfa field is not looking so good yet

Ready to plant corn?

Sunflower and corn seed waiting to be planted

sunflower seed

more expensive seed from America

Much cheaper Ukrainian sunflower seeds

Moving the corn planter back to the street last week

It's too big to fit through the gates!

So the corn planter sat there all week waiting until Friday morning...first it was raining on Monday, then they had to spray the wheat for weeds and the corn and sunflower ground for weeds. ... so today they finally got it out to the field with some of the cheap Ukrainian corn seed (They bought 10 bags of Pioneer corn at 300 dollars a bag but this kind is about 20 dollars, I think, they hope to compare yields to see what is the best buy.)

Early this morning in front of the house

They had a long discussion about where to set the markers- those round things on the tall pieces at the ends of the planter. One of them is set down into the field while you are planting where it makes a line you can follow to plant the next row.  However, where to set them was discussed between Garry and the guys because Ukrainians set the tractor wheel on the mark, unlike North Americans, but Garry agreed to let the guys do it their way with his North American John Deere planter.

We are driving behind the planter down the street it takes up the whole road...Garry passed it in the grass

The rented "box" where the fertilizer is stored down the street

Inside the "lock box" 

Putting fertilizer in the planter - one of each type in the hoppers

One of the kinds of fertilizer they are using  

Ready, set, go!

What happened to the window on the bottom of the tractor?

 They thought they are all ready at nine am, but they are disappointed with the performance. They had to take off the fertilizer discs, turn something around.... were they on backwards? I can't remember, but it was putting it in too deep, I think I heard, but they had that fixed and were going across the field with it. Then they decided that the monitor (which tells you if the corn seed is being planted properly) didn't seem to work correctly. Just before noon Garry goes on the internet to hunt for a manual (the planter did not come with any) so at 2 o'clock they are still working the kinks out. . Last report- 7 of 8 rows are working on the monitor around three.

This field is close to the trade school barn- 160 acres? maybe?

You can see the barn right above the back corner of the planter

I know once they get it working correctly, it should roll thorough all the fields of corn to plant, and the sunflowers, too. A couple of the small farmers in the village have been doing some of the cultivating for our fields because they want to use the new planter to plant their fields this spring.

With all the problems with the big farmers fighting over the land, the little guys are only farming land that they have title to rent, instead of the way they did it with the old big farmer Pitlock, where they farmed acres together for convenience, based on total acres rented and which ones he wanted to let us have- normally the least desirable!