Almost every grower has at least one field with drainage issues. Although it may sometimes seem hopeless, there are some ways to improve a field’s drainage. Listed below are three suggestions.
While the holiday season always brings a feast to your table, the days following provide something completely different to digest: soil analysis reports. With harvest out of the way and the new season in mind, now is the time to focus on the results of your soil tests to determine what fertility steps you’ll need to take to give yourself the best chance for success in 2021.
The broadcasted seed is gradually buried in the soil as the ground expands and contracts from early morning freezes and afternoon thaws. This method does not disturb the existing sod, so it is good for erodible areas. Access to the area for grazing is quicker than conventionally tilled seedbeds, and it’s economical, requiring no expensive equipment, just seed and labor.
With spring fast approaching and planting season just around the corner, now is the time to ensure your fertilizer spreader is ready for the task. Spreaders that have been idle over the winter months need a thorough service and inspection to safeguard against in-season downtime. Follow these seven steps to get ahead of the game before it starts.
One of the biggest limiting factors in Tennessee crop and forage production is available potassium levels in the soil. Aggregate data from thousands of soil samples submitted across the state reveal that over two thirds of production acres are low to very low in this essential macronutrient.
For the past two seasons, good growing conditions, improved seed technology, and a myriad of input tools have combined to push crop yields to above-average levels. But higher yields also mean higher nutrient removal from soils. As the harvested portion of a crop is removed from the field, all of those nutrients that were used to produce the crop also are being hauled away.
Precision ag has been a hot topic in the farming industry since the early 1990s, coinciding with the universal adoption of GPS (global positioning systems) and rapid growth of computing power. If a 1971 Volkswagen Beetle had advanced at the pace of personal computers over the past 34 years, today we could go 300,000 miles per hour with that car and get 2 million miles per gallon of gas — all for the mere cost of 4 cents. And GPS technology not only allows us to get quick and easy driving directions on our cell phones and fuel hundreds of everyday business and personal uses, but it also gives us new ways to better manage farm data and applications.
Winter is a great time to make sure your field boundaries in your precision ag software are up-to-date and accurate. Having correct field boundaries plays an important role as the foundation to your precision program.