It was a chilly field walking morning, but this is an important job for our farm!
This time of year as things start to really grow and plants start to set the crop for the upcoming summer harvest, we have to take time to walk all our fields and look for issues.
“Issues” right now in this growing stage usually means weeds. We are currently spraying our final (hopefully) application of weed spray. We use chemicals that are selective so they only target weeds that we see out in the field. It’s a great way to save money for us and save on putting more chemical where it’s not needed. For example we have a few fields that have a lot of groundsel, we will add an additional weed herbicide in to manage that so it doesn’t show up as a weed in our seed tests at the final stages of getting clean crops to sell. Also hoping that it doesn’t show up again next year as a continual problem.
Our weed spray is mixed with a carrier of fertilizer and water; which in turn saves us an application across the field to get our final amount of nitrogen to feed the crop. This efficiency increase saves us time, money, and fuel. But in order to makes this all happen we do have to walk around every single field to see what is out there.
This is a nice clean area of a tall fescue field.
Our farm works alongside field men who work for companies where we buy our fertilizer and chemicals. More boots on the ground means that we have a very good chance of not missing something. And if we do our jobs well; setting ourselves up to have clean seed fields that create a valuable product for us to sell.
Fall is always busy, we are at the beginning of what looks a lot like triage everyday of what needs to be done. We have one more crop to harvest, filberts, and then we will be done with the 2023 crop and be able to fully focus on the 2024 crop. Planting, cultivating, spraying, fertilizing, working ground, etc.
Which means that while we aren’t harvesting at this very moment we have time (especially with 2023 seed harvest being so early) to go out and get some projects done. Mine earlier in the week (after dropping ALL THREE of my kids off at school! Woo hoo!!!) was spot spraying thistle patches that had come up in ground that we had already worked a few weeks ago.
These patches are easy to see this way without any other crop growing currently. They also allow us to spot treat instead of spraying the whole field to get control of these nasty weeds. Our plan for this field specifically is to plant tall fescue this spring. This will allow for a lot of weeds to sprout between now and then giving us a great opportunity to clean this soil up of weeds before planting.
Because we grow so many seed crops on our farm, keeping weeds controlled is of very large importance to what we do. This may seem like a small insignificant job, but in the long run, it’s important to stay on top of weeds at each opportunity.
I mentioned before that I dropped off our three of our kids at school for the first time ever, don’t worry about me being lonely though, I have another sidekick that was right with me the whole time.
This time of year I am always reminded of the times when folks, most of who don’t understand farming and agriculture and are challenging me on something, look at me and say, “Well you’re just doing things the way they have always been done. That’s how farmers are.” It’s hard to not feel deflated when I hear those comments. Whether it’s during a hearing at the capital where I am defending and explaining why we do what we do; or discussing important tools and why they are necessary for us to farm in Oregon, it hits me in my gut.
This time of year I think of this often because quite frankly these comments and thoughts couldn’t be further from the truth. Right now, we are currently in “meeting season” here in Oregon. I was attending one in particular a few weeks ago put on my Oregon State University Extension, and it was great! I got a ton of information which I brought back to to the farm to discuss and noodle over. So much so that I actually wrote down in my notebook while I was taking notes, “Doing what we’ve always done – nope.” as a reminder to write this blog post.
Here are just a few of the conversations on our farm from just this one meeting…
Fertilizer rates, timing, number of applications
What are ways we can control or help with nitrogen volatility
New ways to look at soil tests and question what we have been told the past few years.
Farming is not easy with all the forces outside our control, just the weather alone, presenting challenges that force you to look outside the box every single year and every single season. If I wanted to just sit back and do things the way that we’ve always done them, I don’t know that my farm would still be here. We would be growing crops that don’t profit any longer, we would be using tractors that barely run and have to be wrenched on constantly, technology that allows us to do more with less would force us to be inefficient and wasteful, our soil wouldn’t be able to grow the crops that we need to keep our farm viable, thriving, and moving on to the next generation. To us, “sustainable” isn’t just a buzz word; it’s what we’ve lived since we started farming generations ago.
Saying that we are “Doing what we have always done” is a cop out for someone who doesn’t want to take the time to actually look at the innovation in farming practices that continuously occur on farms all over the world. In fact, we have been a part of a number of trials on our own farm to get on the ground data for Oregon farmers. This is not easy to be a part of, it takes time and participation, it takes effort to not fertilize, drive, or disturb areas of your own fields. Sometimes it’s just frankly a pain in the butt.
So why do we continue to say yes when someone comes with a need for a field trial? Simply put, we can’t afford to do what folks think we are doing as they look in from the outside on the supposed simplicity of our work. We can’t stand to be left in the dust, and just let come what comes! We are farmers, who are never doing “what we’ve always done”; instead we are looking to the future to do what quite possibly hasn’t been done ever at all, and see if it works. So next time you hear that old adage, brush it off, because someone who says those words has no idea what can be accomplished by farmers with some sweat equity and soil.
NuttyGrass 