kojak

Thanks mate........not sure what the model was, its pretty old. I only drove it a few times, stayed well clear of it coz the air con didn't work....no air con no Cliffy

What gps?.. that was my good straight driving...

It is liquid in the tank but it expands back into gas when its injected into the soil or released into air. It then reacts to the soil moisture to create ammonium ions like urea. Usually around 12 to 16 kms depending on soil type and if was direct drill or on cultivated ground.....red dirt is very hard when direct drilling. This property was around 35k to the furthest paddock....first thing I got from the manager was a map so I wouldn't get lost.

This is the dozer that did most of the work in clearing the scrub...it's at the back of the workshop waiting to be fitted with new bearings in the rear end. The D9 was only a dinky compared to this girl.

The front wheels barely turn so a few big one......saw a bloke turn too sharp and jack knife the tractor once. Tracorman I did get lost one night in one of the big fields. Was working by myself and around 3 am I had to go empty a chaser bin so I could keep harvesting. Had a fair idea where the mother bin was but missed it somehow and spent ages driving around shining the lights in every direction trying to find it . In the end I gave up and drove til I hit a fence and followed that til I found the track the bin was parked on. The field was about 3500 to 4000ac in size.

Have some but it'll have to wait until next week when I get home....these are only a few pics I have on an external hard drive I have with me.

The rake was an awkward son of a ***** to drive...couldn't reverse it, could only turn one way in a large turning radius, the rake wheels got jammed, punctures and constant playing with the hydralics to keep it from spitting out sticks. You just go around the paddock in circles leaving the sticks in rows but pulling the rows in with every lap. When the rows got too big you jumped over it and started again. Adozer with a stick rake then piled them up for burning. Yeah you do loose the moisture but it has to be done to get rid of the roots, stumps, sticks etc.. D9 with a stick rake on the blade.

It took the dozer about six weeks to clear and blade it...it was pretty dense in parts. It took about 2 weeks on and off to level it and rake it. In that part of the woods you get 2 types of soil, hard red soil thats not much good for anything or black soil thats really good.....the soil in this area was black and thats why we cleared it. Gave a good yield of wheat the following year.

Fixed the link so its working now. No it was total scrub never cropped.

I'm away from home working at the moment but I'll post up a few more when I get back.

Anhydrous ammonia takes a liquid form when put under pressure and thats the way its stored and comes on delivery and its also kept below a certain temperature. When its released into the atmosphere it turns back into gas. When its injected into the soil it reacts with the moisture and stays in the ground. Its can be very dangerous working with it. Most ferilizers I've worked with here apart from nitrgen gas has been liquid and is sprayed on. Granular may be used on irrigated or ground that recieves a lot of rainfall, but on broadacre farming that doesn't get moisture that often you could be waiting 6 mths for the rain to come to wash it in If you look closely at the pic you can see that the pots and hoses are frozen even though the temp was up around 40c when I did that job. You could fit 3 small beers in the center pot and it took 1 1/2 hrs to chill them nicely for the drive home across the property after along hard day....

Yeah its big gear but the fields are huge.

The smallest one we had was a Case 395, it was only used sometimes for pulling a small 40ft seeder in smaller paddocks or for spraying sometimes. All of the work was done with artics 450hp and up. Case 395 and 40ft Gason sowing rig

Here's alink to a few more pictures. http://s240.photobucket.com/albums/ff69/SINNERBOY74/Sowing%20nitrogen%20gas%20in%20NSW/

About 2 months before I left, the contarctor I worked for ordered 2 new 50ft fronts from midwest to replace the 45's. I think 50ft is the biggest midwest make or it was at that time a couple of years ago. We had 5 100 ton bins like above this one is a 120ton Dunstan.

After the ground was levelled with the grader board we ran the stick rake over one more time. The gound turned out really good in the end but it took a lot of work. Link to more pictures.... http://s240.photobucket.com/albums/ff69/SINNERBOY74/Reclaiming%20scrubland%20in%20NSW/

After several passes of the chisel plough and stick rake the grader board was brought in. We ran the grader over the area (about 265ac ) 4 or 5 times in different directions to get it level.

The banana at work. This old 9370 was used bescause it had a base plate fitted to protect hoses etc from sticks and roots...it was a good old tracor.

Me beside a 30ft stick rake we called the banana rake. After the chisel plough the ground was raked and ploughed again, that was repeated several times until most of the sticks and roots were removed.

This was probably the worst tractor driving job I've ever done. After a doser had knocked tress and ploughed up the roots we dragged this massive chain around to fill in the craters left by the doser and to pull up small trees and roots. This was done at least 4 times in different directions until it was level enough for a chisel plough. Avoiding deep holes and massive roots protruding up from the soil and being tossed around in the cab even driving at slow speeds all day isn't fun.....hardship.

Here's a link to more. http://s240.photobucket.com/albums/ff69/SINNERBOY74/Cultivating%20and%20sowing%20in%20Australia/

Disc ploughing fire breaks a week before xmas in NSW on an 80000ac property.

Quad and disc plough

Ploughing with a Case stx 500 and 40ft chisel plough

Case stx 450 with kelly chains.