Barry Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 just wandering the process of planting potatoes, is this correct? After ploughing field..... Does the field need to be cultivated or can you go straight into 1, use bedformer to form the beds (Like Grimme BF600, cultivator and bed former) 2, use de-stoner to remove stones from beds (Like Grimme CS150) 3, use planter to plant potatoes (Like Grimme GL40 which plants potatoes and reforms beds after the de-stoner has passed) 4, wait for potatoes to grow What i'm unsure of is the bedformer bed size and the final bed size. Does the bedformer create a mound of earth for two rows of potatoes? Then the de-stoner takes stone out of the mound and put them into the track between the mounds? After the de-stoner the planter puts the seed potato in the ground and the divides the mound into two beds. This would lead to what machinery is required for planting potatoes, is it just the 3 listed above in bold? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Light Land Posted February 16, 2009 Share Posted February 16, 2009 On very light land some farmers here will do this Barry. 1-Spray off the pasture 2-Surface work the paddock with a grubber to bust up the turf x2 times. 3-Spin on the base fert (NPKS) 4-Subsoil the paddock X2 times 5-Deep powerharrow 6-Plant your tatties,More NPKS down the spout of the planter. 7-Ridge up the tattie rows,too pull extra soil up ontop of the tubers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spud Posted February 16, 2009 Share Posted February 16, 2009 how we do it in oz -spray where ur going to plant -Deep rip to about half a meter -run the offset disk harrows over -fertilize -plant -later on when ther up u run the bankers through to make a bigger bank so they can grow out cheers Reece Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Posted February 16, 2009 Share Posted February 16, 2009 Depends on what your ground's like.... round you it's going to be pretty heavy Barry.... chances are it'll be something like this... 1. Plough it 2. Cultivate it a couple of times with either set of scuffles, power harrow or a rotavator... Dowdeswell Powavators were pretty popular round here... depends on the weather and ground conditions.... 3. Throw it up into a bed with a bedformer, 2 or 3 bed depending on the size of the operation.... each bed will be roughly the inner track width of the tractor so that when... 4. Bedtilling, using a 60" [or 72" been a while ] rotavator with a bedformer on the back, the tractor straddles and tills one large bed 5. Destoning one bed, clods / stones either dropped in the furrow or carried in a clod box for tipping at the end, possibly both As I say, been a while! 6. Planting with a [generally round here] 2 row planter & fert applicator splitting one bed into 2 rows.... That any help mate? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barry Posted February 16, 2009 Author Share Posted February 16, 2009 Yes, think that does help, spent most of this morning looking at the videos on Grimme website so got a good idea from that, there seems to be no set way to do it because of different soil and different sizes of machines \ \ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rich.new holland Posted February 16, 2009 Share Posted February 16, 2009 thats like farming in general theres no book to tell you how its done , its done how you want and think is best Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barry Posted February 16, 2009 Author Share Posted February 16, 2009 thats like farming in general theres no book to tell you how its done , its done how you want and think is best Get a load of polish students and spades then :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Posted February 16, 2009 Share Posted February 16, 2009 Get a load of polish students and spades then :D You mean those attractive female ones who only seem to be able to afford vest tops from top shop and too tight hand me down cut off jeans with holes at the curve of their ar*es... Cobblers, hairy illiterate british ag student on a tractor every time mate.... \ Er.... Maybe not.... you might be on to something Barry.... Might even make rain a welcome occurrence during the spud planting / lifting activities... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barry Posted February 16, 2009 Author Share Posted February 16, 2009 THems the one Simon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Posted February 16, 2009 Share Posted February 16, 2009 Rich seam of them come spare at S&A Davies at Marden when the Strawberry season's done... maybe you should pop by and inspect.... they do a deal on bulk purchase..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barry Posted February 16, 2009 Author Share Posted February 16, 2009 S&A are the BIG spud grower in Herefordshire arn't they? I used to live on the FM Green farm at St. Owens Cross, grew about 1'000 acres of spuds when my dad worked there, he was on one of the harvesters every year with me on the trailers, i never got involved with the planting though, hense the question. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Posted February 16, 2009 Share Posted February 16, 2009 Not sure whether they're into spuds now [or ever]... soft fruit and controversy is their thing now.... only dealings I've had with them was selling them some Honda quads, & servicing, which the managers used to patrol the fields and ogle the little foreign girls bending over the beds... I could see there was some job satisfaction there... Big spud grower, certainly for North Hfds would be Mercer, the Miedema machinery importer.... he grows a few thousand acres I think across the county.... \ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gav836 Posted February 20, 2009 Share Posted February 20, 2009 We do it a bit different here and it seems to work, a similar approach is take by Strawsons as well 1.Spread muck, either turkey or cow 2.Cultivate/Terra-Disc 3.Flatlift/sub-soil 4.Bedform (often twice to get depth right) 5.De-stone 6.Plant Seems a bit pointless ploughing really as you can't get deep enough sensibly without breaking things and it often leaves the ground to wet to work in the spring. we work on 72" beds, that or 80" is the norm these days as modern tractors don't squeeze into 60" very easily Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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