Niels' Farm Blog 2013

[Niels]

Variety of the onions is Hypark.

 

Filling the Stanhay drill with some seed. Notice the thermal overall! Was not a luxery at all. All the onions have been sown and the beet went in as well today. Tomorrow the first potatoes will be planted.

[MF-ROB]

Good to see a bit of work being done now im sure they where glad to get planting started yeah the wind is bad still frost here with us to Niels I've seen a few men starting to plant spuds around me

[jdc]

Spring has arrived (so they say). The soil is dry enough (sometimes even to dry) but the temprature is still low and the wind makes it feel bitterly cold. Sugar beet and onions have gone into the ground this week.

It's been exactly the same here, Niels. Good to see you're getting something in the ground though.

Some nice land you've got there, too!

[Niels]

Thanks John. I must say the land is in excellent condition. The frost did a good job breaking it down and our silty soil comes down a treat.

[Tractorman810]

curious neils, have they got extra spacers on the rears of the db planting the onions?? never seen rears set that far out like that, do you take the front axel out as far to?? i cant tell from the pics

[Niels]

Yes there are extra spacers Sean. The wheel pans are at their max and home made spacers are added. The front axle is slide out at it's maximum width. Takes about an hour to set it up like this. Nice to work with such small tractors. Much easier to handle than the big uns.

[Tractorman810]

i bet it is mate, tad cold, but it does toughen you up

[Niels]

Potato planting was finished on the farm last night. Due to good conditions everything went perfect. This photo was taken at a collegue but my friend uses the same set up.

 

This is how the planter is filled with seed. Straight from a trailer using a small conveyor belt.

 

All crops are in the ground now, with only maize remaining. If it is dry enough that will be drilled tomorrow by a contractor.

 

Meanwhile on my father in laws farm the beet are growing well. Onions have been sown and sprayed. Yesterday a contractor came to bedform for cichory. The ridges will be left about a month to settle before they are drilled.

 

Onion drilling with a JD 6310 at my father in law. This is the man who rents the land from him. He also rents land for potatoes but hasn't planted them yet. The photo was taken by my girlfriend.

 

Spraying the onion field last Sunday with Roundup and Stomp before they come up. Work is being done by an Agrifac ZA 3400 P self propelled sprayer that has an 48m boom.

[MF-ROB]

Nice up date there Niels alot of spud farmers around me use the same set up.

[Light Land]

Another top update Niels,what happens to the soil after it runs through the power harrow?do the wheels just run it over between were the spuds are planted?

[Niels]

There are small ridging bodies behind the power harrow Ol. These push the loose soil away from the wheels so the planter has enough loose soil to work with. The land is prepared about 15 cm deep (6 inch) Nothing like a UK bed system.

[Niels]

A new update with pictures of some crop growth.

 

The onions (Hypark) which you have seen drilled earlier in this blog on April the 5th. This is how they were looking on 10-5.

 

They are now in the flagleaf stadium. Weed control is now the main priority and the fields are sprayed every 5 to 7 days.

 

And the sugar beet. This is very light land and crops always grow well here. The beet have been rolled after drilled as well to conserve moisture.

 

Close up of the beet which are growing massively every day now. The maize is to the left of this field and has just come through. I'll post some pictures of the potatoes later on.

 

A picture my father in law took and send me (thanks for smartphones and modern technology ). The JD 8420T he uses at work with an 8 row AVR rotovator and his Fiat 1000 on the water cart. He rents out his land for potatoes to a neighbour. The field is ridged first, UK style, injected with APP (liquid phospate) and then planted in a second operation.

[Niels]

Some pictures from last year (on my father in law's farm as well) to give you an idea of the planting operation:

 

The JD 8420T which has a 6m AVR rotovator/ridger that makes 8x75cm beds.

 

A JD 6430 does the planting with a four row Miedema Structural belt planter. This was new last year. The rows are ridged again a few weeks after.

 

A more recent picture that my girlfriend took on 25-4. A contractor is making cichory beds at my father in law. These beds are 50 cm wide so six on a 3 metre width. The cichory will be drilled in about two weeks and harvested in November.

 

It's a New Holland TS135A fitted with a nose wheel rather so the soil is equally pressed down.

[Niels]

It has been a while but I here are some pictures from last Sunday (07-07). Everything is growing nicely in the sun after some rain.

 

The winter wheat. Harvest will be later than usual but the warm weather is evening it up.

 

The sugar beet.

 

Cichory crop.

 

These have been irrigated once.

 

Potatoes for seed production.

 

The farm track has been finished, they start removing the old one this week. They have also started to widen the nearby canal.

[Light Land]

Stuning pictures,good looking crops.

[Niels]

Thanks Ol. The crops are looking well indeed. The potatoes were planted late but have come well. Sunshine and rain certainly came on time.

[Light Land]

Is there much direct drilling of crops in NL Niels? As direct drills have got beter there are plenty of cereals and fodder crops being drilled that way here now.

[Niels]

Depends on what you call direct drilling . I think less than 5% is 'direct drilled' here. The land is usually in a rotation with potatoes, onions, sugar beet and many other crops. This is not easy when direct drilling. People are trying min-till or at least a non inversion tillage approach. A lot of people now drill cereals straight into potato or onion land with a subsoiler, power harrow and combi drill (99% of all drills here I think are combi drills). I am the representative for Claydon (UK direct drill/strip till drill manufacturer) and we get a good response with some machines sold for this year. However, the amount of farms that grow a rotation of wheat, barley and OSR is very small. Only some very heavy clay soils are left for that.

 

My father in law is pretty much old school. He uses a plough or spader for all his crops. I'd like to see a rotation of cereals, maybe with some early roots, and direct drilling.

[Niels]

It has nearly been two months since there has been an update. To be honest, not much has happened on the farm since.

 

The winter wheat was cut on the 23rd of August. Variety is Lincoln (sown end of October) and yield 11.200kg/ha (4,53t/ac) which is the best yield ever on the farm. Sadly the price is not very good (€ 160) atm.

 

My father in laws boss changed the combine (JD CTS) for a new JD S670i this year. It did well and had a capacity of around 3 ha/hr. (7,5 acres/hr).

 

It was still and really dusty! The wheat was properly ripe so it threshed very easily. In the back you can see one of the trailers. JD 7920 with a three axle 23t Miedema.

 

Yesterday we had some compost spread over the stubbles. A contractor comes to do this job.

 

MF 7480 with a tandem axle Tebbe spreader. They are spreading it 13,5m wide as it matches up with the 27m tramlines.

 

Second combi was an MF 7495 and Tebbe spreader.

 

Next up will be the potato and onion harvest. First we're waiting for some rain to soften the ground. Other wise the crops get damaged when you lift them.

[Light Land]

That's a feed wheat is it Niels?

[Tractorman810]

compost spreading eh ,not seen that before, do you not use animal manure?? I know we did, but we had several thousand pigs to get it from I guess  

[Niels]

That is indeed a feed wheat Ol. We don't grow much else. Most bread making wheat is imported from Canada.

 

Sean: We don't have any livestock. Pigs are concentrated in the South and East of Holland. Traditionally large units (thousands and thousands of pigs) in specialised buildings. The farms own little land themselves. All manure is slurry as the pigs are not on straw. Instead, we get the slurry in the spring and have it injected on the winter wheat.

The compost comes from councils etc.. muncipal waste. It's a big pain as it is full of plastic, weeds and everything. It is the last time we'll be having it. From this supplier at least.

[Light Land]

Thanks Niels, much npk in that compost?? we can buy that or muck here but often the cost of spreading it and the weeds you get mean few use it plus we grow a lot of grass in NZ so that helps the soil.

[Jdeere6910]

The photo of the combine in the dust is excellent Niels.

The compost you're spreading sounds a lot like the compost we use. When you go to pick it up they have potato boxes full of rubbish taken out of the compost.

Is the compost relatively cheap? Also how accurate is the spread pattern of the spinning disc spreader?

[Guest]

 Thats some potatoe planter for sure  not seen any kit like  you have , so its good to see whats happening in other places  looks some good soil  you have there too