learning how to plant my land

My progress meter

I'm interested in what will grow well in my soil and microclimate, and I'm interested in knowing what works the best as far as amount of seed applied per acre, and mixtures of seeds.  So I'm planting 50 or so acres with a variety of seeds and rates, so that next May I'll be able to look at the results and see what works best.  My long-term goal is to come up with a good pasture mix that provides excellent forage for the animal I raise.

The gauge in the picture at the start of this post is the acre-meter for the brillion sure-stand SS1201 seeder I purchased earlier this year.  I don't know how old it is, but it's apparently planted at least 1800 acres since the meter was replaced, and so this is where I start.   It took me a couple of hours to figure out how to calibrate the flow of seeds, and I had to repair a couple of things.  The biggest thing that I did was download the assembly manual and go through it very very carefully.   I carefully followed the instructions and adjusted the seed handing stuff, and replaced a bearing, and then lubricated everything that called for it, and then put the tarp on it and pulled it to see how close the estimated seed rate was to the actual seed rate.

If you look carefully you can see the grass seed and alfalfa seed deposited

In the picture above, the grass seed is the rice-looking long thin things, and the alfalfa seed are the pale pinker looking tiny seeds.  Find the small black rock in the middle of the photo.  there's a grass seed immediately left of it, and an alfalfa seed a little to the right and above it.  There are 31 alfalfa seeds in that picture.

The tracks left by the tractor tires compress the dirt so that the packing wheels of the brillion don't push the seed down, which is annoying, but it allows me to verify that the seeds are actually being deposited.  for the first hour or so I'd run 600' (about 1/5th of an acre) and then get out and look in the seed  boxes and carefully study the ground behind.  A couple of the seed outlets were blocked, but after a while I was pretty confident that I was actually getting good coverage.

7 acres down.  45 minutes/acre

I completely understand the attraction that larger gear has.  My disc is 12' wide, and it takes me 25 hours of tractor time to do one pass over this field.  My seeder is only 10' wide, at with 50 acres * 45 minutes per acre, that's 37.5 hours of tractor time to seed it.  I'm a little afraid of going too fast with the seeder; figuring that it's better to go slow and not break something than it is to save a couple of hours.

alfalfa on left and in my hand, grass on right

The seeder does a good job of applying two different kinds of seeds (with very different shapes and sizes) in one pass.  I'm putting down 15lbs of alfalfa and 15lbs of grass seed per acre.  One reason that I spent the time to test and calibrate the seeder is that seed is expensive.  The alfalfa is $3.75/lb and the grass seed is around $2.50/lb -- so a 50 lb sack of alfalfa seed is nearly $200! 

So the seed that I'm putting down is approximately $94 per acre.   That seems like a lot, but I'm hoping to get 3 to 5 years of use out of it, which makes the price a little more reasonable... but it's worth being precise on the seeding. 

The tiny seed dispenser; there are 12 of these

The tiny seeds are doled out by a little gear that is set into the bottom of the seeder; it spins as the main rollers move, so the faster you move forward, the faster the seeds are distributed.  The grass seed dispenser is a set of holes in the bottom of the seed bin and a spinning whisk that fluffs the seeds up and keeps them from getting caked up.  The alfalfa seeder tends to go out of adjustment after 10 or 15 acres; the big nut that keeps it firm isn't holding, so I have to check it every couple of acres.   I don't want to spend any more on alfalfa than I mean to.  

So the basic routine is to  fill all of the bins, check the outlets, and then run the seeder for a while; usually a couple of acres.  Then you stop, get out and look at everything to make sure it's all in working order and there's plenty of seeds, refill anything that needs it and then pull it another couple of acres.  The crimping wheels leave a pretty clear mark on the disc'd ground, so it's easy to keep track of where I have and haven't been. 

Every 5 acres or so I make a note about where I am in the field, and change something.  Increase the alfalfa setting, decrease it, increase grass, change to a different mix of grass, or omit the grass completely to have a pure-alfalfa field.  That's the experiment part of this.  Next year i'll look at each of these areas with the notes I'm making now and figure out what worked best; how many pounds and what kind of seeds get what results.  

My dog red watches me work on this stuff; he's been observing for a week now.  He's not sure what I'm doing but any excuse for a truck ride is ok with him.  

And a good chance for a dog nap.  

And the work goes on

 and on

and on...