January 2020 - 30

GROWER'S POSTCARD
Cultivation efforts requires proper tools, strategy
SAM HITCHCOCK
TILTON
rcvcfarm@gmail.com
call the big picture " setting yourself up
for success. " Because without proper
cultural controls (and sometimes even
with them) you can arrive at your field
with your shiny weeding tool and find
a big mess that no tool will solve well.
These cultural controls have as their
Dear reader,
I hope that you are well. The holiday
season has just passed. For me that
has meant eating very tasty, rich food
for the last few weeks. Luckily, my
grinning picture above is unchanging,
and has not been updated to show me
holding my tummy and groaning in
pained satisfaction after eating two
slices of every pie.
I wonder if you thought this column
had been taken over by a writing robot
these last few months, since this space
has been relatively free of articles on
mechanical weeding, my past bread and
butter. No, my brain was not hacked
by a Russian farming bot, rather my
interests have become wider-ranging.
But this month I will get back to my
roots by writing about cultivation.
My 'ol buddy Hans " Checkmate "
Bishop and I have been working on a
short cultivation field guide, and this
has got my brain juices flowing on the
subject. So, in the hopes that one can
never say too much about mechanical
weed control, I thought I would share
some of the conversations Checkmate
and I have been having.
The big point we realize again and
again is that the most important part
of cultivation is not cultivation - it
is rather all the planning to reduce
weeds that goes before any tool
comes to the field. This is often called
" ecological weed management " or
" cultural controls. " Hans and I like to
goal lowering the weed seedbank.
The first step is understanding your
top problem weeds by knowing their
general lifecycles: When they set seed,
when they germinate (which is also
often when they are most vulnerable),
how long after noticing that the weed
is flowering or setting seed will all
those seeds become viable? With this
type of understanding of your weedy
nemesis you can design the type and
timing of tillage operations, covercrops
and rotations to target those
weak points in the weed's lifecycle.
The other great point Hans makes
is that knowing the weed pressure in
your field can help you make difficult
choices - for example a field with higher
weed pressure would ideally not receive
carrots, but rather corn or a transplanted
crop that is more vigorous and can take
more aggressive cultivation.
After cultural controls comes
planting. And this is where creating
a uniform seedbed really pays off.
Good tilth throughout your field will
not only help your crop jump out
of the ground uniformly, but it will
encourage weed seeds to do the same.
As long as you plan for this, it can
be a great thing; allowing yourself an
extra week or so and maybe an extra
irrigation to fit in a stale-seedbed can
really lower your weed density for the
upcoming crop. Just make sure that
when you till to kill those weeds and
remake your seedbed, that you stay
shallow so as not to bring up more
weed seeds (this is why flaming is so
effective for stale-seedbeds).
Hans likes another practice that
many veteran farmers practice, called
" planting to moisture " : Till shallowly
on your last pass (less than 2 inches)
and then plant your seeds right at that
tillage depth - the capillarity of the
soil will have been broken in the upper
2 inches, and so without rain, weed
seeds in that depth will have a lot less
moisture to draw on than your crop,
giving it a head start. Seeder calibration
is so important; making sure that seeds
are dropped exactly in the rows, at the
right depth, and at the right density
so that they can quickly close the row
canopy and shade out weeds.
The first step is
understanding your
top problem weeds by
knowing their
general lifecycles.
Next in the game is blind cultivation -
running tools over the field before a
direct-seeded crop has even emerged.
Corn and bean growers will often use
a rotary hoe, but for growers of more
tender vegetables, a flex-tine harrow or
flame weeder are better. At this year's
Midwest Mechanical Weed Control
Field Day I saw Matt Sattelberg of
Bayshore Sales use his Hatzenbichler
tine-weeder with scalpel-like precision,
by pitching tines either forward or
backward, moderating speed and even
removing tines over the row.
Finally comes the cultivation. Hans
and I agree that every season, it is
best to take your weeding rig to the
concrete floor of the shop (or at least
a sheet of plywood on the driveway)
for an annual adjustment (cultivation
chiropractic). This means making sure
that tools are centered exactly where
they should be - either right over
the row or right between the rows.
When you have everything where it
should be, bright paint marks will help
you easily see from the tractor when
anything has come loose and shifted
before you notice its effects in the field.
Check that the cultivator is square to
the tractor and square to the ground.
Any bent parts should be straightened.
The concrete floor will allow you to set
all the soil engaging parts at an equal
depth into the ground. Do this by
putting strips of plywood under your
gauge wheels, and then drop your tools
onto the concrete. Then your tools will
be running as deep as your plywood
thickness. You can also set the distance
of your knives and sweeps from the
row. Rules of thumb that Hans and I
like when using A-blades or L-blades
that move less soil: For tender directseeded
crops knives 1 inch from the
row, for vigorous direct-seeded crops
knives could be 1.5 inches from the
row, and for transplanted crops knives
2 inches from the row. What all this
shop adjusting means is that once you
get to the field your machine is mostly
dialed in. And when you do make
adjustments you can easily make them
evenly to all parts of the machine.
Perhaps in another article I will
share my thoughts on the field
adjustment of cultivators. But for
now, I wish you a pleasant winter and
I look forward to seeing you at a few
conferences. VGN
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28 | VegetableGrowersNews.com
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EXCLAMATION
90 days. Resistance: Co1(IR)
, Fon1(IR)
17-21 lbs. Full season variety that produces
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OUTSIDER
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FASCINATION
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Superior quality, next generation crimson
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http://www.siegers.com http://www.VegetableGrowersNews.com
January 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of January 2020
