Monday, February 15, 2010

Field Day


I like Field Days. I remember the famous ARRL Amateur Radio Field Days where we tested Emergency Communications. Morse Code communication was a key to that field day.

Now for years I have been involved in agriculture field days. Today we set up tents and plot signs for the Waikato Aerable Research Station field day tomorrow.

A local farmer brought his tractor and planter so I can teach from the planter tomorrow. That should work out real well. Farmers love to gather around a planter and talk. Planters set the yield for the year and thus your profit or loss the day you plant.

The notill planter setup is critical. I can see three changes I would make to the John Deere notill planter right now. Reduced Inside Diameter gauge wheel tires invented by International Harvester many years ago that allows the row unit to plant in damp conditions with little down pressure. Many farmers use too much down pressure and cause compaction in the seed trench.

It has one Dawn closing wheel on it but I prefer two Martin spiked closing wheels instead. Many farmers use both setups. I would also install the heavy steel drag chains on the back of that planter.

A local maize grower picked us up and and we had lunch with him and his wife. She had fresh catch snapper and sweet corn and all the trimmings! These people really roll out the red carpet! They call sweet corn cob corn, had to laugh. This fellow was loaded with Kiwi terms and I should have recorded the whole conversation. You would crack up. That means you are upset in Kiwi, we both laughed.

He had all Massey tractors and even his wife mowed the placed with a brand new looking 135 petrol tractor, gas engine in our lingo and that tractor is over 40 years old.

We looked over his corn crop and walked to his wife's native preservation land area with trees over 500 years old. I can't spell or prounce it in Maori but it is a conifer that was used to make boxes to hold butter to ship to England and all over the world.

Tomorrow will be interesting and I will try to give a report before bedtime.

Ed

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