Re: The ever expanding/shrinking workshop

diggerop wrote:
"dpb" <none@xxxxxxx> wrote in message news:hdkhv9$8j0$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
diggerop wrote:
"dpb" <none@xxxxxxx> wrote in message

Them's remarkable yields over that much acreage--we'll get some like that in good years but a 40 bu/A average would be pretty remarkable.


Several factors, first is this year the rainfall was above average and more importantly, fell just at the right time and in the right quantities. Second is the wheat varieties keep getting better and better. The plant breeders are producing plants with yields that were not thought possible and seem somehow to continue to do that.
The inputs are carefully controlled as well. Soil sampling is a necessary part. Everything, including spraying and fertilising is custom applied through GPS linked computer controlled equipment. It all gets downloaded to a database and forms the basis for the following year as well.
An example is ryegrass control. At harvest, the GPS records the exact path the combine takes. When the first rains occur prior to planting, the emerging weeds are sprayed. Each nozzle on the boom spray is linked to a computer that has the information from harvest of the combine path. It applies the heaviest dose on the area where the combine left the windrow containing most weed seeds in the prior harvest. Same principal applies to seeding, - fertiliser rates are automatically adjusted according to last seasons yields and soil analysis via GPS.
The next combine that is bought , which will probably need to be in 3 years time, will also have full automatic control via GPS. No need for operator input at all. It will steer itself, continually adjust threshing settings and ground speed as well as controlling the cutting height of the front. We'll probably see 60ft fronts by that stage. The operator will simply sit there and monitor what is happening. I can see the day when even that will occur remotely.

How things change. It's all moved so quickly. (My last combine, - we call them headers, - when I was contract harvesting, had a 22ft open front. 18ft was considered by most at that time as being the maximum that an operator could handle safely. That was less than 20 years ago!
....

Ayup to all the above--excepting we call the platform a header and the overall machine a combine.

I assume a lot of yours is white, not hard red? The whites here have been "the coming thing" for it seems almost 20 years now but still the combination of varietal problems and the extra handling for segregation haven't had enough premium available to make them take off on a widespread basis as yet.

We're about 50-50 wheat-milo on the dryland w/ some dryland corn depending on the year. Run feeder heifers on wheat pasture and stalks over winter (assuming it gets in early enough and have the rain to have the pasture--just now getting ground covered this year as were too dry until nearly end of September/mid-October to drill) and then move some to our lots and sell rest off in spring before starting field work.

There was some 100-bu dryland corn around this year...Quite a lot of irrigated corn/soybeans.

Folks keep trying various alternatives for less water-requiring things--there's a little cotton, sunflowers, have tried Jerusalem artichokes, ... but nothing really has taken over for the old staples as being economically viable. The current new idea is canola but until can solve problems w/ shatter and high loss rates owing to the tiny seed size it'll stay that as well...

But, as you say, production equipment is light years from what used to be. We're running 24-32ft headers w/ the size of our operation and ground; couldn't survive w/o the monitoring gear though both for input control and output monitoring to tie the two together though even on our acreage (we're about 2000, larger than average for the county when I left high school, well under now of course).

OBTW, Mom and Dad did a K-State/USDA-sponsored visit w/ a "people-to-people" type touring arrangement where visited quite a number of farms/ranches in AUS and NZ back in the 80s. One of the families returned a visit some years later here (altho was while I was engineering in TN so I didn't meet 'em).

Oh...we have had a few Aussie basketball players over the years at the local community college, though, which has always been entertaining. The latest is now a senior on the womens' team at Oklahoma State/Stillwater having finished her second year here in '06-07.

--

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