Holiday Stress

I feel some Holiday Stress this morning and I shouldn't. We are behind on planting double crop soybeans and the ground baked out on me yesterday. I should have held up the combine a day to let the drill catch up but it was time to cut the wheat. I am glad it is done and will be glad when its gone and settled up.

The drill is hung up in wires again and all I can do is sit here and let the guys get it out and wait for the last load of seed to finish up planting. DP&L sent a bill for $7000 for the pole we pulled down last fall in the same situation and we are just over legal heighth by an inch but they were were under their legal heighth by a foot.

John Deere invented this contraption for seeding in the great wide open west. Though it migrated to Ohio, I imagine the drill will be getting a new owner in the near future. There are so many wires strung across highways around here they don't keep them up to standards.

Yesterday I posted an idea a friend of mine and I have on putting radish seed into the double crop soybean seed to try and loosen up these compacted soils. They are really beat down this year with a year's rainfall in half a year. Just the weight of 40 plus inches of water is enough to really pack the ground.

So I am trying another new experiment today, radishes in double crop soybeans. It should be interesting and I will keep you posted. I want no more than a pound or two per acre and that is hard to do with a bulk tank on an air drill but I am going to try.

The radishes increased my wheat yield again this year and I have been getting 12 bushels more wheat every time I interseed the radishes into the wheat planting. I am more out for soil improvement in the double crop soybeans but don't want to interfere with harvesting. I don't think they will, especially if I spray the beans late this summer to clean up any weeds I miss now.

I won't know unless I try.

Ed