Experimented with the Woods PSS84 this year

Dukslayr

5 year old buck +
Well, as usual I didn’t have the time I needed to do the plot prep I wanted to do, and I ended up with 1 day to try and get some seed in the ground. As some of you know I had my farmer plant 3.5ish acres of beans and around 4.5 acres of corn. The corn is rocking. The beans have been heavily pressured and haven’t gotten past shin high. I had three plots I wanted to plant this fall: overseed the bean plot, renovate a 1.75 acre old clover plot, and plant 4 acre sunflower/dove field that missed planting this year. My intent is as follows:

3.5 acre Bean field overseed: provide something through the fall for the deer and get a cover crop in for no tilling a crop (probably my corn) into this plot next year. Planted mostly winter wheat with a little bit of groundhog radish (2 # per acre) and a few turnips (1# total).

1.75 acre clover plot renovation: this was a grass/clover plot when I bought the farm a couple years ago. I’ve basically just mowed it a couple times a summer and the clover has spread well. I wanted to get some more clover going in it. Planted WW, some turnips, GHFR and a 2.5 acre bag of WI clover that’s been sitting in the shop for 2 years...hoping some of it germinates to help boost the clover.

4.5 acre sunflower field: We didn’t get the sunflowers planted this year. My farmer mowed and baled this field once this year then killed and turned it over about a month and a half ago. This is a field that’s been in pasture for 20+ years that we drilled sunflowers into last year. Planted mostly WW with the rest of my radishes, turnips and WI clover.

I had to “plant” directly into everything that was standing since I didn’t get it sprayed earlier. The farmer is coming in behind me and spraying tomorrow or Saturday. I also didn’t have time to try to calibrate all the various seed rates so I just used my wheat rate and mixed everything in the large seed box. We will see what happens but ultimately it looked like it metered they mixed seed well. Whether I get good germination is another story. I’ll post back after the farmer sprays and we get done rain...if we get rain.

** the pics are only of the planting of the sunflower field. Not sure what all grew up in it but I was actually able too get to the soil pretty well. Whatever was growing there grew waist high in about a month and a half. A lot of laid down fairly well...not sure if that will hurt or help with the spraying.
 

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Well, looks like my farmer made it out to spray today instead of tomorrow. Guess we will see what happens. Hopefully we get some rain next week.
 

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Very cool, I'll be interested to see the results. I've never seen a seeder like that used in a "no-til" type application but it looks like the results should be similar to a TNM + spray plot so probably pretty good!
 
Very cool, I'll be interested to see the results. I've never seen a seeder like that used in a "no-til" type application but it looks like the results should be similar to a TNM + spray plot so probably pretty good!
I’ll be curious to see what happens too. I think it might work depending on what you’re planting. The interesting thing was that even though we haven’t had any rain in August, the ground under those 3’ tall weeds still had moisture in it. Guess that’s not a surprise, but additional proof for me that if this works there’s no reason not to have good cover on the ground at all times, particularly if I’m able to successfully plant into it. I’ll continue to have my farmer no-till the row crops buy if I can plant the other stuff with the Woods it should be a good combo.
 
Here’s an update. First time back up to the farm since planting. August was bone dry in North MO and we didn’t get rain till last week. Had good rain last week though. I’m guessing I didn’t get germination until last week given the dry conditions at and for a couple weeks post planting. Overall I’m very happy with the results of my experiment. Lots of tiny clover coming in, good wheat and pretty good turnip/radish germination. Given the crap I planted through I think it’s actually doing well. All three plots are seeing nice results regardless of what was there at planting. I planted at a rate of about 60-70# of wheat per acre. I think I’ll bump that up to 90-100# next year; the turkeys were all over my fields so I am wondering how much I lost to them and birds over the two weeks it didn’t rain. It seems like mixing all the seed in the box worked out fairly well. It’s not perfect but better than expected. Overall pretty happy with how the Woods handled all these fields. The results with the crappy NRCS no till drill (it’s not in great shape) were no where near this good at this time. Also, for what it’s worth, I took the PSS84 over the standing beans that have been hammered. They have pods but never could get ahead of the browse. I as curious if, between the disc gang, spiked roller and cultipacker if the beans would get crushed. They don’t look any worse for wear.
 

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Here’s a few more pictures from today. I have to say, I’m pleasantly surprised at the results from planting straight into the waist high weeds. Granted I was just planting wheat, turnips and radishes (mostly) but still a great result. You can clearly see where I missed a strip or two overseeding my bean plot. The deer have been hammering the bean plot and as such it looks like it’s got 1/2 the growth of the overgrown field I planted into. 05525C61-6D84-43A8-96F2-5A024EB905CD.jpeg
The picture above is the overgrown stuff I planted straight into. You can see best where the tire tracks went through but under the standing dead cover it looks about the same.
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This was planted straight into my beans that got crushed. Probably a 3 acre field that sees 20-40 deer per day
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This is a 1.75 acre hide away ploy that had some old clover but I overseeded with WI clover, wheat and turnips. It’s coming in really well...better than it looks in the picture.
 
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