Remember in math class when they said… you will need this when you grow up? Well… they were right. You do have to do math as a rancher. Or you have to have a husband and sons that are good at math, so your little ol’ artsy fartsy brain doesn’t have to work! I just look at them and shake my head up and down with a serious look on my face…
Today’s math? Calibrating the seeder.
Ick. Ugh. Gross.
Contemplate the handbook that goes with your seeder…
There’s all sorts of charts and recommendations. We’re going to plant alfalfa with a cover crop of oats. The oats will grow fast, shading the alfalfa, and give it a good chance to get started.
Daniel has figured out 31 turns on the hand crank is equal to 1/10th of an acre.
We poured alfalfa seed over just three of the 15 tubes. We gathered the seed with buckets placed under the tubes.
Alfalfa seed is VERY TINY. You then collect the seed and measure it on a scale. Take that total from the three buckets… multiply times 5. Remember, there are 15 tubes and you just gathered from 3. Then multiply times 10 and then you supposedly know how much you’re putting on an acre.
You can go by recommended rates or knock it back or boost it up depending on what you want and how much seed you have and how pricey it is!
However, you must realize that putting a couple of inches of seed over the ports in the hopper won’t give you as much as when the hopper is full. GRAVITY. You also can get some stuck in the corrugated hoses and if your ground is bumpy or you come to the end of a row, you might dump more seed.
*Seeder Designers: Why are the hoses corrugated?*
Then you stand there and discuss and see if the math you did in your head works out correctly. Notice how I’m really engaged in this conversation… Math in my head doesn’t usually work. I need paper and pencil!
Notice the puppy was highly engaged as well.
Now.
Do it all over again, but with oats!
Find me here!
Puppy: “All you really need is 2 paws, 16 toes… some dew claws….??….I think???
“…no that’s 4 paws, 16 toes, some dew claws, and one tail…??…yep…that’s right!”
My head hurts now.
As soon as numbers come out… ick.
OK, back on our farm, 50’s & 60’s, dad also sewed oats & alfalfa together, disked last years corn stocks first, he had an old wagon, with the tall wooden wheels, an end gate seeder on the back, driven by a chain & gear on one rear wheel, the seeder had a large hopper for oats & a small hopper for the hay seed, a little slide gate you adjusted for the flow of the seed, & a spinning wheel that distributed the seed as you drove thru the field, harvested the oats the first summer & baled the hay the next year, much easier & the same results, the good old days were so Good!
Your Puppy looks like he is gonna be a big boy and adapting well to his new life on the ranch!! Thanks for showing us the other side of what goes into the raising of our food!! Grateful for y’all!
Thanks!
P.S. Your IG video of puppy in the creek is delightful. I might have to join IG so that I can send “likes” and hearts and stuff…
IG is fun!
Oh math…
Even puppy looks somewhat pensive: “*Corrugated* hoses?! Sub-optimal.”
Math tends to make my head go fuzzy. I’m glad others are good at it! We’d all be in trouble if it were left to me. A pencil in my hand is much better off doodling.