Cereals. Works until harvesting days

After sowing and sprouting, we are still working on winter cereals. The tasks to be done until harvesting are basically based on three tasks: fertilisation, compaction and weeding.  

In this post you can see our fertilisation strategy, this year we have chosen the fertiliser Marte45 from the Spanish manufacturer Medifer with a dose of 240kg/he. It is a fertiliser that we have used in several previous years with very good results and it is also the one we have found at a reasonable cost (although too expensive compared to the previous years prices). Let's wait for the rains so that the plant can absorb all the fertiliser. 

We will wait for it to rain so that the fertilizer could be taken by the soil plants. 

On the other hand, after the mulch fertilisation, we have rolled the soil to compact it. The goal is to better fix the root to the soil and the stones we have hidden in the ground so that we can have a more comfortable harvest job. For this task we have used our new roller, from the manufacturer Gaher Metalic. 

The next job, and perhaps the last one before harvesting, is to apply the necessary phytosanitary treatments to kill weeds and to take care of the plant if we detect any disease... but we will surely talk about this in another post. 

Versión en español.

Sowing opium poppy days

Opium poppy is a quite common crop in Spain and more specifically in the Albacete area, located in La Mancha land. Spain is the world's second largest opium poppy producer after Australia. It is a crop controlled in Spain by a single company, Alcaliber, since 1973. Alcaliber is the only company that contracts the production of opium poppy to farmers by renting their fields, supplies the seeds, their technicians together with the farmers follow the entire production process with regular checks. It is also their task, once the plant is dry, to harvest it with special harvester combines and processes included in the procurement of individual medicinal products.

The opium poppy cultivated in Spain, variety Nigum, is used for the production of morphine, codeine and thebaine. This whole process is surrounded by the strictest security measures (by Police agents).

Opium poppy is an ideal crop for the extensive irrigated fields in the province of Albacete and it is also a crop that has very good yields so it can reach about 3,000kg/ha (the price is around 0.8€/kg.). Moreover, the amount of needed water is not excessive (similar to cereals) and it is a fully mechanised crop.

If we focus on the sowing tasks that our friend Juan was carrying out, as you can see in our pictures and video, it is very important to have a well-prepared seedbed. This soil needs to be lightly tilled and even to be a little hard (it is worked with a cultivator, although the ideal situation is to use the power harrow very superficially and then roller it before sowing). The seed is left very shallow as the first watering will be responsible for covering it. As you can see, the seed drill has no rear harrow and it is disc seeder for maximum precision in placing the seed in the soil.

In one working day, many hectares can be sown as Juan's equipment consists of two twin Amazone D9-3000 Super seed drills with a working width of 6 metres. The seeding rate used is about 2 kg/he so he does not need to stop to fill the hopper during the day and the working speed is around 6.5 km/h. After sowing, a pre-emergence treatment is carried out in order to prevent the emergence of weeds and a small irrigation to fix the seed... but this will be another topic to be dealt with in another future post.

Versión en español.

​​Autorotation... saving time and earning accuracy

Spring is coming up and spraying tasks are remates to it.  Cereals and pulse vegatables need some phytosanitary treatments in order to kill weeds. So far, everything is like the rest of years. On this occasion, the most distinguish feature in our spraying works has been the new characteristic of Cerea autosteering system called Autorotation.

The autorotation allows us to turn on headlands automatically so this manoeuvre is simpler and faster than it was before. The autosteering system drives the tractor to put it on the next row with amazing accuracy... you can see it in our video.

We are using a Cerea version that needs to be indicated when Cerea has to begin the turning manouevre. With the following version (it will be delivered on the next days), it will be absolutely automatic and we only will need to fix the contour of the field where we would like to work. Cerea can work a whole field in automatic mode without driver has to touch tablet screen on headlands​.

​We show you some pictures our friend Alberto sent us about his new Amazone UF sprayer.

Versión en español.

Video:

Pictures: