Malt barley in Finland: sowing tasks

In this occasion, our friend Timo, from Laihia (Finland), sent us a few pictures and comments about his sowing tasks. Talking about sowing, it will be very strange for our Spanish followers because we are harvesting now, but in the north of Europe, cereal sowing is done in May or June... we are sure it will be very interesting for all of Spaniards since they can see as other farmers carry out similar sowing tasks in another country so different than ours.

According to his indications, fields are ploughed in autumn and he can't do anything until the following spring, when he harrows them with minichissel plough and sows these grounds again. Sowing tasks are very complicated because it rains very frequently and they can be lengthen. It is very important for him to sowing in time because summer is short and he needs to harvest in September (so he requires to have appropriate machinery which allows him to work quickly). After that, cold, snow and rain won't allow him to work to next spring... even soil will be frozen during main winter months.

The seed drill used is a Tume JC3000. It is a mix, so he uses about 230kg/ha of barley and about 480kg/ha of Yara fertilizer (23% N, 3% P, 6% K, 1% Mg, 6% S, 0.05% B, 0.3% Mn, 0.05% Zn and 0.0015% Se). It is put 2cm under the seed. At the same level of seed he uses 25 kg/ha of fertilizer with 12% N and 23% P.

The plough used in autumn is a Kverneland ES-80 of four rows (but we are going to speak about that in September) and the minichissel plough used are Väderstad NZE500 (we love them). The working speed with this minichissel is about 10km/h and sowing speed is 8.5km/h.

Timo, Good luck with your crop!!!

Versión en español.

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Joaquín y Herminio Tribaldos (Twins' Farm)

Spring garlic. Harvesting and cutting at the same time

In this post, we continue to speak about spring garlic harvesting. But at this time, with another machinery: a harvester-cutter. This machine has a cutting disk which cuts stem of garlic (its height is adjustable).  It falls over on the soil and the bulbs of the garlic are stored in boxes or sacks (they can be of different sizes). Thus, the harvested garlic in a day are picking up in stores and, e.g., we can prevent theft. As garlic are a little tender, we need to put them into a dryer room if we don't want garlic can rot.

These machinery aren't used frequently in our area, but their use is a good option because as they don't have tyer, they don't generate problems normally. There are machines of one row, two rows (we think they are the best), four rows and five rows (the last two aren't use due to its big complex: for example they have over 30 hydraulic engines).

The pictures were sent by our friend Miguel Ángel from Chinchón. Thank you very much again for your collaboration.

You can see two videos from here: video1, video2.

Versión en español.

Joaquín y Herminio Tribaldos (Twins' Farm)

Spring garlic has just arrived

We visited our friend Aquilino few days ago, when he started to harvest his spring garlic. As you can see in our pictures, the harvesting is extraordinary as for quality and size.

In our area, the machinery used to harvest garlic are harvester binder. At this time, it is a harvester binder of two rows manufactured by the J.J.Broch company. We have another machine of this brand and its yields are very good. They have a weak point related to tyers. Maybe, you can have some problems with them and sometimes you have to replace few parts because they are worn very often. We are going to speak about garlic harvester cutting in the next post... we think it will be interesting and our followers can compare between them.

Garlic are put in heaps and when they are dry (after a few days), they will be cut and packaged in palots to transport and manipulated in stores for other tasks: grading, cleaning,...

Versión en español.

Video:

Pictures:

Joaquín y Herminio Tribaldos (Twins' Farm)