​From wheat stubble to spring garlic. Works and techniques

This week we publish a post about one of our favorite crops: the spring garlic. Our follower Felipe Sevilla sent us some nice pictures and comments, ​who ​we met in the first edition of Demoagro where he was working with Same Deutz-Farm Group and we could test the new Agrotron TTV 7250 together with him... we recommend you to visit the next edition of Demoagro in May where you will be able to find all new technologies applied to agriculture and where you can test all machinery without any restriction. His pictures and descriptions were about the works performed to transform the previous year's cereal stubble into a great spring garlic field.

Felipe has his own farm in San Martín de la Vega (Madrid). As he commented and you can see in his pictures, this year he sowed spring garlic on an old wheat stubble. For this task, the first step is ploughing (he uses a Vogel&Noot plough of 3 furrows). After that, he uses an Agric (Agrator) RB100 rotary tillers so the seedbed is really ready to sow spring garlic. Fields are extraordinary in his area, which aren't very extensive... our area is absolutely different so we only use miniplough and chissel plough.  

The tractor used to plough is a Renault Ares 616 RZ (it has a John Deere engine of 115HP and a ​32x32 ​gearbox). It works at 7km/h at 1,750 r.p.m. when he is ploughing with his Vogel&Noot plough and when he uses the rotary tillers the tractor needs to work at 2.5km/h (using the slowest gear) and 2,100 r.p.m. (this tractor doesn't have the 540E configuration in its P.T.O.).

He plants spring garlic with a mechanical JJ Broch planter (it is like ours) that works really fine. After sowing, they have to step a few rows (you can see it in a picture where a John Deere tractor works behind JJ Broch planter) because they carry out flood irrigation system.

Versión en español. 

Joaquín Herminio Tribaldos (Twins' Farm)

Ploughing before hard frozen winter

Our great friend Timo from Laihia (Finland) sent us some pictures and comments about his ploughing tasks before begining the frozen winter. We think these pictures and comments will be interesting to see and know Finnish fields...thank you very much. He ploughs all his fields every autumn. During winter time when soil is frozen, plowed fields change soft. Direct seeding without ploughing is also widely used in Finland, but in his area the experience is not good. They can get more crop by ploughing and they have less problems with weed and diseases. Ploughing takes time and fuel, but it is still profitable. Typical speed in ploughing is 8 km/h. Nowadays reversible ploughs are used and that saves time.

His plough is Kverneland ES with 4 furrows from end of 1990’s. It has variable furrow width (12´ to 20´) by hydraulic adjustment. Normally he uses 18´ to 20´ as his Massey Ferguson 6470 has enough power for 4x20’. Kverneland is one of the most expensive brands, but most popular in Finland. Other popular brands are Överum/Agrolux, Vogel&Noot, Kuhn and Lemken.

There are plastic furrows in the plough. There are sometimes problems with metal furrows: the soil grasps into the furrow. However, the plastic furrows can only be used if there is not much stones and the soil is not sand. Plastic is also light when ploughing with reversible plough and a 4-cylinder tractor. New plastic furrows are about 15 mm thick. After 15 years use they are about 8 mm in his plough. So they need to be replaced in next few years. A new Kverneland plastic furrow costs over 300€. There are also cheaper furrows in the market, but original seems to last longer.

The plough have disc coulters that were standard in Kverneland. Many other brands have knife coulters that also work fine and make plough lighter. Kverneland has shorter construction than many other brands. So the weight is not a problem in a 4-furrow plough and 4-cyl. tractor with a front loader.

Special in his plough are 2 L-shaped angle pieces (as you can see in his pictures), ”Eco-shares" that are used to prevent the hard layer under the depth that is turned with the plough. The hard layer under the depth that is turned comes only after many years and you don't need to break it completely in one year so 1-2 pieces is enough.

Finally, we recommend you to visit the next edition of Demoagro 2015 (the best Farm Fair held in Spain), as we did in its first edition. There, you can find and test the whole product range of Massey Ferguson and Kverneland and you will be able to speak with proffesional staff  of these brands.

Versión en español.

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Joaquín Herminio Tribaldos (Twins' Farm)