Me and and the earth worms, yes we can, we can make this farming thing work and work well....yes we can, as you can see in the pics at the right, I am applying the nitrogen for next years corn crop in the form of Anhydrous Ammonia...A gas made some how from natural gas they tell me...it is 82% nitrogen and the product is called NH3...Don't know a lot more about all that except I dam sure respect it believe me...It is dangerous stuff for sure..it can take your eyes out if it leaks and hits them..it can freeze your thoat if you breath the stuff...I know that first hand and one time I did that, breathed way to much of it and it did freeze my throat...I lay there almost paralyesed thinking I was a gonner for sure...thinking how stupid I was to do what I had just did...maybe 30 seconds later maybe longer my throat "thawed out" I guess and I was able to breath again and thank GOD for a second chance and promise HIM I would never be so stupid again...
But back to my story...This is a great way to farm...and the only thing that I do that resembles tillage in any way...I do this in the fall to the fields that I have harvested soy beans from...and next year intend to plant yellow dent corn too...Corn that will be sold to Tate and Lyle corn sweetner plant and end up in the soda pop as the sweetner that all you folks out there may drink....But I do love the system of farming called "strip till"...I place the nitrogen gas about 6 inches or so deep in the soil with the applicator and it raises the soil in this about 6 inch wide stip and it lies there all winter...Next spring after rains and snow the soil is mellow but the strip warms up quickly and is a welcome host to the seed corn placement directly over the nitrogen...and we start the cycle again in late April of another corn crop....sexsational corn again maybe...sex in the corn field again in 2009...can you believe it? YES WE CAN....Obama likes that phrase and so I must find a way to get excited about it all...So I relate it to what I do, I grow corn and beans and I go to Naples in the winter time when the snow is deep....And in the mean time my partners the earth worms they continue to devour the residue left from my no tillage farming the residue that is left between these raised ridges, it lies there waiting on the earth worms to come up from below and eat it and take it deep into the soil and poop it out....these guys build soil like the have done for thousands of years....They are the Senior partners, I just do whats easy...they do the hard stuff and I guess they enjoy it as they keep doing it year after year...no contracts to sign, no unions to deal with, they just do it...So between the two of us...
YES WE CAN!!!!!!!
Farmers here the question in the fall, "are you done yet"?
Well YES I am done, today I finished the NH3 applications all next years corn acres are done...Next years bean acres are done also...as the corn is harvested, and the corn stalks lie there waiting for my soybean drill to pass through them and place the soybeans in warm ground and knock the remaining corn stalks over to be eaten by my buddies the earth worms....
Semper Fi.....
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