March 30, 2017
Planting Season
By John & Joan Maxwell
Cinnamon Ridge Farms
As the earth wakes up in April, farmers have a narrow window of time to plant seeds in their fields. For my father as a young man in the 1920s, he would greet the spring breezes by tackling the fields with literal horse power. In the dark,
pre-dawn hours, George would hitch geldings Donny and Sal to the plow, drive them to the field, and proceed to till the field several times over. Though time-consuming, this extra care would level the field to create a smooth seed bed, easier to plant and harder for weeds to later take over the crop. When the field was finally ready, he would hitch Donny and Sal to a single row planter. This planter used a check wire to place the seeds the correct distance apart. A big day would be five acres planted.
In the 1940s, my father purchased a tractor and two row planter, with which he could do more than double acres in a day than he did with Donny and Sal. By the 1970s, we were using a bigger tractor and 12 row planter which could easily do 100 acres in a day.
This spring I will jump into the fields just as early as Dad did. Yet in the 4 A.M. chilly darkness, I will hitch the power of not just two, but 260 horses to a shiny, green 32-row planter. With this planter, I can plant 250 acres a day. Both Dad’s plow and his single-row planter with a check wire have long been retired. Thanks to advancements which make no-till or very little tilling feasible, I can skip Dad’s painstaking steps of leveling the field and preparing the soil. Not only does this save precious time, but it also allows me to conserve the soil and reduce fuel usage. Plus, no-till increases the quality of water runoff and leaves a smaller carbon footprint. The planter I will hitch to my tractor includes technology my dad could probably never have dreamt of! It monitors seed placement, seed depth, seed population, and more. It can even vary the population mid-field according to productivity of the soil! Although I am needed to oversee everything in the cab, once in the field the tractor navigates itself through the field using GPS precision to utilize every possible inch and maximize yields. All this technology helps farmers like me reduce cost and boost productivity, so food prices remain low to you, the US consumer. With all this advancement, I wonder what the next 50 years will bring.
When you buy directly from us, you are receiving the benefit of this and other amazing technology that allows us to care for our land and livestock responsibly. We pass both savings AND quality on to you at our Country Cupboard Store, located right on our farm near Donahue. We hope you enjoy our great selection of our farm-raised beef, pork, cheese, and eggs!
