Posted by Matt E. on October 20, 2017 at 12:15:30 from (173.216.243.47):
Made a trip to the farm in western Montana last week. Have a 20 acre field, Dad passed away last winter and we weren't able to replant this year. I plowed it last fall. Well, about 2/3rds of it. Other 1/3 had grass so not much of a weed problem.
So it sat, a friend disked the plowed portion in June but wasn't able to get in it again. So I went back this fall to get the house ready for winter and had hopes to get the field in shape for next spring to plant oats.
Well, that wasn't so easy. We were able to run the disk through the grass/knapweed areas and I then was able to plow those areas and on one end the Russian thistle didn't grow too big and was able to plow most of it under. Taking off the center coulter helped on the 3 bottom plow, not plow very deep and run pretty fast.
So about 1/2 of the field has Russian thistle, giant plants. Some the size of a kitchen table and about 3 feet tall. Enough plant that it would lift the 560 Farmall noticeably when running over them. The disk wouldn't do much to them other then roll them in a ball, drag around into small piles and at least rip out of the ground. I disked about half of the area and just left the other half to figure out in the spring. This stuff is so fiberous that if one got on the plow point, it wouldn't cut through it sinking into the ground. And the plants were too big to roll through the plow, just plugged it up. And being a thistle, the spikes of one plant would grab on to the next plant, making a bigger mess.
So my thoughts are to run through the standing part with the haybine next spring. At least they will be cut off in rows. Maybe they will dry out and the haybine will crush them. If not, might burn in the rows or run through the old baler to burn in the pit. As for the other part of the field, might have to weld some tines on the loader bucket and run around pushing them into piles to burn. Don't know, we've never had this problem and the other farmers in the area haven't either. But nobody let their fields go and see what the result were.
Any ideas? Looks like I'll have to burn this garbage before getting 1/2 the field ready. And the plants are spaced just enough there would be no way of burning it all off. Bare ground other then the "tumbleweeds".
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