Current Edition
Related Photos
-
Dick Hagen
Related Links
Discussion
Tools
Straddle duals make a tough job manageable
<i>Originally published in the June 26, 2009, print edition.</i>
Combining corn, spraying soybeans and planting soybeans all on the same day was just part of the unusual challenges facing farmers in the Lamoure, N.D., area this June. “But we never let it bother us. It’s just part of farming,” laughed Arlen Booney, one of several North Dakota farmers still trying to get the tail end of the 2008 corn harvested.
The Booneys grow about 8,500 acres corn, and about the same acres of soybeans. As of June 19, they still had about 800 acres of corn to harvest. And it was raining again as we visited on the phone. He’ll get those last 800 acres harvested however, even though the clay subsoils in his area take forever to dry out once saturated as they have been since last fall.
What’s his new weapon for harvesting rain-soaked fields? The biggest straddle duals ever put on a combine. Keltgen Tires of Olivia, long known for their tall and narrow straddle duals for 22-inch corn, soybeans and sugar beets, just manufactured straddle duals for 800/70R38 Firestone radials that will be fitted to Booney’s John Deere 9870 STS combine equipped with a 12-row corn head.
“I don’t know how many tons this combine weighs, especially when that 400-bu. grain tank is full, but we’re counting on these big straddle duals to do the job,” Booney said.
That set of straddle duals cost $21,000 but that’s immaterial, he said, as long as it lets them get their harvest complete. Last fall, early and deep snows shut down corn harvest before it barely got started in much of eastern North Dakota. Heavy spring rains haven’t helped one bit.
“Our clay subsoils are still saturated. We don’t have field tiling like the Minnesota and Iowa farmers have so it’s a matter of patience and big straddle duals. I don’t say you get used to these challenges but you can’t let it get you down either.”
- Current Edition
-
-
Residual value — How much is field trash worth?
Maybe we need to think more positively about trash. We’re talking trash as residue left on fields after harvest, or any time as a matter of fact. Does it have value?
-
Back Roads: Quiet on the set; eat!: Ding-Dong Café, Sauk Centre
When the trains pulled up their tracks, many of the businesses along them closed their doors. The Ding-Dong Café, in Sauk Centre, covered its walls in train memorabilia and kept right on serving.
-
Better machinery makes continuous corn work
Equipment industry has responded to the movement toward more conservation tillage.
-
No-till benefits add up with diesel fuel savings
Less field time, virtually zero erosion, improved soil quality and as good or better yields are four solid reasons for considering no-till (including strip till and ridge till) farming.
-
Opinions differ on if, when rolling fields is right
The question keeps surfacing: Is rolling my fields sensible? And, if so, when do I roll?
-
Land Minds: Bumps on the road to liberty
I sense we are becoming a nation of entitlements. And in the process of this slide into socialism, I sense that we can no longer rely upon the “political process” to reverse this uncomfortable transition. “What’s in it for me?” seems to be the new mantra now embraced by many people including our elected officials.
-
Farm and Food File: USDA-DOJ seed competition workshop better work
Holding the “first joint Department of Justice/USDA workshops ever on competition and regulatory issues” in Iowa, the heart of corn and soybean country, just weeks before every seed-buying farmer in America will be pedal-to-the-metal planting this year’s crop is bigger than Daytona, bigger than the All Star game and bigger than the Super Bowl.
-
Cover story: The legacy of Wendelin Grimm and his 'everlasting clover'
Grimm was the farmer who developed winter-hardy alfalfa, which after his death became known as Grimm alfalfa. It helped make Carver County a premier dairy belt, and became the basis of the alfalfa used throughout Minnesota, and across wintry North America.
-
Heatherow Farm still going 160 years, four generations later
They homesteaded 120 acres, not realizing that over 160 years later one of their fourth-generation descendants would own that land.
-
Minnesota Machinery Museum breathes life into past
After using grant funds to make necessary improvements, the Yellow Medicine Agricultural and Transportation Museum opened Aug. 9, 1980, during the Pioneer Power Threshing Show. Under the guidance of Minnesota Historical Society Field Service Coordinator David Nystuen, the six-acre site found new life, and soon the name was changed to the Minnesota Machinery Museum.
- More Current Edition Headlines
-
