2008 Annual Report for FNC07-662
Evaluating Modified Relay Intercropping (MRI) in Ingham County, Michigan
Summary
Group of five made a visit to Ohio in the early spring for the project. We met with Steve Prochaska, agent. We made on farm visits to four farms. We talked to two producers. Fourteen hour round trip. We looked at possible planting equipment in two locations, on in Addison, Michigan and the other in Leslie, Michigan. Decided to go with the Sunflower drill in Addison, Michigan and picked it up in the early spring.
I brought disk blades for the planter and put them on during the summer. Throughout the summer, we tried to come up with the configuration to use with the tool bar that it had on it. IT was much harder than we expected. I made changes to make it work after many trying hours.
Once wheat seed was available, I tried to calibrate drills several times with no success until the end of October. We changed gears in the transmission around and then had gears made to replace the ones with teeth missing. Doing this during harvest was very stressful. After finding out that it was an airflow problem and not a metering problem, we waited for a day dry enough to plant. The day we did plant was less than ideal and the soybean residue plugged in the planter and made piles in the field. It was decided not to try the other plots because of wet conditions and the late date of planting.
Grant money paid:
$400 7 Hrs tractor to pick up drill in Addison
$280 7 Hrs escort and driver
$1522.54 Disk blade, parts, etc.
$228 4 Hrs tractor for calibration and planting
$900 Kevin Droscha for work on planter
$238 17 Acres drilling
$489 Wheat sead
$230.75 Travel to Ohio
$1600 Tony Igl for labor
$2210 Land rent
$383.83 Gears