2025 has been a big year for equipment upgrades. Some of that equipment did not make it to the farm or was not immediately available when we started field preparation this spring. Our process and equipment upgrades have occurred as we progressed with field preparation this spring. Below list what we used.
We started preparing the field with our 10ft chisel plow, however, we have a hard pan slightly deeper and thicker than what our chisel plow can get through. We were not happy with the results.
To get deeper into the soil and through our hardpan, we subsoiled at 12 to 15 inches deep with large, wide sweeps in the demonstration field. This did a much better job of getting through our compacted layer and largely avoided pulling up rocks.
After subsoiling, we started primary tillage with a small 6ft disk. While effective, the small disk only reaches down about 5 to 6 inches and does not leave the field crisp and smooth. We borrowed a larger, 10 to 12 foot pull type disk that is much heavier and reaches down about 8 inches. After two passes with the larger, heavier disk, the soil was loose and most of the large clods were broken down.
Before laying plastic or planting beets, we used a field cultivator equipped with s-tine cultivators, solid tines, and roller baskets to condition the upper couple of inches of soil. We made two passes with our 10 ft Umberverth Perfecta.
The soil flowed like liquid laying plastic after disking and field cultivating. We have also been planting beets directing into the freshly field cultivated soil. We are considering running a roller or cultipacker over each bed to firm the seed bed up before planting. We have had variable emergence after planting, though this is most likely due to receiving 20+ inches of rain in the 2 weeks following seeding.
CAFF does have a spader (produces similar results to a rototiller but in a different manner) that we could use for primary and seconday tillage before laying plastic or seeding beets. However, it is so slow and uses so much fuel, that we prefer the disk and field cultivator which are much faster and fuel efficient.
3/24: The demonstration field was subsoiled, disked, and field cultivated. It took just a few hours to prepare the field for laying plastic.
3/24: We layed the raised bed and flat bed plastic
4/01: The whole field was cultivated as we were setting up and testing our our plastic mulch cultivation equipment
4/03 to 4/06: 11 inches of rain
4/15: The southern 1/3 of the field was cultivated with the finger weeders and spider gangs
4/17: Qty 3 round bales of mulch were spread to the northern 1/3 of the field.
4/22: Plant cabbage
4/24 to 5/02: Another 10+ inches of rain received.
5/5: Power Ox finger weeder and John Deere 900 HC over southern 1/3 of bare ground field. Still too wet to get into plasticulture rows.
5/12: Cultivate south end of all rows.
5/13: Spray Home Plate Herbicide on plasticulture end rows.
The southern 1/3 of the field was supposed to be cultivated weekly while the middle 1/3 was supposed to be cultivated every other week. However, weather did not cooperate to keep on a timely schedule.
Cabbage Cultivar: Caraflex
Nutrition: Chickenfeather meal (13-0-0) + Nature's Supreme Granulated Poultry Manure All-Purpose Organic Fertilizer (4-3-2)
Cabbage moth treatment: Rotation of Dipel, Entrust, and Pyganic