Crops Away, and the new Walco Allspread 6.75 spreader

Direct drilled last Monday, the pasja's struck really well, only been six days!

First run with the new Walco 6.75 spreader.

Pleased to report it spread as accurately as the handbook settings said...., I was doing 40kg/ac DAP, 12 metre swath at 15 kmph.

A walk around the paddocks after showed distribution was happily satisfactory.

Got the same good result putting some urea on the paddock closed for Jan hay.

The bin will hold 1/2 ton no problem, but I had to work out a suitable driving technique, its not really wise to be doing turns at 15 kph with a load on the back, specially when I get up on the hills later on. Using the foot throttle solved the problem, slow down for the turns.

The handbook said work round and round for best spread, but with the GPS set on A to B, I prefer working in lands with a single run 12 metre headland across each end of the paddock.

Wasn't all sweetness and light however.

Real mission to mount on the tractor. I had to use outside extension pins to match the TYM's CatII linkage arms, and even then the width dosent match all my other CatII gear, so I'm going to have to frig round adjusting the shackles swapping between machinery, all this made worse by bugger all space between spreader bin and tractor, a frustrating squeeze for a bloke my size.

Bit of a bounce on my OD to fit the capital purchase in, but I got this idea, instead of one humungous annual fert bill, I'd do smaller one to three monthly bites of the cherry, as finances allow.

The 1/2 ton capacity allows for getting fert in Ravensdown's 1/2 ton bags, or, I can get bigger amounts in bulk, and load it with the old Same and bucket.

Movie: Rams

Worth a look by all livestock breeders, cattle or sheep.
This movie, set in Iceland, tells the story of how a farm animal disease epidemic can affect us on a personal level.
There's a few bloopers in here that'll go right over the head of the average townie, but by and large its a close enough to the bone depiction of what we might have to face if border protection systems fail us, and....., how some of us might react.
She's a pretty tough environment to farm in up there, magnificent landscape nevertheless.
So were the sheep, must look up the breed, sort of like a long-woolled Texel with horns.
(Actually, they're Icelandic Sheep!)
Salute to the sheep-breeders of Iceland!