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Pvafarm

Posted 9/25/2023 08:32 (#10415355)
Subject: Flew covers on yesterday with a drone

Southeast WI

I've had these cover vs no cover strips established for over a decade - I know I talk about them a lot so apologize if I bore some of you. There's been some interest from folks at the UW to test for soil health parameters since 3 strips have never had covers and 6 strips in this particular field have been covered every year since summer of 2011.

After pulling soil samples this spring to run tests, John Gaska from Shawn Conleys Soybean/Small Grains program asked me if I'd be interested in trying to fly different covers on the beans at leaf drop with their drone. The WI Corn and Soybean groups purchased a drone to be used by the UW Crops Programs to test the validity of this for different uses in production ag. John had to get his pilots license first so it took a bit to get the program going - the drone is capable of pesticide spraying and also has the ability to spread seed. Lot of research will be done in the next couple years.

John was able to come out yesterday to fly the covers on. We put the crimson/red clover mix on 3 of the cover strips and after soy harvest I'll drill my normal cereal rye in the other strips. We missed half leaf drop by a week due to unforeseen circumstances, but with 0.3" of rain already this morn I think that will be enough to germ the clover mix. John came out this summer and marked the field boundaries with rtk gps so I expect the application to be accurate. The drone has a 25' spread pattern at best so he set it to spread 15' and went back and forth on each strip for good coverage. Even flying at 8-10' wind drift can happen with small seeds.

I'll post pics of cover growth as it happens. I hope the young plants aren't snuffed out by the harvest residue as we are prob 10 days from harvest.