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Rolla, ND | It's not so much the cab. We need the weight. Pushing a soil probe into two feet of dry clay lifts the pickup quite a bit. We are really dry this fall, when the soil freezes it won't push any noticably harder.
I've somewhat thought of putting an auger setup on the Ranger, but no major advantage to that. Not enough weight to push, 4 wheelers aren't even close to enough weight. Big problem with a setup on a 4 wheeler or utility vehicle is you must run another motor to provide power, some guys do that in pickups too since it's gotten so difficult to add hydralic pumps whether belt driven or pto to pickups. Agvise had the small diameter cylinders built so we can sample with the electric pumps at a reasonable speed.
If we can't drive on the fields, it doesn't work to try and sample anyway, the cores just aren't good. Even with wet tips, most of the time the probe will plug and then you get to beat it out to try and take another. The worst time is the spring when the frost is still in the ground, you drive a frozen plug into the mush just above the frost and sometimes the only thing you can do is throw the probe in a warm spot for a couple of days.
I've always been amazed that with all the money spent on nitrogen that almost no one in the Corn Belt tests deep for nitrogen. Sure there are times you lose it but not all the time. | |
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How we do Hi Tech sampling in North Dakota
