![]() Considering its multiple roles and mobility, Reeder feels the $23,800 tool pays its way. 'The Culta-Weeder loosens up the soil, kills weeds and levels soil for planting,' says Reeder. A third toolbar is the mounting point for rod weeder sections and flex-tine harrow sections. Two ranks of C-shanks with sweeps open soil of the weed root zone. His model has three 12-foot sections, with the two outer wings folding up for transport. The frame resembles the structure and strength of a chisel plow. It displaces, uproots, and pulls out weeds, then leaves them exposed to dry. The trailer-mounted, secondary tillage tool works well for him in many fallow situations. He makes the most of the flexibility of the three-way action of the Calkins Culta-Weeder. Rate and material depends on which weeds hit an economic threshold. He usually applies a herbicide treatment in some parts of his fields about March. He drills in wheat from mid-September through the third week of October as his varied soils reach the right moisture conditions. Reeder's rule is to do tillage as shallowly, as infrequently and with as little soil impact as possible - while still allowing moisture to soak in. Options include a field cultivator, rod weeder, springtooth harrow or a combination tool (Culta-Weeder, below) that is heavier but able to combine more treatments with one pass. The combination of residue levels, soil condition, and surface moisture determines which tools he uses before and after applying fertilizer in April or May. The pass controls winter-annual weeds while maintaining 80 to 90 percent of the residue, and opens the soil to receive the spring rains. He Chisel Plows with wide sweeps as soon as he can in February or March. When he notes random escaped weeds that could cause a problem, he uses a sharp hand hoe. Reeder controls weeds in the stubble by using a tandem disk or Field Cultivator in the fall. The fallow-season schedule fluctuates with moisture conditions, but field work follows in a general progression after harvest in July or August. He rotates in cannery peas, canola or culinary mustard, seeking to use differences in soil cover and root structure to weaken the bindweed patches. He's battling field bindweed in one 160-acre field that has enough moisture for continuous annual cropping. His other weed challengers are various thistles that germinate year-round and the cool-season pests of cheatgrass, goatgrass and wild mustard. His yield was 17 bushels per acre lower where the tarweed was bad, compared with 95 bushels per acre where weeds were under control. It invaded in patches where there had been annual crops or an area of freezeout within the previous 15 years. The fire cleaned up broadleaves and cheatgrass, but seemed to open a niche for tarweed fiddleneck ( Amsinckia lycopsoides), a tough-stemmed, bristly annual. He had burned residue in '93 to control disease on those same acres. ![]() Last time,' is the way he sums up the experience. In '95 he raised 1,000 acres of herbicide-free wheat. A no-herbicide wheat crop isn't in his plan, but he knows its limits in his two-year, wheat-fallow system. 'I'm committed to relying as heavily as we can on mechanical tillage, then using the fewest, safest herbicides we can to maintain production,' says Reeder. Shallower soils in the region lose as much moisture as they gain each year, requiring different techniques. Because he has deep topsoil that retains water well, Reeder can manage residue and tillage to produce a good wheat crop (85-95 bushels per acre) on the alternate production years. This is the Columbia Plateau, a vast region of rolling hills and variable soils in central Oregon and Washington. My area is a wheat-fallow rotation, because we have to wait for a year between crops for enough moisture to plant.' ![]() 'You lose a half-inch of rainfall per year for every mile you are away from the mountains,' he explains. In Clint Reeder's part of northern central Oregon, the Blue Mountains have a lot to do with how farmers farm and control weeds. careful match of weed tools with soil conditions.
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