Just got back from Moultrie,GA farm show. As usual lots of expensive new, large equipment. It rained Tuesday so we traveled that day. Went to show Wednesday, got good and tired. Came back today. 400 miles one way.
I'm in SC. We drove across most of GA. The area must have had some dry weather, since crops did not look as tall as in years past. Corn there was long harvested so I don't know about it. Cotton was short. A lot of cotton picked, a lot was not. They spray cotton to kill the leaves and get the bolls to go ahead and mature.
Cotton is picked and the stalks, which are stiff and hard, are rotary mowed. At the show the different makers had large, expensive bat wing mowers displayed. Cotton is made into stacks after picking which are made by large "module builders" which hydraulically pack the cotton into a large haystack looking pile. To protect against rain the top is covered with a heavy tarp. It is moved to the gin for procession by a truck with a tilting bed and moving chains, like Alan's hay mover. IH has a cotton picker that builds smaller modules. John Deere has a huge round baler on the back of the picker that makes a big bale measuring maybe 6 x 6 which is then wrapped around the bale with plastic, not unlike a hay net wrap baler. I only saw round bales in the fields, in addition to the older type modules, which leads me to think that JD is winning the new type system race. I think special equipment is needed by the gin to process the bale.
On the way in, near Lakeland, GA, we saw a grove of olive trees, 8feet? tall and another grove next to it that had just been planted. Some small olive trees were for sale at the farm show, didn't ask price. My question is, where is the market? I know nothing about olives except they taste good and can be pressed into oil, which has been used from biblical times for lamps, among other things.
Did not see hay equipment demonstrated. Three of the manufacturers, JD, MF, and IH had sample bales at their displays. The hay field is Coastal Bermuda which make good bales. If the hay is a little green is makes nice, pretty, tight bales which tells you nothing about the performance of the baler. I asked when the display bales had been baled and found they had been baled from hay cut Friday and baled Monday after proper drying which IMO means a fair test of the baler. All of the bales were about the same in tightness which was very tight and hard packed, which means any of thes balers should perform adequately. Didn't make any effort to see any field demonstration since I thought the hay would be too wet to tell anything.
Amusing sign on antique tractor: "Green is for crops, Red is for tractors"
Soybean crop appeared not to have grown very tall. Beans near me look much better, which is unusual. No soybeans combined anywhere I saw. One field a mile from me in W SC is an early maturing variety and all the leaves are off. I haven't checked any to see if they are ready to combine, but don't think they are. Not unusual here to wait until after frost to cut beans.
KEH
