It’s been the best part of five years since the weather conditions were right for running the Keyline Plough over our paddocks.
During the big drought the ground was too dry and had the consistency of concrete, so the poor old plough would have just bounced over the surface, or dried the soil out even further, had it managed to penetrate.
Then, suddenly, it was wet, wet, wet for over two years and the soil was too soft; the tractor and plough would have caused more damage to the soil than any benefit they may have provided.
Then, finally, a few weeks ago we had ideal conditions. After a long dry spell we had 90mm of rain over a week, followed by another dry couple of weeks and then a deluge.
We left it close to a week to dry out a bit, then ran the plough through – as you can see it’s going nice and deep.
Here you see Jarla just about finished the second paddock (finished first paddock in the foreground).
And the next day, perfect weather for a freshly keyline tilled farm:
Just one day after we tilled two paddocks we copped this for an hour or so, followed by a few more days of steady wet stuff. All sinking into the soil via those lovely furrows, but now the paddocks are too wet and we’ll damage the soil if we get out on it with the tractor, so we’ll park the plough until next season.
