When the weather breaks, the snow melts and the temperatures start to rise, farmers get the itch to get out and “play”. Whether it’s hooking the tractor up to the plows or harrows, seeing the stacks of seed waiting to be planted or the greening of the grass – it’s tough to hold a farmer back from getting out in the field.
But before we do, there’s a little work that needs to happen in order to make sure the fields are in tip top shape for the season. In addition to applying manure to the fields to enhance its organic matter and nutrient, which we’ve talked about here, farmers also make improvements to their fields to enable them to be more productive.
One thing they do is “pick rock”. This is probably every farm kids’ most despised job on the farm as it entails walking every inch of the field to find rocks that are obtrusive and could do harm to the equipment. The task is exactly as it sounds, when you find a large rock, you bend over and pick it up, then toss into a bucket loader or wagon that hauls it away. The rocks are heavy and the acres are long, but they need to be removed from the field, and you’d be surprised how many “rocks” grow in a field over the course of a year!
Another thing farmers do is clean up the hedgerows, or the trees that line a field. We will trim limbs or remove entire trees that may be encroaching a field taking up valuable real estate that could otherwise be growing valuable crops. By thinning out the hedgerows, farmers are allowing adequate sunlight to enter the field, which increases our crop yields, and it helps prevent large limbs from falling into the field as well, which could wreak havoc on equipment.

Installing drainage tile in a farm field using plastic tubing. The tubing or “tile” helps move excess water out of the field and into ditches.

This is an aerial shot of two farm fields. The field at the bottom has older tile and very little of it, while the field at the top has tile every 70 feet. The darker spots are still very wet; the grey areas are dry or drier. Tiling fields allows farmers the chance to enter the fields earlier to plant and helps achieve higher yields at harvest! Photo from Potential Ag.

Farming isn’t left to just the boys! Girls enjoy just as much getting out and playing in the dirt on the big tractors too!