Capillary Action In Plants

Machinery firms to reveal new kit at Cereals 2011

Whether it's a new drill to get crops off to the best start, a replacement sprayer to help plants realise their full potential, or a change of combine to speed up harvest, there's something for anyone looking to re-equip.

"A big proportion of the 23,500 or more visitors who come to Cereals 2011 are key decision makers or professional operators whose opinions count," says event director Jon Day. "They make a high quality audience, and our exhibitors are certainly addressing their needs."

As well as 10ha of working demonstrations there are hundreds of stands offering the latest equipment, each manned by staff ready to advise. And visitors can compare and contrast more than 50 of the latest self-propelled, mounted and trailed sprayers being demonstrated in the Syngenta Sprays & Sprayers Arena.

John Deere New Holland's CX5000 and CX6000 range of conventional combines will make their UK public debut at Cereals 2011. The five- and six-walker machines are aimed at farms of 200 to 600ha. The CX6090 is the biggest, powered by an SCR-equipped FPT Cursor 9-litre engine developing 333hp. It has a 9300-litre grain tank capacity; maximum header width is 7.3m. All models get a new cab with CommandGrip and IntelliView screen.

Massey Ferguson A new concept in combine harvester automatic levelling is being introduced on Massey Ferguson's new 7360 and MF 7370 Beta ParaLevel models. The system compensates for slopes up to 20% using a parallelogram linkage connecting the front wheel hubs to the chassis. In transport mode, the combine lowers and narrows the track width and is capable of a top road speed of 25km/hr. In working mode the system raises and lowers automatically with a wider track. The combines also feature new engines with Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR), and a new electronic control and operating terminal.

Amazone Amazone is launching its new Generation 2011 sowing technology, which sees a new RDS (roller drill system) featuring on its revamped D9, AD, AD-P and Cirrus drills. The system uses a wedge ring to consolidate soil ahead of the coulter to provide the seed with water via capillary action. RoTeC Control high-pressure coulters sow seed into the smooth groove left by this reconsolidated strip, followed by the Exact or Roller harrow to cover the seed. This allows smooth sowing and optimum seed placement even at high speeds, says the company.

Vegetable Gardening For Beginners – 6 Easy Tips To Start You Off

Healthy vegetable gardens do more than provide a beautiful area in your yard. They repay your labor with nutritious food and a healthy varied diet. Vegetable gardeners are in tune with the environment, giving back to the soil what they take from it. Abundant vegetable gardens start with healthy, rich soil. Compost and mulch contribute to that natural wealth.

About 11,000 years ago, the first farmers began to select and cultivate desired food plants in the southwest Asian Fertile Crescent – between the ancient Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Although we believe there was some use of wild cereals before that time, the earliest crops were barley, bitter vetch, chick peas, flax, lentils, peas, emmer, and wheat. About 9,000 years ago, Egyptians began to grow wheat and barley. About the same time, farmers in the Far East began to grow rice, soy, mung, azuki, and taro.

Then, about 7,000 years ago, ancient Sumarians established the first organized agricultural practices that made large-scale farming possible. Of particular note, they established irrigation as a way to nurture crops where none were possible before. Vegetable gardeners today use many of the same techniques established in early history. But today’s vegetable gardeners have millennia of experience behind them. Trial and error today is success or failure at the margins. Failure is not disaster.

As in centuries passed, a successful vegetable gardener cultivates the garden before planting for three main reasons: to eliminate weeds, to distribute air and nutrients throughout the soil, and to conserve moisture. Preparation of the soil is the single most important step in assuring abundant harvests.

Weeds are the most powerful enemy of a healthy vegetable garden. Letting them multiply in your vegetable garden will create much work and disappointment through the growing season. And when your vegetables begin to grow, removing weeds can your new vegetable plants beyond repair. Weeds also steal the precious nutrients necessary to produce healthy vegetables.

Rather than sacrificing the new garden to a patch of weeds, the successful vegetable gardener will cultivate the bed often, breaking up the soil to maintain healthy air, moisture, and heat to facilitate desirable chemical processes that produce abundant plant food. Ancient growers learned by trial and error the importance of keeping the soil loose around young plants. Early farmers deposited rotten fish beneath their crops as fertilizer and then used tools of shell and stone to nurture healthy soil and get plentiful air to the roots of their crops.

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