Sunflowers?

[Steve NW WI]

The guy that rents my land showed up today with the disk. He's gonna try planting sunflowers. They're not real common around here, one guy that I know of grows some for biodiesel, that's about it.

We're hitting the hot part of the year here, highs in the 90s are common for the next month or so, and likely to get dry before the crop is mature, what are the chances of success? First frost is generally early to mid October.

I'll put some updates in as things progress through the year. If nothing else, I bet the hunting will be good this fall.

 

[Dalmatian90]

Planting for silage perhaps?

I've seen some fields -- not a lot but more then I expected -- in New York before. My understanding is they're a good option for a silage crop when its too late to plant corn, and you don't need the seeds to mature for silage.

 

[psuiewalsh]

On my wife's side they grow sunflowers in the finger lakes region of NY. They have a dedicated combine and sell them for birdseed and oil.

 

[Genius.]

Do you guys have a harverser for those out your way?

I know nothing about sunflowers except for what I plant in the garden for the kids, but I believe they are 90+ day plants (at least the varietys that I plant)

I'd say July 4 is a little late

 

[Steve NW WI]

Do you guys have a harverser for those out your way?

I know nothing about sunflowers except for what I plant in the garden for the kids, but I believe they are 90+ day plants (at least the varietys that I plant)

I'd say July 4 is a little late

I guess we'll see. He's probably just gonna run em through the flex head. From the little I know about em, a row crop head or sunflower pans would be better, but for relatively small acreage (about 70 total on 2 places), the flex will work, just not that well.

If they get frosted, I'm sure the chopper will show up, but he's going for seed harvest right now. I'll try to find out what length variety he's planting.

 

[Genius.]

Did he just run a disk through those weeds, or did he do a burn down,

 

[Steve NW WI]

It was just disked, but the Landoll did a pretty good job. I'll get some more pics over the weekend. I assume it'll be sprayed at some point, whether pre or post emerge I don't know. The pic looks worse than it is out there mostly, and most of the pressure is foxtail, not much broadleaf pressure to speak of.

 

[bucknfeller]

There are a lot of sunflowers grown around here, not much for harvest, but a lot of commercial hunting outfits put in big dove plots every year. They make an attempt at harvesting them, when the timing is right. Most of them try to make as much mess out of it as possible, like using an old rotted out 3 row corn picker, that puts more on the ground than in the wagon. DNR gave some of them a little trouble a few years back for rotary mowing them, so they got smart. Has to follow typical farming practices, or some such ****.

Most are grown in conventional tillage, I don't see many people no-tilling them. I used to work for a big agri-service here, and I sprayed a lot of those plots. Mostly post plant, pre-emerge herbicides. Dual Magnum, Prowl, and Eptam 7E are a few that I can remember, and I'm pretty sure I remember spraying over the top with Poast.

I recently heard someone talking about "Clearfield Sunflowers", from what I gathered, they are resistant to "Beyond" herbicide, and that can be applied over the top at a certain stage.

 

[Marco]

Walked a 3 acre oats field because of volunteer sunflower seed the birds dropped from the row in the garden, when them buggers are small they look a whole lot like velvetleaf.:bang:

 

[Steve NW WI]

Planting pic from last weekend, Deere 8320 pulling a 1770 planter: