mzldr4life
Active Member
I bought this 45 acre property October of 22. Since then I’ve got a cash renter farming the 12.5 acres of tillable. He’s a small farmer with 6 row equipment, he also does some contract work for the DNR, planting plots for them. Been a great working relationship so far -had him leave 3/4 acre or so of standing corn this year. It’s an interesting property in Central Iowa with a creek running through it. My challenge is the farm was neglected for many years. A little horse riding here and there, utv trail, other than that, no one hunted it or did any improvements to it. Here are a couple photos of what I’ve been up to. There was a 2.5 acre field or so to the west of the tillable field that had just been flat out neglected for quite some time. No hay production, not enrolled in CRP, just let the brome grass go and the locust and black walnut were getting big and out of hand. The summer photo is one I took last year when I was looking at buying the property. I got my skid loader and a buddies tree puller and went to work. Pulled around 200 trees and have been cleaning up the edges with the brush cutter on the skid. Been able to get a lot of good honey locust firewood as well! I left a few trees as well on the timber edges to allow for scrape trees - several of them have rubs and have been scrape trees already. My cash renter helped me out and pulled a 4 bottom plow through to help get the ground ready for spring. This is my first time establishing new ground that had been overgrown. Right now, my plan is to have this “new” field planted into beans along with the main field next year and then hand broadcast in brassicas late summer. I’m also thinking about planting a 15-20 wide strip of RC big rock on the two fence lines to help with screening. Curious what your guys recommendations are to help with getting this field established. Thanks!
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