Piotr Leśny farms several hectares as a hobby near Mogilno in the province. Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship. In the community of lovers of old agricultural technology, he is known for his online activities based on beautifully preserved and restored classics working on his farm, such as Ursus C360 3P, MTZ 82, Fortschritt ZT303 or Massey Ferguson 86. This time, due to the harvest, we focused on on crops and also on the harvest ship, which, despite its age, turns out to be failure-free.
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Winter oats and microbiological preparations
Piotr Leśny decided to sow winter oats, as he says, because it is something new and no one in the area grows it yet. He chose the Radzio variety, which is interesting because it comes from Polish breeding (IHAR-PIB), but was originally registered in the Czech Republic, theoretically present in the National Register, but in practice unavailable in official distribution in Poland.
A farmer's way to improve profitability in these difficult times is to cut costs. Over the years, he has been systematically liming his fields and fertilizing them with manure, and now he benefits from the good soil content and in the case of oats, he has not used conventional fertilization. Instead, he decided on a microbiological preparation, already proven in farm conditions. It contains B acillus, Pseudomonas, Peanibacillus, Azotobakter, Azospirillum and Beijerincka bacteria and, according to the manufacturer, is able to provide plants with up to 50 kg/ha of nitrogen. In addition, the plantation was treated with foliar fertilizer providing 68 g/ha of nitrogen, 135 g/ha of SO3, 9.5 g/ha of boron, 55 g/ha of iron, 25 g/ha of manganese, 4.5 g/ha of molybdenum and 9, 5 g/ha zinc.
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After rapeseed, before corn. We explain emissions in pathological terms
As for plant protection, it was limited to two spring treatments for monocots and dicotyledons, which unfortunately did not eliminate the field poppy, which was a significant agrotechnical problem on Piotr Leśny's farm. The yield that was finally achieved is about 4 t/ha, which, considering the limited inputs, is a satisfactory result for the farmer and, above all, profitable enough to sow winter oats again in the next season.
The nearly 60-year-old combine harvester turned out to be reliable
We have already presented the combine harvester used by Piotr Leśny both on the website farmer.pl and in the Farmer monthly. It is a Massey Ferguson 86 from 1965, which means it will celebrate its 60th anniversary of farming next year. While describing the history of this model, we also delved into the history of a specific example, which, as it turned out, was purchased new by a farmer from Bavaria, mentioned last autumn by the local media as one of the oldest inhabitants of the commune.
Massey Ferguson 86 on Piotr Leśny's farm, photo: Maciej Sacha
Coming back to this year's harvest, despite nearly six decades of operation, the combine has proven to be reliable. Of course, there were minor repairs, but as the farmer says, play in one of the pulleys was detected at the end of the winter barley harvest, and before the oats were ripe, a replacement part was easily purchased and installed. Piotr Leśny is pleased to emphasize that despite the advanced age of the machine, all parts are readily available.
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