Farming ?

Is it common for farmers to run a rock picker after the crop is up? He has been at it for two days on the same 360 acres.

It may depend on how rocky the field is. 360 acres is a huge chunk of land for the East coast. If it was on the East coast , it would be worth 2-3 million dollars.

360 is a small chunk of land here. The guy farms 13,000 acres

Not common around here to run a rock picker on a emerged crop but if there are a lot of stones they may want to remove them. Most don't want to run expensive planters and or drills through fields with lots of stones.

Also it may depend upon the crop. For corn the growing point stays below the ground until almost 4th leaf phase so the crop could have damage but maybe not a significant amount. If it is soybeans with the growing point above the ground, plant loss would be significantly higher.

Bryce

Depends if the picker is two legged

Good one.

Not typical, but not impossible. I don’t personally do it. If he is out there for two days, he can’t help but be scratching up and tramping on a lot of emerged crop. Stone picking is a wandering job, a job where you steer a lot, and skid a lot, and drag a lot.

Just because I and no one I know does it, doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Two days it must be awful rocky, so that must have everything to do with it.

There are plenty of rocks there. Some spots would make a good gravel pit. I think he would have been money ahead to do it in the fall last year. Maybe one of hired guys made him mad. There are some rocks in that field that are bigger than the rock picker. I am sure he could not move them with what he had.

Only up north do you roll your fields as well after planting. This was very common when I was in North Dakota especially on soybeans. So after planted the big rollers come out and push the rocks down so the combine heads would not pick them up. I never saw a picker operating when a crop was emerged but quite often before planting. Farmers south of Iowa can not imagine the crop field sizes of northern farms. I once sat in a combine going over a USDA/ NRCS contract with a producer for over a mile before he assisted the combine turning.

if they took all the rocks outta the neighbors field he'd have a lake.

We did it with tractor n wagon, if rock picker tires fit the rows it will work

I went rock blind a few seasons ago.

The main reason in the north rocks are not picked in the fall is that it is the frost that heaves them up thus picking in the fall adds cost with little benefit. Could well be a roller instead of a picker pushing rocks back into the soil.
A lot of that done here so the expensive haybines and choppers don't have to deal with the field stones.
One reason rocks may have been picked after planting could be due to the really late wet year and the farmer(s) want the crop planted when they can get on the field.
Around here most rocks are picked by hand after planting, especially for the alfalfa seeding. A lot of stones picked here after planting and prior to emergence.
The larger farmers have moved to the mechanical pickers, especially the cash crop farmers as they don't have large labor forces like dairy farmers do and many stones are picked by Hispanics doing extra work between their milking shifts.

Bryce

I would think they would run the picker over the field in the spring or fall after the land is worked. The frost in the winter will push rocks up every year that are present. After picking role the field to keep the remainder down so the harvest equipment are not hitting them during harvest.

Some of these rocks were pushed up 20 years ago. Its not like he is out there every year Picking rock and he puts a very small dent in them when he is there. There are areas you can not step with out stepping on a rock, golf ball to football size. I just never seen any one run a mechanical picker in a wheat field when the crop is 4" tall

Yeah I hear you. That IS the odd thing. And yes frost heaves rocks. But not to the extent ppl are talking. It’s not like yearly you have a whole field re littered with rocks. Just the odd one annually. Sounds like the field was neglected too long, and now he is desperate to save some machinery. If he went Hard in the fall, and picked what was there, the problem would die down. Lol Imo it sounds like he should be growing cows or sheep, not wheat! I have a piece of land like that. In my mind there is little point in trying to put it under cultivation. It gets put to trees, long term grass or hay. Some of it is left wilderness. Make more catching yotes on it than farming it could ever produce.