Compaction

We have finished sowing. A few days later we have to compact the fields whenever it doesn’t rain. The compaction should be carried out in order to keep better the humidity because it helps plants to germinate sooner. This work doesn't require a great effort and it can be done quickly because working speed is very high (about 14km/h) and working width is large. Our roller is about 4,5m working width which is composed of three pieces.

It is the moment to take out some large stones and hide small stones with the purpose of avoiding problems with harvesting.

As you can see in my pictures, we use a disc roller whose advantages are the following ones:

• Seeds is better compact.
• The air can't get seeds.
• The soil can absorb better humidity.
• It can be used with wet soil.

You can use plain roller as other farmers use but my recommendation is using a disc roller for this season.

You can watch a video from here: Video1

Joaquín y Herminio Tribaldos (Twins' Farm)

Planting garlic

Coming this time the cold becomes more intense, and the sowing garlic starts. In my opinion, our area is the best and the most productive in Spain. "Las Pedroñeras Garlic" has achieved a great reputation in all Europe and in the rest of the world with our brand "Coopaman".

It usually rains; therefore we cannot work with too much mud. These days are short and we have to work against the clock.

Few days before starting sowing we have to prepare the seed. This starts drying garlic, after that, we have to thresh them and finally, we will get garlic cloves which will be sown.

Our garlic planting is JJ Broch (other known brand is Erme from France) with 5 rows that lets to sow about 4 ha/day. The biggest problem is we have to fill containers so often therefore we waste/lose too much time with this item. These containers have a capacity 40 Kg. with a small trapdoor to regulate the garlic seeds level inside. We are using about 600 kg of garlic/ha. The distance between rows is of 47cm. and the distance between garlic is about 5cm (Distance in the plantation row can be regulated from 6 to 15 cm, through a very easy pinion shift operation). We can regulate it to obtain the most appropriate plantation depth too. Garlic is sowing with tweezers which get garlic from container to ground. We can change these tweezers with a very easy access and dismount. There are 11 different available sizes. The transmission is developed by 2 driving wheels with a perfect behavior even in the hardest conditions.

Mechanical garlic planting is not very accurate but we can work faster, cheaper and easier than sowing manually, the manner we planting 20 years ago. Nowadays other models are been developed with pneumatic system getting greater precision respect of the distance between garlic.

You have a guide that is even more detailed, updated and comprehensive on 15 health benefits of garlic according to science, and includes 5 delicious garlic recipes. It is over 6,000 words and completely free. You can find it here.

You can watch three videos from here: Video1 Video2 Video3

Joaquín y Herminio Tribaldos (Twins' Farm)

Garlic begins: fertilizing!!

At this time, we have finished sowing cereals and the following task is sowing garlic, although before that, we must fertilize appropriately the fields. So, we have been pulling the first fertilizers with the following features:

• 15% Nitrogen (N)
• 15% Posphorus (P) 
• 15% Potassium-KNO3 (KNO3)

This activity allows the garlic to grow with total warranty, however during their life we have to continue fertilizing but we will talk about this item when the time comes. We have used about 400 kg/ha of this fertilizer. I think it is a good fertilizing!

We have used Cleris AD 4000 fertilizer spreader that has a hopper volume of 3,55 m3 (loading capacity about 4.300kg). Sometimes we have used Cleris AD 6000 fertilizer spreader which is more modern but with a similar performance. The big difference is it has a hopper volume of 5,25 m3 (loading capacity of 6.300kg). Other key features are: reinforced gearbox, easy and simple adjustment, stainless steel spreading discs, robust and reliable construction, independent hydraulic opening and closing, working width from 10m to 18m. These fertilizer spreaders are well know in my area, they work very fine and allow us to work a long time without uploading them again. Our Agrotron 85 can work very easily with them and we can get a working speed of 12 km/h without problems and with a PTO configuration of 540 r.p.m.

You can watch two videos from here: Video 1    Video 2

Joaquín y Herminio Tribaldos (Twins' Farm)