Sunflowers preparation

In our area, harrowing and sowing tasks for sunflowers are beginning. As we spoke before about sowing sunflowers, Cuenca is the area where there is the largest field with this crop. We always sowed it to rotate our fields but this year we decided not to sow it. Its price is low (about 324€/t), besides summer is very dry and​ fields are stressed after harvesting​ tasks​. We think we will sow sunflowers again when they have a right price (for example, 450€/t). Another option, in our area, is sowing high oleic sunflower. The price of seeds are more expensive but it has a good price when you sell your crop (about 412€/t).

As you can see in our pictures or video, Enrique is ploughing his old barley stubble. If he wants to have a really good seedbed, he will need to harrow it using cultichissel a few days before sowing works. He is using a mini shallow plough what allows him to work without problems at a depth of 20cm besides it turns over the stubble. ​Also we use this tool but in other occasions we used discs plough because it works better when soil is wet.

Some of our followers are surprised (e.g., Diego, Dani and Pedro) when they see our ploughing works to sow sunflowers. They carry out direct sowing or minimum tillage so they think we do too much work.  

What do you think about that? How do you prepare fields to sow sunflowers in other Spanish areas or in other countries?

Versión en español.

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