Chipping Stalks ?

[Brown Thumb]

Well my wife has been up my ars for me hooking up the wood chipper. She has a lot of work to do.
I got to change the blades, started on that tonight. It is just one of those Chinese 3pt hitch choppers, actually works pretty good. Needs a little LTC. Once in a while.
But back on track, I was thinking of cutting the baccy stalks down and chipping them as i go and letting the chips from the Baccy Stalks be fertilizer for next yr. Is that a Good Idea ??
??

 

[BigBonner]

We used to throw all our stalks back on our tobacco ground , but when Black shank started getting so bad , farmers went to putting them on pasture land .
They do have a lot of fertilizer in them and are well worth using as compost .
You can also throw them on the yard and the grass will green up and grow .

If disease , I would use them somewhere else . If no disease use them anywhere .

Here is some reading on stalks
http://www2.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/agr/agr23/agr23.htm

 

[Jitterbugdude]

Larry has a good point about possible tobacco diseases. On the other hand almost any Amish farm stand in the Lancaster area will sell you a 50# bag of tobacco stem mulch for cheap.

 

[Smokin Harley]

If there is any ANY kind of disease or infestation in it ,I would burn it ,then use the ash in the compost but I would not use it "green" directly .

 

[Michibacy]

I've always just thrown the stalks back on the soil they came from. After the first frost I light them up and return the nutrients to the ground disease or not. Haven't had any issues thus far.

As for chipping them, make sure it's not too green (depending on your chipper) they might tangle on the rotor. That's a big issue I see with the ones I sell, guys either put some really stringy stuff in their chippers and shear a bolt, or hog it down with something 2x the size the machine is rated for (the tractor AND the chipper)

Happy...chipping

 

[Brown Thumb]

I was worried about diseases also. The only thing I had was frenching on a couple of plants that I know of.
i guess I will just chip them out in the field. Past years I pulled roots and all out. I cannot do that anymore due to my back.
I am then going to till it then grab the roots after tilling or should I leave the roots. Will they rot away over the winter.
Mike, I will let my wife know so she does not jamb her up.
It is a 6 in. chipper. But being Chinese made I try not to put anything over 3 in. In her.
Over 3 In. Is firewood.

 

[BigBonner]

Black shank is the main reason we don't put stalks back on a field , but if no black shank it is ok to put stalks back on the tobacco field .

Roots we just harrow up and sew wheat as a cover crop or if the ground need to rest a few years we will sew seed for hay alfalfa , clover , timothy , orchard grass , etc in late fall or early spring . But we have the cover crop to keep the soil from eroding until the hay crop gets big enough to take over .
The root are in soil that contains black shank . The soil will need to rest for several years to help with black shank problems . Black shank remains in the soil and slowly dies off but most of the time never completely .
Black shank will be no problem in areas that have never had it . It is mainly carried by dirty ground working equipment , Deer , dogs and wild life can scatter it by walking through a field .

Black shank was getting to be a big problem when tobacco production was at its peak . Now production is way down and fields rest longer and most haven't been used since the big producing years went out .

 

[Brown Thumb]

Thank You, Larry. Good article. I am going to store them until spring in my lean to stalk harvest shed per say.
I can never get a break, Changing the blades on these Chinese chippers is a PITA. I stripped the Allen key hole in the bolt and had tear her totally apart to weld the socket allen in to the bolt. Took two nights for one bolt.
I got it back together last night and hooked her up to the tractor last night. Took her outside for a test run to make shure nothing falls apart. A bud calls in the meantime and I am B/S with him on the phone. Then I hear a SQUEAL and the tractor locks up dead instantly. Jacob looks at me, he knew it was bad by the expression on my face. I turned the PTO off and tried to start her. Locked up tight. I looked at the gauges water temp never moved so I checked the antifreeze level. Nothing in the bottle or rad. I let her sit for about 2 six packs, That fixes everything for a few hrs. And she fired up. Found a small pinhole in the rad. I have never seen a drip from this machine. 600 hundred bucks for a rad. I fixed it for almost nothing.
Shredding Stalks finally. Still have 2/3 of the crop to cut down.

 

[deluxestogie]

Your son will remember the tractor radiator for the rest of his life. Good experience.

The stalk chip looks like good stuff. If you can get it to actually compost, then it would kill anything that might be in there.

Bob

 

[Brown Thumb]

Your son will remember the tractor radiator for the rest of his life. Good experience.

The stalk chip looks like good stuff. If you can get it to actually compost, then it would kill anything that might be in there.

Bob

The stalks did not decompose much, I wonder if I put them around the the plants if it would keep the critters away, snails groundhogs ect.