Having become interested in seed farming and later in non-traditional plants, Alfons Peckus and his son Martyns admit that farming – Creative work. By planting a variety of rarely cultivated plants, choosing and improving their care technologies and seed preparation machines, observing nature, nurturing the homestead environment, and not forgetting the history of their ancestors, they create a unique image of the farm.
According to Martyn, the history of the farm begins in 1900, when the reform of moving to single farms took place. The then owners were Marta and Matas Peck. They had 10 children, of whom Martynas and Ona, who took over the farm, ran it during the war, post-war and Soviet periods. This farm is unique in that Martynas and Ona were called “individuals”, that is, they never joined the collective farm and were not members of the collective farm. Most of the land was confiscated, but buildings, machinery and the status of a free peasant remained. Martynas used to say: “I have at least a piece of free Lithuania to save.” Unfortunately, Martyn did not get a free Lithuania. Son Alfonsas, who had to combine his scientific work at the Institute of Physics with the farm, began to help his mother. Already in 1990, as soon as the opportunity arose, the land was reclaimed, and a new phase began with its own discoveries and losses. The first year was very good, but then everything happened. It quickly became clear that you would not be able to maintain the homestead with the existing 18 ha. Thus, the spiral of development began, and the farm, which was a hobby, became a job.
So now the history of the farm is being written by Alfons Peckus and his son Martyns, harmoniously turning the farming circle, and sharing the responsibility for financial accounting with LŽŪKT Alytus r. office consultant Rasuola Bučiene.
“Rasuole will see if the order is in order, she will give comments soon. She knows everything better than me”, Alfonsas says while walking around the farm together with the office consultants and remembers that during the years of farming, she handled the farm’s accounting more than once LŽŚKT consultant in Alytus, Lazdija district offices. Despite their change, none of them were disappointed with their work.
Martyn also said that there are advantages to managing farm accounting in the office: “Real accounting is good for that, it’s like a car, you hand it over to someone else, it’s a little out of reach, but it drives.” It is also important that you can quickly receive various necessary reports and statements of accounts. And the most important thing is peace of mind, that everything is put in its place – where and as it is needed.”
A specific niche is needed
According to the farmers, the enthusiasm for seed production was there from the beginning. The farm sows alfalfa, clover, sedge, millet, winter wheat, edible ryegrass, Italian ryegrass, spelled wheat, mustard, amaranth, buckwheat, ryegrass and other plants. This year, for the first time, farmers sowed rapeseed.
“I don’t want to eat rapeseed oil. A very good plant is a judra. It does not need any chemicals. It makes the best oil,” says Alfons.
Martynas calls some of the plants grown on the farm niche and says that there are many different ways of realizing them. Sometimes you really need them, and sometimes you have to wait. He remembers that he once sold an entire tractor to Holland. Then they decided to grow it instead of rapeseed, but the next year was rainy and it didn’t work out.
Millet is bought for grain or seed. “They are sown for hay, where the soil is acidic – in the districts of Šilalė and Šilute. Very good hay is obtained. It sows late, it grows. Millet tolerates drought very well, likes heat, if it rains and is cold, threshing may be lost. We also tried sowing double plants – millet with clover. The millet was barely visible, and the clover grew tall. Fertilizers became very expensive then. Those clovers by sushie back to earth. The next year, the wheat thanked me,” comments the Pecks.
Exclusive focus on machinery and technology
The machines on the farm are being improved, the ignorant ones are becoming intelligent ones, and the installation of efficient grain cleaners is in the near future. Later – a heated garage.
Farmers say that they have not plowed for more than 20 years. In the last 10 or so three times, he cleared several fields. According to them, plowing is liked by mustard, agile. “We threshed them when we plowed. We tried direct and strip sowing. Maybe after 10 years, it would grow and move,” thinks Martyn and adds that there is no single recipe in agriculture, and nature does not associate itself with dates, as some ordinances now demand from farmers.
Choosing, adapting seed sorting and cleaning machines when growing so many different plants is overwhelming. One of them sorts seeds by color on the farm. All seeds are photographed from both sides and unsuitable ones are blown out with compressed air.
“This is an optical or what is also called a spectral grain cleaner. It came to us when we tried to grow mustard. You won’t be able to do anything with classic cleaning agents, because the mustard grains are different sizes, and the main impurity – sticky lipik – is also different,” Martynas comments on the choice.
He says that they had decided to grow mustard instead of rapeseed, but the pressure caused by the heavy equipment started to put a foot in the clay soil. Martynas brought a crawler tractor from England to avoid pressure. According to him, mustard stops growing when compressed. If the first crops are alfalfa, clover, which have many roots, then nothing, if other plants, mustard grows only on the edges, where tractors do not drive.
To the eye, the grain is indistinguishable, but to the machine it may be. After adding the appropriate camera filters, infrared lamps, the machine can see in the spectrum area invisible to humans. “The factory assembled the machine and wrote the programs for the plants we had at the time. Later, I went to the Italians for a course to learn how to tune the car myself. If the tractor is old, you can install new automatic systems on it, and it will work intelligently, and these machines are improving every year. The newer you buy, the more options you have. To process images, you need very fast electronics, and it is constantly being improved,” says Martynas about the machine’s unique features.
Alfons tells about another technology tested on the farm last year – sowing clover with a drone. According to him, everything is in order, only the process is twice as slow. With a fertilizer spreader, this work is done faster, but you have to make tracks.
Farmers sow clover with wheat when it is already grown. Then the sprouted clovers are small. If it overgrows, there would be a lot of trouble. Alfons remembers a case where it was very dry when the clovers germinated and they dried out, but the alfalfa did not. They are more resistant to drought.
According to the farmers, the big discovery was the soil examination of all the fields. “It is necessary to lime. In one side of the field, the need is 600 kg, in the other – 19 t per hectare. What is our work worth if we decide to spread 5 t equally over the entire field. Without doing ground research, you are working blindfolded. I would think that soil testing should be “voluntary” mandatory”, Martynas expresses his conclusions based on experience.
It is interesting to grow endangered plants
“Farming is even a very creative job,” admits Martynas, who promises to start growing primroses and admits that it would be interesting to grow, for example, meadow daisies or other endangered plants. After commenting that they are growing anyway, he replies: “They will disappear soon. It would be interesting to multiply them.”
Alfons adds his son: “The biggest weed here is wheat. If you’ve worked the field, it still comes out.”
Farmers say that scientists came to test microorganisms. The latter are now very fashionable. All but 3 percent are said to be beneficial to the soil. harmful. “They are not bad, they are bad for us, because they reduce the yield, although they bring order to nature. A wheat field is not in balance, and everyone from mushrooms to hogs is trying to restore that balance,” reasons Martynas.
It is true that special attention is paid to trees in Alfonso’s grandparents’ homestead, which commemorates the history of the family. The forest growing next to it has been walked. Alfons tells about every tree brought from the forest and planted in the homestead, which are dying in the forest due to various diseases and pests, he feels sorry for the fir trees, especially the tallest one, which had to be cut down because the bark-eating typographer attacked. He mentions the unique trees in the garden and tells an exciting story about storks saving each other from an oncoming tractor. We also don’t forget the bees living in the garden and, of course, the history of our family, which is remembered by the century-old farmstead clone.
What a unique farming philosophy of the father and son Pecks, their worldview – from the values that came from the past to the smart farming of today.
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– 2024-05-09 17:18:22
