Rural Buddha's amazing adventure in the maize

[Rural Buddha]

I've been reading up on maize as a feed crop for anaerobic digestion (AD) - harvesting may take place a little later than for animal feed. There's little (no) wilderness around where I am so after reading a diary about growing in a maize crop I plan to find fields growing it for a AD plant a few miles away. My search for the diary also brought up @tescoturnip's plan to do the same with a few of his beans in this competition. As mentioned in the diary I will look for gaps where the seed drill has missed a chunk of field and pop a couple in perhaps three or more fields, depending on what I find. To make my search for bare spots easier I'll fly my 'buzzard' drone with a camera looking down and review the footage at home. Several 'excuses' ready for anyone too interested in why I'm flying over the fields.

Real and fake

 

 

 

Good luck everyone

[Revive]

@Rural Buddha good luck dude.. hope you find what your looking for..maybe we can get some buzzard shots at some point 

[tescoturnip]

Cool buzzard! I agree be interested in what aerial shots you can get.

Hopefully harvested a bit later for you than where I'll be, should let them get to full potential with right strains. 

What beans you planning in using? 

 

Best of luck 

[KC]

You don't know if they do an owl version do you? That would be cool 

[Rural Buddha]

 

19 hours ago, Revive said:

@Rural Buddha good luck dude.. hope you find what your looking for..maybe we can get some buzzard shots at some point 

 

Thanks @Revive - I'll see if I can fly and take photos at the same time - no autopilot on the 'buzzard'  

Hope the local buzzards don't take too much exception to mine - either to kill or shag

 

8 hours ago, tescoturnip said:

Cool buzzard! I agree be interested in what aerial shots you can get.

Hopefully harvested a bit later for you than where I'll be, should let them get to full potential with right strains. 

What beans you planning in using? 

 

Best of luck 

 

Thanks @tescoturnip - I'll post some stills from the video (and some video too) when I have some. I've asked panik for some fast autos, not got them yet so don't know what I'll be growing. As it may be mid June before I can plant in the maize there's still plenty of time.

 

8 hours ago, KC said:

You don't know if they do an owl version do you? That would be cool 

 

Can't find an owl @KC - another hawk/falcon that looks more real. This is a pure glider, no motor, still radio controlled for flying off hills, cliffs, mountains, etc.

[Ccs141]

Good luck man hope this year turns out for you 

[Rural Buddha]

Thanks @Ccs141 - it's my first year doing a proper guerrilla grow. My outdoor adventures are only a couple of pots on a roof in Greece - chickened out when the sweet aroma got a bit noticeable. And a completely useless attempt in a greenhouse, both 20+ years ago.

 

Took a ride around the countryside today looking for likely fields that might be planted for maize. Saw around 10 fields that are drilled but with no sign of what the crop will be. A couple of fields with a stream close by, these if they're maize could be ideal.

 

Received a package this morning - thanks @panik. I decided to buy some as I don't see the reason why we should get free seeds to join in a competition - nice of course but I thought I'd buy as I've never bought from RGS before and I like to support sellers when they're offering us comps. to have fun in with prizes

 

Also received another package with the 'spy' camera that I'll fit to the buzzard for reconnaissance flights. Will be doing some tests in the next couple of days so I'll post images/video if it works - flying high in a different way

 

I've gone for Freezland IBL S1 for it's early harvest date (hopefully), we'll see how the Auto G.S.C. goes at 100+ days.

Now to read up on maize growing and try to judge when to pop the seeds and propagate to be a sensible size to plant out when the maize has had it's last spray treatment.

 

Think the freebie Honduras seeds (Ace Seeds?) will be for indoors sometime as harvest says mid-November and would prefer a warmer climate for outdoor growing anyway.

[Ccs141]

Nice man hopefully gonna be a good year 

[Rural Buddha]

Got the 'eagle' flying today - got it flying very badly at first but at least I didn't crash it. Then managed to short out and burn a wire to cinders - muppet - forgot some safety procedures, lesson learnt. Made repairs and checked flight settings and had a successful 2nd flight - except the battery needed recharging so just a take-off, low circuit and land - no drama this time.

 

During the first flight 2 buzzards came to check me out, I tried to get above them so they might have appeared on the camera but the 'eagle' was all over the place, I could fly it but wasn't always able to put it exactly where I wanted. Hopefully tomorrow, if the weather allows, I'll get some video that doesn't require a sick-bag to watch - the camera points directly down so this screenshot means I was far from level flight  I was probably around 200ft high here.

 

Yellow field is rape, dark brown are planted but crop is only just emerging. Light brown fields are wheat or barley - should be green but considering the lens on the key-fob camera is about 1.5mm in diameter it's amazing what it does show. Date/time stamp has to be set every time out, I forgot to change it from it's default.

 

Going to have to think about getting some seeds popped and growing ready for when the maize has had its last spray in about a month or so's time.

[Revive]

1 hour ago, Rural Buddha said:

Got the 'eagle' flying today - got it flying very badly at first but at least I didn't crash it. Then managed to short out and burn a wire to cinders - muppet - forgot some safety procedures, lesson learnt. Made repairs and checked flight settings and had a successful 2nd flight - except the battery needed recharging so just a take-off, low circuit and land - no drama this time.

 

During the first flight 2 buzzards came to check me out, I tried to get above them so they might have appeared on the camera but the 'eagle' was all over the place, I could fly it but wasn't always able to put it exactly where I wanted. Hopefully tomorrow, if the weather allows, I'll get some video that doesn't require a sick-bag to watch - the camera points directly down so this screenshot means I was far from level flight  I was probably around 200ft high here.

 

Yellow field is rape, dark brown are planted but crop is only just emerging. Light brown fields are wheat or barley - should be green but considering the lens on the key-fob camera is about 1.5mm in diameter it's amazing what it does show. Date/time stamp has to be set every time out, I forgot to change it from it's default.

 

Going to have to think about getting some seeds popped and growing ready for when the maize has had its last spray in about a month or so's time.

Oi oi she's up in the air.. cool pic man, look forward to seeing some more once you have mastered the flight of the bird 

[Rural Buddha]

Had another read of the UK Cornfield Grow (maize or sweetcorn rather than wheat or barley type corn). Planting out depends on when the maize gets its final weed spray. Found a site like this for farmers - not going to use the f-word near to the other f-word as search engines might pick up on it - their logo below. Could be useful for an idea of what they're doing when. I may not be looking to plant out until mid to late June so will have to gauge when to pop some seeds and propagate the babies so they're not too big to cart around to the plots - when I find them!

 

Took the eagle for another fly today and managed to break a propeller blade off on landing I'd forgotten to turn the camera on so came back in to switch it on, I was going to land a few feet short so powered up to save myself a walk, the prop then stopped in a bad position - vertical rather than horizontal - so as the bird landed it stopped abruptly and bust the prop off.  Another lesson learnt - have a spare or two with me.

 

I will have some video footage soon.

 

[Rural Buddha]

A successful proper learning flight - I can fly well, now to hone my flying technique for hunting suitable areas to plant in maize fields. There's little structure to the flight in this video, ie I didn't go up and down one particular field looking for bare places. These are wheat or barley fields anyway, this was purely a trial for the camera setup.

 

https://vimeo.com/552352526

I've tried to embed this video like YouTube ones but I get this error 'The link could not be embedded because an error occurred on vimeo.com' - all my searches so far haven't produced an answer. Is this a Vimeo error @Joolz or a setting in the forum software that's blocking vimeo?

 

 

 

 

[Rural Buddha]

Thought it time I at least popped some beans  A few of the fields I looked at have now sprouted a crop - beet or some other root crop, not maize so the hunt goes on.

 

I'll keep my first time guerrilla grow simple with just 6 plants, hoping to spread these around 3 different fields - when I find them!

 

3 x Freezeland & 3 x Girl Scout Cookies - 2 hour soak in pHd to 6.0 rain water with 1:250 CANNA Rhizotonic then in to kitchen paper between plates with heated pad underneath as airing cupboard not always warm as gas boiler off. Got over warm, when I looked yesterday steam came off the paper when I lifted the top plate! Put two folded towels between heat pad and plate now. 2 of each strain have tails and will be popped in to pots later today. I chose one bean from each strain that was smaller than the others in the pack, I think these two haven't cracked yet, we'll see if a couple (few) more days in damp paper will get them out.

 

An ancient t-shirt bought in Majorca in the 80s probably  

[JJuknewbie]

Amazing man good luck my brother. Will be interesting to see the progress. Have a good bank holiday 

[Revive]

@Rural Buddha hey dude.. How's that bird comming along? Has it been useful to ya?