Lauren Justice
John Binkley, left, shows a reporter how to plant onions at Equinox Community Farm in Waunakee. Andy Benson drives the tractor.
From a seat just a few inches above the recently tilled farm field, John Binkley reaches into a tray on his lap, grabs an onion seedling and puts it into a freshly watered hole in the ground.
He’s gentle but firm, pushing the seedling’s roots down into the dirt while making sure its leaves are pointing up toward the sky.
Then, he does it again with another seedling. And again and again, repeating the task hundreds of times on this early spring afternoon. He’ll do it thousands of more times over the next few months.
For Binkley, the owner of Equinox Community Farm in Waunakee, and his crew — as well as thousands of other vegetable farmers across the state — April is the beginning of another planting season.
For the past three years, Equinox has used a device called a “water wheel transplanter” to save time and keep its rows of broccoli, brussels sprouts and other vegetable seedlings straight.
Dragged by a 58-horsepower tractor, the transplanter is an impressive yet simple contraption. About the size of a small flatbed trailer, it has three large wheels lined with hollow spikes that simultaneously dig and water holes, readying them for pre-grown seedlings. On the back of the transplanter are a couple of seats for those doing the planting. Above them are racks to hold trays of seedlings and two yellow 80-gallon tanks that leak water out of the spiked wheels as they dig into the earth.
For a pro like Binkley, the process is simple. “Just grab the [seedling] plugs, stick them in the little puddles of water, and try to keep up,” he instructs.
With a handful of the onion plugs ready in my right hand and my left hand set to plant them, the tractor pulls off slowly and the three spiked wheels create wet pockets in the dirt about every six inches.
I don’t keep up for long. My hand quickly becomes caked in wet mud, making it difficult to feel for new plugs in time to put them in the next hole. Adding to my difficulty, I need to keep looking back and forth between the tray and the ground, causing me to miss even more holes. It also doesn’t help that the chair I’m in wobbles, and I worry I could end up face-down in the mud at any moment.
Binkley has none of these troubles. He deftly plants each seedling, even doing two rows at a time. “Don’t worry about the ones you miss,” he says, likely for my benefit. “We’ll walk back over the rows and fill any we didn’t get with the transplanter.”
Using the machine, now fairly common among vegetable farmers, has advantages beyond just saving time. “Before we got it, we would use two strings and a measuring tape,” says Binkley, who’s owned the farm for eight years. “The rows were never straight or parallel, but they were close enough.”
And instead of sitting down in the transplanter, “we were bending over all the time,” he says.
Binkley estimates his production has grown by 20% since he’s started using the transplanter, but doesn’t give the machine full credit, as weather and other factors play a role.
“With the variety of what we plant, there’s always going to be something that does well and something that does poorly” because of the weather, Binkley says.
Weather delayed the planting a bit this year. “It was super warm, then cold and rainy, and we can’t plant when it’s wet,” he says. “Fortunately, it dried out not too far behind schedule.”
Rain is ideal immediately after planting. “It would be great if we could get about half to three-quarters of an inch of rain right now,” says Binkley as we’re finishing up. “That would be perfect.”
Vegetables grown at Equinox: onions, brussels sprouts, kale, swiss chard, kohlrabi, peppers, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and more
Acres planted: 32
Row length: 150 feet
Distance between rows: 15 inches
Holes dug per row: About 300
Planting season: April through September
