Week ending February 25th...

Believe it or not, we were in the fields this week. Our area is very dry and recent warmer temperatures allowed us to sneak in the fields to level the tile lines that were installed last fall. Later in the week applied anhydrous ammonia on the field that was recently tiled. Now all our corn fields are ready to be field cultivated and planted when the calendar and weather are right.

We also cleaned out our only bin of beans and hauled them to the Illinois River at Beardstown. We have a few bins left to empty out, but not a lot...

Applying Anhydrous Ammonia (Nh3) on our Lathom field

Loading a truck with soybeans from the bins at Reiser's

Bob disking bottom ground that was too wet to work last fall

Week ending February 18th...

This past week we attended the National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville, Kentucky. It is a great way for us to generate new ideas or just improve upon practices we are already implementing. The five hour drive down and back is not too bad either as we call that our farm's "winter conference." With all the hustle and bustle of farming it's rare to get 10 hours together to make decisions and bounce ideas off each other. Below are some pictures I took of new or interesting products unveiled at the farm show.

The most intriguing item we saw; Gerginhoff's innovative corn head design that DOES NOT require you to follow the rows. It was quite a hit with visitors at the show. Unfortunately, it will not be commercially available until 2015. This is truly pushing the limits of conventional thinking of following the rows...

We don't have a skidsteer, but I thought this was pretty neat. I sent this picture to my friend Adam Ploog who has cattle in Iowa and uses their skidsteer all the time. His comment was that while it looked cool, it would be hard to get manure all over it...


A Husqvarna chainsaw with a six foot bar and chain. Not sure who could operate this by them self, but it was certainly a novelty.

Week ending February 11th...

Last week I attended Farm Journal's Top Producer Seminar in Chicago. The many speakers all had impressive and thought provoking presentations. Most touched on the state of our economy, what the future food demands of China will look like, and how the next farm bill might be crafted. Of course they also touched on current land prices and where they envision the trend will go. Many thought land prices were near the top, while only one proclaimed that land had another two thousand dollars an acre improvement.

I've also posted a couple pictures of my friend, Ant Bowker who farms in Southern Africa. He reports that his crop looks fantastic and could be one of the best ever. I think it is really interesting to see how other farmers in the world are producing their crops.

It remains quiet around the farm with a little grain being hauled to the river from our bins. February continues to be one of the months where a lot of our input suppliers host meetings. We plan to head to Louisville, Kentucky this week for the National Farm Machinery Show. Have a great week everyone!

Joseph Prusacki, Director of the USDA NASS defending the results of the recent crop report at the Top Producer Seminar in Chicago

Ant Bowker planting on his farm in South Africa

A little bonus, this is a picture of my Great Great Grandpa in his car - cira 1914

Winter Update...

I apologize for not updating our blog in a couple weeks. We have been busy taking care of first of the year invoices and working on a few machinery trades. Otherwise, we have continued to take care of odd jobs around the shop. Most of our corn that was to be delivered from our bins was hauled in December and we have had little to move this month. The weather here has been extremely variable; one day it is 60 degrees and the next it is 20. It has snowed only once so far and a few days later a 50 degree lightning and thunderstorm melted all the snow.

My true reason for not posting in a while is that my mother was recently diagnosed with an inoperable glioblastoma multiforme tumor in her brain. It was quite a shock to us all as one might imagine. We have been working through things with the doctors at Memorial Hospital and they have all been wonderful. They quickly put mom on a radiation and chemotherapy regiment and she has been responding well to the treatments. Mom has an army of friends throughout the Ag industry and it has been truly moving to see everyone respond to mom's recent diagnosis with offers to help. Thank you to all who have reached out to us.

Kermit Long from the Prentice Machine shop installing warranty updates to our 20 row strip-till applicator

Christmas...

Mid December...

Now that the tillage and fertilizer activities have concluded, you would think life around the farm would be a little slower. But in reality we have been very busy. Our main activity has been hauling corn to both the Illinois River terminals located in Beardstown as well as the rail terminal in Waverly. Annually we sell a large amount of corn in the month of December. We do this to help cash flow, but most importantly we move grain during December because rarely is the Illinois River froze. As we get into January and February the river can sometimes freeze and carry large chunks of ice down from the north. This creates havoc for the barge freight and often even though you can deliver it to the terminal, they have no way to move it down the river because barges can not be moved.

We have also been busy cleaning up the remainder of fall machinery and catching up on year end book work. December also seems to be the "meeting" season as we have been attending numerous marketing seminars and also the pre end of the year appointments with the accountants. Earlier in the week we attended 1st Farm Credit Service's annual Outlook seminar in Peoria and listen to both Dr. David Kohl from Virginia Tech and Dr. Steve Johnson from Iowa State. Their presentations were very thought provoking, but unfortunately both centered around the financial ciaos in Europe and other events throughout the world that are currently affecting our commodity market. We also learned about new crop insurance changes as well as a few new crop insurance products for 2012.

No snow has been seen in our area yet, but they are forecasting an inch for this evening. The soils are still dry in our immediate area with no tiles running. We would welcome rain to help recharge the soils as we go into winter. By "re-charging" the soils with water during the late fall and winter months it helps to ensure a good start to the next year's growing season.

Loading corn into the semi from the grain bin on the Lathom farm

Filling in a ditch on the Atwood farm
It will soon have a tile installed where the original ditch was located

Thanksgiving Update...

There has been a flurry of activity around the farm since my last post. Precision Drainage has wrapped up our tile project and has moved on to their next assignment. We have also started and finished all our anhydrous ammonia applications and our fields that are slated to be planted to corn in 2012 are ready for their winter slumber. We have also removed the final fence rows on our Greenfield farms with the help of our neighbor, JL Ford. Thanks to him for the use of his skid steer and all his attachments which made quick work of the rotten and buried fence rows. Harvest equipment continues to be cleaned up and put away along with more attention being focused on year end book work and planning for the 2012 season. This morning we were able to go up in a plane and take some aerial pictures of our recent tile project. The aerial shot really gives you the scope and size of the project versus my pictures on the ground. A few hours after we landed the chisel plow pulled in and began leveling the laterals and working under the corn stalks. Our plan is to chisel the laterals, but leave the mains to settle over the winter and then work them down in the spring.

As we prepare to celebrate the Thanksgiving Holiday we give thanks to all our employees, suppliers, and family for the support they have given us this year - we are truly blessed. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.

David chiseling over the new tile laterals

Aerial shot of our 150 acre tile project

Chris Urish from Elkhart Fertilizer putting anhydrous ammonia on our Elkhart farm

Operating our strip-till bar on the Railroad field southwest of Ashland

JL Ford loading the trailer as we removed the final fence rows at our Greenfield farms