Sunday, February 18, 2024

February Update...

We've experienced a bit of spring-like weather this past month which has allowed us to get outside and work on a few projects. 60 degree days in mid February was very welcomed, but as I type this we have 6" of snow outside and it is sub 30 degrees. Welcome to Illinois! See what we've been up to below. Have a great day!

A dry and warm stretch of February weather allowed our local tile company to add additional laterals to a farm we purchased a few years ago that already had tile every 200'. We wanted to reduced that spacing down to every 100' for even better drainage.



Disking down the trenches of the newly installed tile. Hopefully we get another round of cold weather and rain to weather these down so they are nice and smooth by spring planting.


Getting the planter out of the cold-storage shed and moving it to our heated shop so we can work on it ahead of spring. I think it was almost 60 degrees the day we moved planters. Crazy Illinois weather.


Hauling gypsum from the City of Springfield Power Plant. We target our wetter farms that are not tiled with this application. The additional Calcium improves water infiltration into the subsoil. It also adds Sulfur to our soil which corn plants love.


The warm February weather has also allowed us to scratch a few items off our list like picking up rocks and debris in places where tillage or Mother Nature has brought them to the surface. 

Sunday, January 21, 2024

Mid Winter Update...

Winter has arrived and it's cold outside! We continue to stay busy working in both the shop and the office. Maintenance in the shop is ongoing as the guys have rebuilt both corn heads and are working on converting a frac tank over to bulk water storage. We have cored all our corn bins with numerous trips to Bartlett Grain in nearby Jacksonville. Year end office work continues and we are also working on finalizing our 2024 inputs and crop plans as well. 

The new farm shop is full of winter projects. While we still have plenty of finish work to complete on the building, we are glad to be moved in ahead of the cold temperatures to take advantage of the in-floor heat and continue our preventative maintenance work.

Our first two semi loads of Wyffels seed corn are in the shed. We have started to take delivery of some of our spring inputs and also still finalizing the last of our crop plans. 

Hauling corn from our bins to Bartlett Grain in nearby Jacksonville. Bartlett Grain sends four to five 100 unit car trains to Mexico every week via the Kansas City Southern Rail line. We are lucky to have them in our backyard creating such a demand for corn locally. 


Sunday, November 19, 2023

Harvest 2023...

Harvest began for us this year on August 31st and ended on October 27th. We experienced some of the best weather for harvest we've had with only three days of rainouts. Yields were variable and somewhat corresponded with rainfall amounts from the summer. Despite how little rainfall we received, our corn and bean yields were surprisingly good. We were critically dry throughout the entire month of June. Corn looked like pineapple fields. Many had thrown in the towel and several areas were within days of what most assumed would be sub 100 bushel corn fields. Then on June 29th, we received a quick inch of rain along with strong winds from the derecho. That rainfall event pushed the low pressure system out of our area and sequential rains started arriving thereafter. It was truly amazing to see how well the corn yielded on such few inches of rainfall. We were very fortunate that we had a full profile of soil moisture going into the growing season where the creeks and tile were running. Currently we are not in that position as we are very dry. We have wrapped up our fall tillage and fertilizer applications. We are now cleaning up and working on equipment as well as setting up our new farm shop. Plans are underway for our 2024 crop and we will soon begin hauling grain from our bins to Bartlett Grain in nearby Jacksonville to fulfill our December contracts. Lastly, we'd like to thank all our employees for their dedication and long hours away from home and family. We could not be the business we are without our employees. I hope you all have wonderful Thanksgiving!


Putting the last load of corn for the year in the bin.

Harvesting corn on the Alexander Farm. Mile long rows!

Cutting nonGMO soybeans on the University of Illinois Hunter #3 farm near New Berlin.

Tag teaming soybeans in Greenfield. 

Greenfield soybeans at dusk.

Harvesting our 34 entry hybrid corn plot.

Harvesting corn on the UofI farm. Getting the end rows off so Wyffels Hybrids can come and harvest there research site. 

Dumping corn at our grain facility to be moved into the dryer and then into storage bins. 

Harvesting corn down the lane from our main shop on the LWJ Creed field. 

One of the first loads of corn of the year off the Grand Prairie farm which has been in our family for almost 150 years. 

Wednesday, May 17, 2023

Plant 2023 has come and gone...

It has been a while since I've updated our blog. Time sure does fly with two active kiddos. Planting for us started on March 30th and ended on Friday, May 5th. It was a fairly easy planting season with plenty of open windows to plant into dry soil, but the temperature extremes were the toughest for us to make decisions around. We planted soybeans from March 30th up to Easter and then we switched over to corn the week after while it was an unseasonably 80+ degrees. That was our first window of corn planting and we did not resume planting corn until April 27th. We did finish planting our soybeans in the time in between, but we wanted the ground to get a little warmer for the corn so we waited. by the time we finished planting, we were in need of a good rain as our geography was then extremely dry with no rain for the previous four weeks. Since then we have received 5-8" of rainfall and are now looking for a nice two week window so we can spray corn and get the weeds under control. I know, I know...farmers are never happy with the weather. What can I say? 

Below are a few pictures of one of our planters. I'll try to do a better job of keeping the blog updated going forward. Be well everyone!





 

Sunday, October 23, 2022

Harvest 2022...

 

Harvest began for us on September 8th. It was a slower start with corn staying at higher moistures for several weeks. We kept drying corn at our facility and also shipped wet corn to a nearby rail facility who was offering a discounted grain drying rate. After several days of that we were able to begin work on our early planted soybeans and from that point on harvest has been a marathon. Yields and the weather have been excellent and we realize we are truly blessed. We are currently harvesting on our South farms in Greenfield and have just our North farms in Elkhart and Williamsville remaining. Below are pictures from our harvest this fall. We hope you enjoy them.  


Harvesting soybeans on our University of Illinois farm.






First day of harvest!


Thursday, July 28, 2022

End of July...

Summer is flying by! We have been blessed with good weather and rainfall when we needed it this summer. Our corn has all been sprayed with fungicide and we have only 480 acres of soybeans remaining to be sprayed as well. Oh, and the sweet corn crop has been plentiful as well! Our crew is mixing in summer family vacations with working on summer projects, hauling lime, hauling rock for the new sheds to be built this fall and getting equipment ready for harvest. It is truly hard to believe it is almost August 1st. Below are some pictures of recent activity on the farm. Enjoy the rest of your summer!


Helicopter spraying fungicide on our corn.


Spraying Insecticide, Fungicide and Molasses on our soybeans right before they really start to set pods.

Refilling the tanker with 4,800 gallons of water which we will use to mix soybean fungicide and insecticide in another tanker.

Cleaning the final corn out of the bins to get ready for next year.

Friday, June 17, 2022

Summertime heat...

The summertime heat has arrived and our crops are off and running! All our crops are planted and the corn has all been post-sprayed with herbicides to keep the weeds at bay. The majority of our soybeans have also been sprayed. As you can see below, we also were able to complete the side-dressing of nitrogen and sulfur on our corn acres before it got too tall. We have been fortunate to continue to receive rains despite the hot 90 plus degree temperatures. Although last night's storms brought with them high winds that have laid the corn over in places. Most of this will return upright, but some will have snapped in two from the wind. The corn grows so rapidly during this time of year that it becomes brittle. And our annual Sangamon County Fair storms usually contain wind because of how hot and humid the weather has been. 

We are cleaning up planting equipment and mowing roadsides for the 4th of July holiday coming up. The focus will turn to spraying corn and soybeans with fungicide as well as stock piling lime for fall spreading. Stay cool!

Applying nitrogen and sulfur to our 30" corn outside Ashland. 

Apply nitrogen & sulfur to 20" corn outside Jacksonville. Thank goodness for tram lines!

Delivering nonGMO, hard endosperm corn to Beardstown from our grain bins. Here we are dumping it direct on to a barge where it will be sent to New Orleans and loaded on a Panamex vessel and later shipped to Japan for final consumption in a variety of products.