July 6th...

It has been many days since my last post.  Our crop continues to be on pace to have tremendous potential.  Most of our corn is pollinating right now in this cooler weather which is ideal.  Most of our soybeans look excellent; although our fields near Jacksonville and Greenfield have received significant rainfalls which slowed growth, made them grow uneven, and even turned them yellow in the lower spots.  They have made a good recovery, but the weather in August will make the real difference.  We have been busy spraying the last of the soybeans, mowing roadsides, and scouting corn for any leaf diseases.  As of today, the corn diseases are few and far between which is a good sign. The markets have figured out that we all planted a few more acres of soybeans and have taken that market lower.  As many in our occupation will attest to, marketing your crop is the single hardest aspect of our business.  

As you will see below in the pictures we have purchased a Crop Copter which is a Unmanned Aerial Vehicle or drone.  Our plan is to scout our crops aerially as well as look for any wet spots we need to tile or weed escapes we need to go back and address.  It's like learning to fly a helicopter while sitting on the ground looking through goggles.  I haven't lost it yet, but I did almost crash it because it ran out of battery power.  I hope to take more videos and photos from the air for my next post.

Enjoy your summer!

Tassels on our Gooden field.  Notice the height difference between the two hybrids.

Spraying soybeans in Williamsville.

Rough day for the tractor mowing roadsides resulted in a flat tire.

A 1st Generation European Corn Borer that has drilled into one of our nonGMO corn stalks.

A Crop Copter drone which we recently purchased to aerially scout our fields.

View of the drone in the air looking down on Dad and I.