Sunday, October 16, 2016

Harvest update...


We are getting close to the last 15% of our harvest. We have 100 acres of corn remaining around home and then everything locally and South will be harvested. Our next move will be to the North Farms where we have one soybean field and one corn field; but they are really large fields. Corn yields have been pleasantly surprising, while soybean yields have been good but disappointing compared to the yields we first heard during the first three weeks of harvest. Our tillage is caught up as well as the fertilizer and lime applications. It really has been an exceptionally great fall regarding the weather. We couldn't have ordered better conditions. Unfortunately we've had a few breakdowns which have slowed our progress, but it does give everyone a little time off to spend with family and catch up on office work. Currently we are down for a couple days due to the vertical auger in the combine stripping the splines out causing the combine to not be able to unload at all. That is a two day minimum repair job 'at the dealer' so we are catching up on various other jobs.

Harvesting soybeans on our University of Illinois Farm outside New Berlin.  Bean harvest is almost completed with a mere 160 acre field remaining.


Dumping in the old elevator at Prentice Farmers Elevator. Barely wide enough to get a semi through it.

Blocking traffic so we didn't have to take the 40' soybean head off the combine. We were only moving a mile and traffic was light so it worked well.

Some of the corn we harvested on our Greenfield farms was delivered to Cargill at Florence which is situated right along the Illinois River. Our corn was dry enough to be dumped into the elevator and put directly on a barge which will eventually make its way down the Mississippi to the Port of New Orleans.


Saturday, October 1, 2016

Harvest rolls on...

What a great harvest!  Mother Nature has provided us all but two days of great weather this fall. We are down to our last 700 acres of corn and yields have been better than expected. We have not cut an acre of soybeans yet, but plan to this week as we have quite a few acres ready. While we have been busy harvesting, lime and fertilizer has been applied to our corn stalks. Soon thereafter the chisel plow turns the soil over and returns the dirt to it's winter black color. We ran the continuous flow corn dryer for the first two and half weeks of harvest and as we experienced more 90 degree days the corn moisture dropped rapidly. Now corn is dry enough to be put directly in the bin and not need artificial drying. Today was only our second rain day since we began back on Labor Day. We spent the day moving equipment and performing routine maintenance so the machines are ready when it dries out.




Beautiful yellow corn being loaded into a semi.

The grain cart dumping on the semi which is sitting over the auger as we top off the bin on the University of Illinois farm.