We have tassels!

Knee high by the 4th of July...how about tassels? We have a few fields that have shot a lot of tassels over the weekend. The picture above is Wyffels 6261 (110 rm) planted April 25th on the Stelte field east of Ashland along Rt. 125. Bob also has this hybrid tasseling on the Whiznat farm. We anticipate quite a few tassels in our local area prior to the 4th.

Another good week...

This past week has been great for the crops, especially our corn. With temperatures above 86 degrees and ample soil moisture our factory is running at full capacity. The only thing better would be if the temperatures could cool down a little more at night and not make the corn respire as much - but otherwise the corn is adding a leaf every two days which is outstanding. As I walked corn last evening I checked some of our first planted fields and they are only two leaves away from the tassel appearing. That means we should see "some" tassels before the 4th of July. I checked our June 1st planted corn in Greenfield yesterday and surprisingly it looks very good too. We could actually use a good rain on the Greene County farms as some of the younger corn needs a little help getting its roots through the compaction layer left by the tiling job and down to the nitrogen we applied earlier this spring.

The majority of this week was spent hauling corn to Sunrise Ag Service's Illinois River terminal at Beardstown. The picture above is of dad rolling in from his last trip. Otherwise, when we were not hauling corn we spent time spraying the last herbicide pass on the soybeans and mowing road sides.

Tall corn...

It is amazing what a little warm and humid weather can do for the crops. The picture above is our corn on the Reiser - Ashland farm planted our third day out this spring (Apr. 20th). It is much taller than I anticipated. With temperatures in the 90's this week corn is now adding a leaf a day and growing fast. So fast that it is brittle to the touch.

The soybeans look good as well as they like the warmer temperatures, but prefer to have a little drier weather.

Happy Father's Day!

Web Update.....

Please check out the new "Spring Planting 2009" pictures on our website. The link to the website is: http://www.johnson-familyfarms.com/

Have a great week!

Good weather...

Most of this week consisted of hauling corn and putting away equipment from planting season. We are waiting on the soil to dry down in Greene County where we need to side-dress another 30# of nitrogen on the corn we planted May 12th. We planted that corn late into the evening and at 5 am the next morning showers had already set in for the day, thus TriCounty FS never had the opportunity to spray the 10 gal. of 28% and we need to get the additional nitrogen applied ASAP.

The crops are growing fast with the early corn planted in mid-April approaching waist high.

Finally...all our corn is out of the ground

The above picture is of the corn we planted on Monday, June 1st in Greenfield. Despite a recent spring tile project and planting into a significant amount of clods due to the tiling we have an overall great stand of corn. As you might recall we were worried about this corn, as we planted into moisture and then the winds and recent sunny days dried the field out and the seedlings were lying in dry soil. Last night the farm received 0.5" of rain and today the corn looks great. We have 36,000 ppa in numerous places and 15,000 ppa in areas of high tiling work traffic - but overall a stand of 30,000 which is still good enough to make 200 bpa.

Dad & David have been hauling corn to the river and cleaning out a few of the Reiser bins. The crops are growing fast trying to catch up. The corn is adding 1-2" of new growth per day which equates to roughly a new leaf every 1.5 days.

and finished with soybeans too...

Saturday we finished the 2009 planting season for Johnson Family Farms. It was a busy day for all as Bob was planting soybeans, Dad was spraying the 2nd herbicide pass on corn, David was mowing and keeping water to the sprayer, and I was patching in drowned out holes with the two-row planter. We are glad to have the planting season behind us. Most all of the soybeans are up and the first planted corn is now thigh high and a beautiful green color as it has finally reached the nitrogen.

We are in desperate need of a rain down in Greenfield as the corn we planted on Monday has now sprouted and sitting in dry dirt. The forecast looks promising, but so far today's rains have all stayed to the north.

Finally done....with corn

Late Monday afternoon we wrapped up planting our 2009 corn crop on the Emerald Acres farm. The tile we installed is already working and provided us with an even better & drier than expected seed bed. June 1st is the latest that I have ever planted corn, although it was only one day later than we finished last year and on the same farm. Thank you to Bret & Jake at TriCounty FS who stayed late and sprayed well into the dark last night to get all of our herbicide applied ahead of the rains.

As for soybeans we lacked just one more round to finish planting at our University of Illinois Hunter #3 farm and we would have been done there, but Mother Nature decided to bring on the rain once again. We are now down to less than 40 acres of beans left to plant.