Covering acres...

Planting beans on the Alderson farm.

David working ground in the bottoms.

The farm was busy with numerous activities this week. We lack a mere 20 acres of soybeans to plant at Williamsville; otherwise this week allowed us to cover all our remaining acres. A shower mid-day today rained us out from finishing Williamsville, but the beans we planted ahead of Tuesday and Wednesday's combined five inch rain really benefited from today's showers.

We also started side-dressing corn this past week. It is the ideal time to be side-dressing as the corn is rooting down and taking up nitrogen. Besides planting and side-dressing, we also worked in a few acres of herbicide application as the corn fields dried. The corn is growing fast and some of the first planted corn in the area is already shading the row.

Planting soybeans at Williamsville.

Bedolli Excavating laying the new 6" tile.

Monday we were able to get back in the fields and resume planting. We covered 200 acres prior to an early evening pop-up rain storm. We had a brief window to plant this morning, but another storm built up and dumped 3" of rain & hail on the Williamsville farm in slightly over 30 minutes. The storms were not wide-spread, so we moved the equipment back to Ashland where it did not rain.

While we were planting at Williamsville, Andy Bedolli and his team installed a new run of tile and worked on replacing all the tile outlets on the ditch. Hopefully, Andy will be able to get his backhoe out after this big rain...

Some of our first planted corn.

Dad loading the truck from the bins at Grand Prairie.

No planting this week. Too much rain along with cooler temperatures are still keeping us out of the fields. This week we are hauling corn out of the bins, working around the shop, scouting crops, and wading through the mud trying to get the water off the ponded areas of the fields.

More rain....

David working ground at the U of I farm.

Bob running the Reel-till chopping up corn stalks left from last summer's tornado.

Since Monday's rains, we have not been able to get back into the fields except for a brief window on Saturday. We tried to plant, but the reside from the tornado corn combined with the damp ground made for poor planting conditions. We decided to work the ground with the Krause Landsman tillage tool and bury more of the remaining residue. The McFarlane Reel-till we are using in the second picture is good for sizing and cutting residue, but if we want to actually level the soil and bury more of the corn stalks we have to use the Landsman. It has rained here most of the day off and on, but the forecast for later this week looks very good with high's in the 80's, breezy, and abundant sunshine - we'll see if we get an opportunity to put the wraps on our 2010 soybean planting.

Dad planting at Grand Prairie.

Loading the planter at the Daubard 80.

Owen spending his Mother's Day wishing his was out on Grandpa's tractor.

As of this post we have almost two-thirds of our beans planted. We were rained out late yesterday afternoon planting on the Williamsville farm, but we did get 110 acres planted up there in what is is left of the tornado corn. Recent rains brought anywhere from one inch to as much as three and a half inches of rain along with strong winds, lightning and thunder. Most of the corn and the recently planted beans will benefit significantly from the rain. We will resume planting beans again as soon as the weather allows, although the forecast is for more rain later tomorrow.

Spraying & planting soybeans....

Loading the sprayer at the Stelte field.

Bob spraying the Clearview farm.

We have been busy this week spraying corn and planting soybeans. We have over 95% of the corn sprayed and slightly over half of the soybeans planted. The weather has been very cooperative until the recent cold front brought strong winds which caused us to stop spraying. Generally the corn in our area looks good with fields having uniform emergence; however we are hearing that some of the recently planted fields to our Southeast are struggling to emerge after the heavy rains.

Don't forget Sunday is Mother's Day.....

The Music is Back.....!

The blog has been updated with a new music selection. It contains a few of the current favorites of the youngest member of Johnson Family Farms. We hope you enjoy!

Done...

Yesterday afternoon we wrapped up our 2010 corn planting. Last year we completed our corn planting on June 1st - that's an entire month earlier this year... What a change from 2009. Last year we struggled to get the soils to dry enough for us to complete spring tillage and this year the majority of the time we spent trying to conserve moisture during our planting operations. We are happy to have our corn in the ground all in the month of April and hope that this end of April planted corn will pollinate ahead of any hot and dry weather that might occur in July & August. This earlier planting should also help our corn dry down, which allows for a more timely harvest and all other operations that follow.

The majority of our corn is up and looking good. We completed a minor amount of corn spraying this week, but the 30-40 mph winds late in the week put an immediate stop to our spraying. Next, we will begin planting soybeans and continue to work on spraying our corn acres with the first intended pass of herbicide.

Have a great weekend!

The planter rolling across the Doolin field as the sun sets on the town of Ashland.

Filling the planter on the last day with the bulk-seed delivery system.

Sunrise FS applying 20 gallons of 28% ahead of the tillage crew.