Harvest begins...

Harvest began yesterday at Johnson Family Farms. This field was planted on April 15th to a 109 rm hybrid. It has been multiple year continuous corn. The moistures were less than we anticipated, especially considering how green the tops of the plants were. The yields were all over the board with the yield monitor hitting 270 bpa all the way down to 115 bpa. That being said, there is more poor-yielding corn than great corn. Compared to last year this field is yielding 25% less... We believe that the corn planted behind soybeans will be significantly better.

I've posted a video of our first day of harvest at the bottom of the blog.

Week ending August 28th...

Owen is ready for harvest to begin...

Our friends at J&D Farms, Inc. delivering our new MacDon draper head.

Owen helping Daryl Bachman drive the Kenworth.

Owen giving the trailer & platform a thorough inspection.

Harvest will be here soon. We continue to mow roadsides and get equipment ready for harvest. A few neighbors have started combining with reported yields and moistures all over the board. A few of the early plots that have been harvested are yielding 10-15% less than last year. It appears that 200 bpa corn will be rare on corn following corn with corn planted on bean stubble yielding significantly more. Weather dependent, we plan to start harvest this week. Although we would not turn down one more nice rain to give the soybeans a strong finish.

New addition...

Friday afternoon, Max Ryan Johnson was born to Elizabeth and I. He weighed eight pounds even and was twenty-one inches long. Max and his mommy are doing great. The picture above is of Max and his older brother Owen after we returned home from the hospital. Owen is already very helpful and always concerned about who is holding his little brother. Max still has his days and nights backwards, but we hope that will quickly change.

The crops are still progressing quickly and I anticipate some area farmers to begin harvesting end rows and a few early maturity fields this week.

Enjoy the cooler weather this week!

Week ending August 14th...

Mowing filter strips down in Greenfield.

Taking 20' at time makes mowing a quick job.

Another good week at the farm. The crops were showing signs of moisture stress and just in time Mother Nature dropped anywhere from seven tenths to three inches of rain on our farms. That is a million dollar rain for the soybean crop in our area as the beans always yield better with an August State Fair rain. This past week we completed another round of mowing on all the farms. We also continue to work on harvest machinery and grain bins. We still would like to start harvest after Labor Day, but with the continued extreme hot and humid days we may have to begin prior to our initial target date due to the corn loosing it's moisture too fast. As of right now, it appears we will harvest a lot of corn before we cut any soybeans. The corn continues to turn from green to it's harvest gold color and most beans are still green. However, we are seeing spots of Sudden Death Syndrome in a few of our bean fields. I have heard that Iowa is seeing lots of SDS in their soybeans. Many of you remember our grain bin fire from last fall. We hope that Range Implement shows up this week and gets the old bin torn down and new bigger bin erected and ready to wire. This will be cutting it close, but Darold assures me that they can get the old one down and new one up in five days - time will tell...

Week ending August 7th...

This ear was discovered by a friend while out scouting fields a couple weeks ago.

I've never seen anything like it - a true double-ear.

This might explain why our tile didn't work.

Turns out the power company sliced right through our old tile line last summer.

A view looking SW of the area the tile did not get drained this spring/summer.

The crops continue to progress along at a rapid pace with the hot & humid weather. We are busily trying to get summer projects wrapped up and get equipment ready for harvest. This past week we continued to mow road banks and work on various projects. Harvest appears to be right around the corner with many area farmers thinking they might try to harvest some corn before Labor Day weekend. The corn yield projections are starting to decline in our immediate area due to lower kernel counts and severe kernel abortion due to the hot weather. Yield estimates are anywhere from 185-210 bpa on the good fields.