Week ending September 26th...

Harvesting on the Emerald Acres Farm

Another good week of harvest progress. We began the week harvesting soybeans, but another 1.3" rain fell late Tuesday evening. Our Greene County farms missed the rains, so we moved south. In two days we knocked out all our acreage in Greenfield and Friday night were moving back to Ashland. Thank you to everyone who put in some late hours on Thursday evening trying to get as many acres harvested as possible before Friday's forecasted rains. Yields in Greene County were variable to say the least, but moistures were 14.5 to 16.2% which is a pleasant change from last year's harvest. Due to slow drying corn and soaked fields, we were not able to finish these farms last year until November 30th. This much earlier harvest will allow us to get lime applied and the stalks buried under in preparation for next year's crop.

Week ending September 19th...

The sun sets as we harvest on the University of Illinois Hunter #3 farm.

A nice shot of Darren filling a semi headed to the bin.

We decided to try a MacDon draper header this year for soybeans - so far we really like it.

Uncle Bob chiseling on the Clearview Farm.

Harvest continues at a rapid pace here at Johnson Family Farms. We are making great progress as the weather continues to dry corn down in the field allowing us to put most of it directly into grain bins. Corn yields remain variable, but our over-all farm average is increasing the more we harvest. We had a brief window where we were able to harvest a couple hundred acres of early soybeans and the beans are yielding surprisingly well. Most reports we hear are that of good bean yields as well throughout the state. The tillage operations continue to chase the combines and trucks spreading lime and fertilizer. The forecast for this week is spotty, but we will continue to work on corn unless a window opens where the beans dry down and cut a little easier.

What a difference a year makes...last year we did not even start harvest until September 20th due to the cooler weather.

Week ending September 12th...

Another good week of harvest. We were rained out Friday evening by another inch of rain. On top of the four plus inches we had last week we were not able to harvest any this weekend. Most of our corn is testing 15-20% and yields have varied drastically from 147 to 255 bpa. We also started tillage this past week and have a couple hundred acres of corn stalks already chiseled under. This week we plan to continue to harvest our earlier maturity corn and by Wednesday we are hoping a few of our bean fields will be ready to cut.

Week ending Sept. 6th

A view from the grain cart operator's seat looking back at the combine as it unloads "on-the-go"

Our new grain bin is up.

After four inches of rain since last Wednesday & Thursday we were finally able to get back in the fields and resume harvesting corn. Moistures have dropped from 20-22% to 18-19%. This week we will continue to harvest corn as well as start our fall tillage. It will be interesting to see how hard or easy the implements pull this fall considering all the early rains followed by drier conditions.

Many of you may remember our grain bin fire from last fall. Over the course of the weekend Range Implement took down the old bin and put up our new GSI bin. We still have wiring and a few other odds and ends to finish up before we can put corn in it, but we are relieved it is up and just in time.