Week ending November 20th...

Applying dry fertilizer and anhydrous ammonia in Greenfield

Darin leveling ground ahead of the toolbar

This past week we wrapped up all of our fall tillage and fertilizer applications. We could have been done a week ago, but we were waiting and hoping for rains to loosen the large clods created by the chisel plow this fall on our remaining acres. Unfortunately, no rain has fallen on our Greene County farms since we harvested back in September. While the ground is dry, we were still able to find moisture with the applicator knives and with enough loose soil we are confident our last anhydrous applications met all environmental standards. In the picture above you see the John Deere 9630 and Krause Landsman leveling ground ahead of the toolbar; we did this to try and create more loose soil and minimize the size of the clods. The large and hard clods kept pulling the dry fertilizer hoses off the toolbar causing us to have to stop periodically. The concern about a loose hose also kept us from operating much after dark. However, we are done and this week will be focused on washing the remainder of machinery and putting it away until spring. Uncle Bob, Ronnie Brown and the Younkers' Brothers have done a masterful job of cleaning up and painting the vast majority of the tractors and implements.

Thanksgiving is Thursday - please take a moment to reflect upon all the things you are thankful for. We are thankful for our freedom, our family and friends, our ability to be employed as stewards of the land and the ability to make a living from the fruits of the land and lastly, we are thankful for another growing season where no one was hurt - just to name a few.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Week ending November 6th...

Bob making strips on the Whiznat farm

Dad applying Nh3, DAP, & Potash all in one pass with the strip-till bar on the Doolin field.

We began anhydrous ammonia applications last Friday. Since then we have covered all our acres that we plan to go to corn around the Ashland and Pleasant Plains areas. You may remember we just did these same operations a mere six months ago due to being delayed by Mother Nature last fall. We are experiencing some delays in product availability, but not near like earlier this spring. Our plan is to move to the northern farms this week in hopes that our south farms receive some rainfall later in the week as they are predicting. Anhydrous Ammonia needs moisture to bond to the soil; otherwise it volatilizes and escapes into the atmosphere through the dry soil particles.

Week ending October 31st...

Bob chiseling on the Whiznat farm

Loading the trailer with trees

The last of the trees coming off the trailer

Another great week of field work. We wrapped up chisel plowing this past week and are working on the last 150 acres of in-line ripping with the BlueJet. Now that the cooler weather has lowered the soil temperatures and the rain helped loosen the soil we also have one of the toolbars running putting on nitrogen and dry fertilizer.

Last week we also had the opportunity to help the Aupperle family haul ~150 trees from the nursery to their farm. They helped us clean up after the tornado last summer and it was a great opportunity to help them and return the favor. It was quite an impressive operation. They already had the holes dug for all the trees and the skid-steer would take the trees off the trailers and place them right in the hole. One skid-steer unloaded and planted all the trees in one morning.