Week ending January 22nd...

This past week our friends from Precision Drainage tried to begin our tiling project on the Daubard 80. As the pictures show, the ground has a lot (~12" in the lower areas) of frost in it. Even though the tile plow is equipped with tracks, the frozen ground caused it to slip. They even tried pulling it with the help of the excavator and that did not work either. We will wait until the ground thaws out a bit before we try it again. Also this week Matt Aper from Cross Brothers Implement in Mount Pulaski came over and performed our annual combine inspection on the John Deere combine. Fortunately, he only noticed a couple items and both will be an easy fix. We like having the combine inspected by a certified JD service technican in the winter because it gives us ample time to allow for repairs and thus, the combine is field ready come harvest.

New fall video...

I hope you enjoy our recently posted video. The video includes footage of our strip-till bar where we are applying anhydrous ammonia, phosphate and potassium all in one pass and in one compact band. Although this field has already been tilled by the chisel plow; with the RTK guidance system we will plant directly above the band of fertilizer we are creating here even though you can not see it. In our 2011 corn following the 2010 soybeans, we will only "till" an 8" strip with this applicator and then plant directly on top it this spring. I also included a few shots of the John Deere 9630 leveling ground behind the applicator. If the weather and soil conditions allow, we like to level the chiseled ground in the fall. If the winter weather cooperates and "mellows" the soil, we will perform zero spring tillage and plant right into this. We call this a "stale seedbed."

My apologies about the camera work - I'm still perfecting it.

Precision Drainage arrives at the Daubard 80

Owen "listening" to one of his birthday gifts to see if he can figure out what it is

Not much new to report since my last post. We continue to haul corn from the bins to various destinations and fall machinery clean up is still occurring at the shop. Over the holidays, Precision Drainage arrived to begin one of our tiling projects on the Daubard 80. Although the tile and machinery are here, they are waiting for the ground to thaw before they start. The reason they are waiting is not because the tile plow can not pull through the frozen ground, but rather they are worried about back-filling the newly installed tile with frozen chunks of soil which may puncture a hole in the tile. We also celebrated the Christmas and New Year's holidays with a lot of football and family. Apparently the Johnson boys were good again this year as Santa found our house and dropped off a few presents and drank the milk and ate the cookies Owen and Max left for him. We also celebrated Owen's third birthday which compounded the holiday fun.

Wishing you a safe and profitable 2011 - Johnson Family Farms