Week ending September 1st....

Hurricane Issac arrived in Central Illinois mid Friday afternoon.  Along with it came a much needed 2.3 to 6" of rainfall along with cooler temperatures.  Going into the Labor Day weekend we sit at 45% completed with our 2012 corn harvest.  Numerous corn fields in our area have been harvested and a few of the smaller farmers are even done with their corn harvest.  Yields still remain variable, but we did find some better corn as we went South towards our New Berlin farms, however the moistures were also higher which slowed our progress. 

This past week we also spread lime on a few fields and worked that in with a disk.  Our hope is that churning the soil with the disk and Issac's rain would allow the lime to begin working in our soils immediately.  Not much tillage has occurred in our local area, but I imagine after these recent rains, many will begin.  We should have enough moisture now to allow us to apply our fall anhydrous ammonia which we use as nitrogen fertilizer for our 2013 corn crop.  If soils are too dry, the anhydrous will not bond to the soil particles and therefor leach into the atmosphere which is not good. 

No soybeans have been combined in the area yet, but I anticipate some will be ready the end of the week.  Enjoy your Labor Day holiday!

Disking corn stalks and incorporating lime into the soil 

Spreading very dry lime and no wind - looked like the field was on fire... 

Harvesting corn on the Reiser Cass County farm 

Minor set back... 

 

Filling the truck