I am proud to finally post that we began our 2013 corn planting season last Tuesday. The warm temperatures and high winds dried the soils out enough to allow us to start planting on a few fields that we had worked back in early April. Normally, we can plant quite a few acres in day but we had three separate issues that held us back as we planted on Tuesday through Thursday. These ranged from seed bridging in the planter tubes, to a bad auto-steer sensor, and finally the new skinny tires. The skinny tires were intended to split the planter rows, but as it turned out our ground is so soft the tires sunk into the soil almost an entire foot deep and created a mess for the planter rows that followed behind them. So after one round, we unhooked the planter and headed back to the shop to put on the original tires that came with the tractor. These bigger tires worked much better. All together we managed to plant 15% of our intended corn acres; mostly at night after we fixed the problems...
The rains set in Thursday evening and have dumped another 2.0-2.8" of rain on our farming area. At this point I am not sure if we will get back in the fields this week as the forecast is calling for another shower on Thursday. However, we are happy to have some corn seed in the ground as some of our friends around the state have not had that opportunity. And although we had to work through them, we are glad and hopeful that we have worked the kinks out of our planting operations.
The first box of seed being loaded into the planter
60 feet at a time
David leveling ground ahead of the planter
Loading the planter with more seed and starter fertilizer in the dark
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