Here's to 2017...!

Time has really flown since my last blog post. Once harvest was over we immediately moved to our fall anhydrous ammonia applications as the great fall weather continued and we were blessed to get all the acres on we planned to apply. We even had two warm and sunny days to wash up the equipment and get things put away for winter. Since then we have been busy catching up in the office, attending a few meetings and working on year end financials. In the last couple weeks we have begun moving some of our on-farm stored grain to the Illinois River terminals. We have also started taking a little of our 2017 seed corn. 

Looking back on 2016, it was a year of extremes. Planting season started off timely, May was a little wetter and then June was flat out hot and extremely dry. So much so we thought we were in the midst of another drought. Of course that was when the corn marketed rallied and looking out our back door all we could see were corn plants rolled up so tight from heat and drought stress that they looked like fields of pineapples. Who would have thought the July rains would actually produce after a month of missing them in June. And then those July rains kept coming luckily. August was warm and brought our crop to maturity faster than we would have liked which catapulted harvest activities around Labor Day. We started harvesting around 22-26% moisture and within two weeks our entire corn crop had virtually dried in the field and was testing 18% or below. As we look towards 2017 we hope the market presents a couple good and consistent marketing opportunities on corn. As far as the soybeans go, we may just be looking at our 2017 opportunity as I type this... We remain dry which benefited us this fall, but there is growing concern locally that we may be setting up for another 2012. The drought index map has us in a "moderate drought." Maybe that will change over the course of the next three months...which way I do not know.

Thank you for following us along our journey again this year. Happy New Year to you and your family!

Brent Johnson

Hauling corn from one of grain bins to the terminals along the Illinois River in nearby Beardstown.

2017 Seed corn delivery from Wyffels Hybrids.