Early Winter...

What wonderful weather we've had since harvest concluded. While still on the dry side, we have had several consecutive weeks in a row for outside activities such as dirt work pictured below, tile projects, tree trimming and hauling grain out of our bins. The month of December has flown by and everyone is looking forward to spending time with their families over the holiday season. Despite COVID and social distancing, 2020 will go into the books as one of our more successful years in this business. We were blessed with good yields, increasing prices towards the end of harvest, and our continued health. We want to thank all that help us with our business this past year and wish everyone a safe and profitable 2021. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Brent

Removing terraces on our farm outside Ashland.

Tom standing beside the tile trencher while it waits to start laying another run of tile. 

 

Harvest ends...

Harvest 2020 was over for us on Monday, November 2nd. As quickly as it started, it was over. This year it took just over seven weeks of work to put away our crop. The weather was about as good as one could order it with just two days off for rains and a few other Sunday's off for folks to spend time with family. Yields were variable, but pleasantly surprising overall. Areas that received even an additional two tenths of rainfall in August were the big winners. We have moved on from harvesting to tillage and fertilizer activities. Our area remains very dry and many are commenting that this has an eerie feeling to the fall of 2011 which was followed by the drought of 2012. Who knows, but time will tell. Thank you to all our employees and service providers for helping us get through harvest safely and efficiently!

Harvest 2020 begins...

We started our 2020 harvest last Wednesday, September 16th - the exact same date we began last year. Corn moisture's were high when we started, but have finally dropped into the 18-21% range as of today. We have even harvested a few of our nonGMO soybean fields that were planted the first week of April. Yields have been good on corn, but below our last several years production. Despite zero rain in August, soybeans have been a nice surprise, but they also haven't exceeded any records either. We had a good run of 11 days straight of harvesting. Last night's half inch rains were welcomed for us to get caught back up on office work, maintenance and gather our plans for the next run of harvest. Be safe!

Harvesting corn on the Grand Prairie Farm.

Dumping a load of corn at our dryer site.

First pass of soybeans this fall on the Dunlap Young farm.

July 19th....

The summer is flying by! We are quickly wrapping up our final acres of weed control on our soybeans and have begun working on a few in-field experiments. We are also scouting for diseases and spraying several corn fields with fungicide with the air plane. We will spray our nonGMO soybeans with fungicide and insecticide as well and those applications have also started. We are also cleaning out our grain bins and hauling corn to nearby Bartlett Grain in Jacksonville. When conditions allow, the guys are also staging lime with the dump trailer to get ready for fall applications after the crop has been removed. Below are a few pictures of an experiment we are trying this year on a few soybean fields. We are applying liquid fertilizer with the sprayer where we are dribbling the fertilizer between the rows. This allows us to get the fertilizer in the plant via the roots quicker and at higher amounts versus foliar feeding it which is less efficient.  

June 7th...

It has been a wild ride since my initial planting post. While we started planting on April 2nd, we did not end planting until May 26th. Two days later on May 28th we began replanting in earnest. Two of our three planting windows this spring were followed by 3-5 and sometimes 7" rainfalls. These created many areas that had standing water and thus drowned out the seedlings creating a need for us to replant the now barren holes within the field. David spent four days across four counties with the 4 row planter spotting in. We even replanted one entire corn field and one entire soybean field. The corn field had a majority of drowned out areas and the soybean field was crusted over after planting causing about a third of a stand of soybeans. So we went back in with another 80,000 seeds per acre to thicken up the stand. Once we finished planting the spraying operations took priority and Tom has most all the corn sprayed as well as all the early planted soybeans. We've also been hauling corn from our grain bins as well as starting to mow roadsides. The weather has turned from what was one of the coldest springs to now just plain hot with temperatures in the 90's. The hot temperatures along with the abundant sunshine and good soil moisture is really bringing along the crops quickly. 

Replanting drowned out spots on our Williamsville corn.

Blending up a starter fertilizer mixture our Peer Group is joint testing for corn. 

Installing the "new to us" generator at the dryer site. We had reached our power limits with the former generator so we replaced our 200KW unit with a 350KW model. This is the crane putting the new unit in place.

Easter...

Planting season has begun at Johnson Family Farms! We started planting soybeans on Thursday, April 2nd and are fairly far along at this point with soybean plantings. We also planted a few acres of corn, but with the forecasted colder temperatures coming we opted to wait until after the colder temperatures evade and wait for warmer days ahead. The ground is working good despite the lack of a really cold winter to provide for freezing and thawing. As you can see from the pictures below we have a lot of things going on during planting season. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Brent

Lots of dust coming off the planter operating at 9+ mph!

Bob planting nonGMO soybeans on our Foster Family LLP Ashland farm. 

David working chiseled corn stalks down ahead of the Kinze soybean planter outside Ashland. 

Looking out the back window of the tractor towards the high-speed 20" planter. Here we are planting soybeans outside Pleasant Plains and applying a high-rate of liquid fertilizer. 

A view looking out the front of the tractor of the 20" planter. We have a lot of monitors in this tractor - some to control the planter, some to steer the tractor and others to operate the hydraulic pumps on the planter and tractor. 

Max and Owen coming out for a ride in the planter. 

Refilling the planter with soybeans on the Alexander farm.

Fixing a tile hole on the Alexander farm. Look at that beautiful black top-soil!

Brad hauling large rip-rap rock to slow down water on the Lehmann farm.

Our April 2nd planted soybeans are off to a good start. This picture was a week after planting.

Pictures from the past...

Biggest horsepower on the farm - 1980

The planting fleet is ready - spring 1980

Planting season 1976

Saturday, March 7th...

The weather has turned warmer and the shop has been busy with activity. We are getting equipment ready for spring as well as working on outside projects when the weather allows. With the recent windy days and sunshine the soil is drying out nicely. Some of our neighbors are working ground and Uncle Bob has started putting on anhydrous ammonia on his last field. Planting season will be here shortly!

Tom replacing bogey wheels on a tracked tractor while the farm dogs "supervise..."

One of the planters is ready to roll!

Brad replacing bogey wheels on the Case IH 470 RowTrac tractor.

Bob putting new brushes in the Kinze soybean planter meters.

Trimming tree limbs that overhang the field on the Lehmann farm.

Saturday, January 11th...

It is hard to believe that 2019 is already gone and we are almost two weeks into 2020. The winter weather for us has been extremely mild and at some times downright warm for December/January. We have been busy working outside cleaning up equipment, trimming tree lines in the field borders and hauling grain out of our local bins to river or rail terminals. We even snuck a few days of "spring" tillage in between Christmas and New Years as the ground in our area has been dry up until last night's 2.5" of rainfall. Overall, we were extremely blessed with the results of the 2019 crop despite the turmoil it caused a lot of other farmers throughout Illinois and the US. We hope 2020 brings the end of tariff wars with our largest trading partners throughout the world and starts to begin some stability in the world grain markets. Here is to hoping you and your family have a great 2020!

A load of corn coming out of the bin headed for nearby Bartlett Grain Company in Jacksonville where it will be loaded on a 110 unit train and shipped to cattle lots in Mexico. 

Trimming trees along a field border - a common thing we tackle every year after harvest. 

Leveling ground between Christmas and New Years that will be planted back to corn. We call this "stale seedbed" and will not be running anymore equipment over this field until the planter in the spring. These opportunities are rare to get a weather window like this to work ground down in December. 

Emptying a small bin of soybeans.

Another semi load of soybeans heading for the Illinois River where it will be put on a barge and shipped down to New Orleans for export to somewhere in the world.