Harvest is over...!

It has been a while since I last posted on our blog, but I am happy to report that as of this morning we completed our 2011 harvest season. We ended our harvest with some of the best yielding corn we experienced all year. The past few weeks held challenges of their own with a few breakdowns. The worst of all the repairs was a blown transmission in our John Deere 9870 combine. Fortunately for us, Chris Dowson was there to step in and help by lending us a combine while the repairs were being made - thanks to Chris! We also had the opportunity to demo the new John Deere S680 combine these last two days of harvest. These are the new models which were rolled out recently at the Farm Progress Show in late August. It was fun to watch everyone take a ride in it and see how it compared to our combine.

A few neighbors have started applying anhydrous ammonia and our plan is to start next week. We have a few fields remaining to be chiseled and the Younkers Brothers will address those this week. We plan to clean up fall machinery and get the anhydrous toolbars ready the remainder of this week.

Trying out the new John Deere combine

Owen driving the combine

Owen impatiently waiting on the grain cart to arrive

The Younkers Brothers changing out a broken belt

Week ending October 8th...

Harvest continues to roll on. Last Tuesday, October 4th we began our 2011 soybean harvest and just one week later we pulled out of the last field and hooked back up to the corn head. Soybean yields were surprisingly good for the little precipitation we received in August. We are in the down hill stretch of our harvest as the grain bins are now full and everything remaining will be delivered to elevators. Once again, the tillage crew is caught up and we are waiting to spread lime on a few remaining fields. Go Cardinals!

Harvesting soybeans on the Grand Prairie farm

The last beans on the Lehmann Farm

Owen riding in the semi- he was more interested in the gum he found...

Ed Clemens running the Quadtrac and chisel plow

Week ending October 1st...

Harvest continues to fly by. This past week we continued to focus on harvesting corn hoping that another week would let all our beans mature and be ready for harvest this week. We also harvested our plot. The highest yield was 250.4 bushels per acre with the plot average of 227.6 bpa. These yield results shocked us quite frankly. We have been harvesting good corn all season long, but our field results do not mirror our plot results. And the plot was treated exactly the same way as our usual corn following soybeans. Albeit where the plot was planted the drainage is better than average. Later in the week we moved up to our Williamsville farm because we discovered two hybrids that were falling down from recent high winds and stalk rots. Even though the corn is mangled, it is still some of the highest yielding corn we have been in so far. Our plan is to move back to the Ashland area soon and begin combining soybeans. We generally try to harvest all our beans in one week and then switch back to corn for the final push towards the finish line. Have a great week!

Special thanks to Brendan Bachman and Nathan Peak from Lincoln Land FS for helping us weigh our plot

Harvesting the 4 row entries in our plot


Opening up the Williamsville farm

Owen and Max playing in a tractor wheel

Week ending September 25th...

Another good week of harvest is in the books. This past week we mainly concentrated on corn harvest, but towards the end of the week we switched over to soybeans. The beans are yielding surprisingly good for as little precipitation we received in August. Moisture's on them have been coming back from the elevator around 12% which is ideal. However, the beans are extremely green-stemmed which is slowing our harvest progress as they take more time to shake the morning dews and process through the combine.

Earlier in the week Lincoln Land FS began piling and spreading lime on a few farms. Soon thereafter our tillage crew went to work incorporating the lime and sizing the corn residue with the Case Turbo disk. Once we had enough acres worked ahead, we resumed chisel plowing.

A lot of the corn in our immediate area has been harvested (~80%). While only ~10% of the soybeans have been harvested. We have few fields of beans that are ready for harvest, so our plan is to switch back to corn. After scouting over the weekend, we are finding a few hybrids that are loosing their stalk integrity and need to be taken out immediately. This may cause us to be inefficient this week, but if we incur any more wind on these hybrids they may be on the ground which would be a worse problem.

Combining soybeans on the Grand Prairie farm

Working in lime with the Turbo Disk on the Gooden/Mae farm

Dumping corn at the bins at the shop

Lincoln Land FS spreading lime

Waiting in line to dump corn from our Chapin farms at Consolidated Grain & Barge in Naples

Week ending September 18th...

Last week turned out to be a little slower as we started to harvest more of the 114-116 day corn planted in early April and found that it is still wetter than we would like to put into grain bins. The May planted corn is also wet. We have been sampling the remaining fields and picking and choosing where we harvest. Our hope is Mother Nature keeps drying this corn down in the field. We are not the only ones who are seeing this as the local elevators this weekend were like ghost towns which is wild for the middle of September. We also started the deep tillage of chisel plowing this week. With the new Case 870 chisel plow we can cover more acres in a day and it did not take us long to catch up to the fields that are waiting on lime to be spread before we chisel them. Recent rains have not totaled much and around our home area we are still dry. However, the larger amounts of rain have fallen on our southern farms, but too little too late as the corn down in Greenfield died prematurely due to lack of July/August rainfall and high temperatures.

Filling the bins at the Grand Prairie farm

Week ending September 10th...

A good first week of harvest is now behind us. The April planted corn has been running from 16-25% depending on hybrid. Yields have been all over the board from 170 to 220 bushels per acre depending on field and hybrid as well. We even received a little rain that kept us out of the fields on Friday and Saturday. On Thursday, Owen had his first combine ride of the year with his Grandpa. He loves riding around in the combines or the tractors. Then he comes home and sets up his farm toys to mimic what Grandpa is doing in the field. We started tillage, but the ground is hard and dry.

For those of you who read this and don't farm, this is the season where we farmers are on the roads with our big equipment. Please remember to slow down when meeting us and remember we can't always see you behind us. Also, if it looks as though we are not getting off the road enough when we meet you it's because we are trying not to get a flat tire. Those cost almost as much as a new car to replace... Be safe!

Harvest begins...

We started harvest today. The moisture is around 18-20% on our corn planted April 6th. Yields have been better than we anticipated so far, but the diplodia damage is stronger than we would like to see. We have only harvested a few truck loads as none of the elevators were open today due the Labor Day holiday. Tomorrow we will "dial in" the yield monitor and have an "on-the-fly" idea of what the corn is making.

Last week we took in the Farm Progress Show in Decatur. The boys climbed over numerous tractors and combines, but their favorite stop was the free snow cones GSI was handing out. The cold treat gave them a little extra "bounce" during the 100 degree temperatures. The show had massive crowds on Tuesday and Wednesday, but Thursday dropped off a little due to the high temperatures.

More updates as harvest progresses. Be safe this fall!

Harvest begins outside of Ashland today

The Johnson Boys test driving a new John Deere tractor at the Farm Progress Show