Week ending October 20th...

Nothing new to report this week.  It has been a rainy and wet week.  Although we have been blessed recently with rainfall, our tiles have yet to run.  This means our soils are still not at capacity which is what we are hoping for as we go into winter.  We did sneak in on Wednesday morning and chisel a few acres before the rain rolled in around 2 o'clock.  The forecast looks good to get back in the fields this week and wrap up our chiseling.  I anticipate us to get started with anhydrous ammonia applications later this week along with the rest of the farmers in our neighborhood. 

Sitting at a stand still 

Week ending October 13th...

We wrapped up our 2012 harvest on Wednesday by cutting the last of the soybeans.  Fortunately, we saved the best yielding beans for last in Greenfield.  I'm not sure what to attribute these good yields to, but they were planted two weeks later and planted on ground that had been continuous corn for the past eight years.  Some of these beans were originally sold to Cargill at Florence across the Illinois River.  Unfortunately, the Department of Transportation closed the Florence bridge earlier this summer due to failing an annual inspection.  We opted to haul them clear up to Cargill at Meredosia which was a 90 mile round trip.  The distance combined with all the road construction on Rt. 67 made each trip even more interesting. 

Friday night storms rolled in and are still moving through.  So far we have received between 1.5 and 3 inches of rain.  This has halted all tillage activity and leaves us with 450 acres remaining to chisel.  Depending on the soil temperature, we may begin our anhydrous ammonia application next week.  Although, we like for soil temperatures to get at least 50 degrees or lower before we begin applying it. 

This week we will begin washing and putting away the harvest equipment.  We will also fine tune some of the last fertilizer applications and begin making seed decisions for next year's crop - yes, already...

Another load heading to the elevator 

Harvesting soybeans in Greenfield 

Ronnie Brown running the Turbo Disk on the Elkhart Farm

Week ending October 6th...

More harvest progress this week allowed us to get within 200 acres of completing all our 2012 harvest.  Rains rolled in late Thursday evening which will keep us out of the fields the entire weekend; both with the combines as well as the tillage equipment.  We welcome the recent rainfall as our creeks and tiles are still not yet running from this summer's drought.  It will be nervous winter if we don't recharge our soils this fall.  It is essential to have our soils back at full capacity going into winter to ensure that our crops get off to a good start next spring. 

We finally found some good yielding soybeans at our Greene County farms this week.  These were following many years of continuous corn and sprayed with fungicide.  A pleasant surprise to end the harvest season on. 

Friday's rains allowed us time to catch up in the office and spend time with family - like attend one of Owen's soccer games.  Notice the sweatshirts in the picture; the rains brought with them colder temperatures plunging from the 80's to the 50's. 

Have a great weekend everyone!

Cutting beans on the Reiser @ Ashland farm 

Last load from this field 

Owen playing soccer this weekend

Week ending September 30th...

Harvest continues to roll on.  Corn is wrapped up and the tillage crew continues to chisel and turbo disk the stalks.  Soybean harvest continues at a sporadic pace as last week brought a few rains which kept us out of the fields for a couple days.  We are now down to under a 1,000 acres of soybeans.  The beans we have harvested so far have been sub-average with a few disappointments that we didn't anticipate... 

Besides the hustle and bustle of harvest, we managed to work in a trip to the Pumpkin Patch.  Correction - it was my first and annual trip to the Pumpkin Patch as this was the boys 3rd or 4th trip the patch.  Every time they come home from a local patch they bring gourds or some new pumpkin to complete our collection.  Dare I say we now have a better display for Fall and Halloween than we normally do for Christmas.  Hope you are in the spirit at your house as well...

 Chiseling on the Quad J Farm

 

 One combine cutting beans at the U of I Farm

 

The other harvesting soybeans on the Clearview Farm 

Annual trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Week ending September 22nd...

My apologies for not posting since September 8th.  The hard drive on my computer crashed and thus, I wasn't able to update our blog.  Yesterday, we wrapped up our 2012 corn harvest.  Yields were slightly better than we expected (+5-10 bpa), but still very poor for our usual 200 bpa standards.  We have combined 120 acres of beans so far.  The two fields were very green, but surprisingly tested quite dry.  Yields on the beans have ranged from disappointing to pretty common.  Not many farmers in our area are bragging about their yields this year. 

We continue to work on tillage operations, make fertilizer applications and mow roadsides and waterways for the final time this year.  All the while we try not to watch the markets as they have plummeted in recent weeks...

Last pass of corn for the year

Very green beans that were testing 10.5%

Week ending September 8th...

 

Another great week of harvest.  We received 3 to 6" of rain from Hurricane Issac which helped replenish some of our dry soils.  Just one day after the rains stopped, we were able to resume harvesting our corn crop.  We are now 62% completed with our corn and 0% on the soybeans.  The soybeans are still somewhat green which we hope will result in more bushels.  We are 10-14 days away from even thinking about combining our soybeans.  That should allow us time to wrap up our corn and even get a jump start on the deep tillage. 

 

This past week we made the trip up to our north farms at Elkhart and Williamsville.  As anticipated, the yields were very poor.  Surprisingly, the moisture's were also much higher than anticipated but one field had significant wind damage.  Thus, we elected to take it out so it wouldn't get worse with any later storms or winds.  The weather has cooled down and it is now starting to feel like fall around here.

 

 Harvesting on the Quad J Farm South of Prentice



 

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