Sunday, August 18th...

It has been a busy two weeks since my last post.  As you can see from the pictures below, we have had a variety of jobs in the past few weeks.  We are close to wrapping up hauling all our remaining corn from our grain bins.  Our grain dryer project is progressing nicely, but the biggest push will be in the next couple weeks to get it wrapped up and ready to go for a mid September harvest.  

On Friday of this week, Owen started his 1st day of Kindergarten.  He was a little apprehensive to get on the school bus, but once he returned home he reported that he enjoyed his time at school.  I can't believe we are already sending a child to Kindergarten - where did the time go?  This week will be busy with a full week of school, basketball camp, baseball games, and throw in Max's 3rd birthday....

While the recent weather has been great for humans and animals, it has taken a toll on our corn crop.  The majority of our corn pollinated in the hottest week of the year and on top of that we were a little dry during that week as well.  However, despite the wet and delayed spring, our corn crop showed early on that it had tremendous potential. Unfortunately, with the cooler and overcast weather we experienced immediately following pollination, the corn plant couldn't keep the massive yields were we carrying. We have now pulled back the tip kernels on the ends of our corn ears resulting in a 30-50 bushels per acre yield loss.  We are still very dry and would take a rain anytime, but we are still hopeful we can hold the 200-215 bpa corn we now have.  Even though it's not the 250 bpa corn we had two weeks ago, it's still a 100-150 bpa better than we harvested after the drought of 2012...!

Loading corn from one of our grain bins

Bartlett Grain's new rail shuttle facility on the South side of Jacksonville

Installing a new 15" dual wall plastic main tile through a waterway on the Reiser farm

Disking the weeds down on our Prevented Planting acres

Crane lifting the 18,000 gal. Lp tank from it's former position on to our trailer

Tank is loaded and ready to be moved

Owen ready for his 1st day of Kindergarten

Applying a Priaxor fungicide & Insecticide trial to our soybeans

Sunday, August 4th...

The past two weeks have been very busy around the farm.  We have multiple projects all going on at once.  This year we are adding a grain drying system to our operation.  While most deem a grain dryer as a necessity, we have farmed for many years with only "in bin" dryers.  We have traditionally waited until corn was 19% or less in moisture to begin our harvest and store this corn directly in our grain bins on the farm. The decision was made to purchase the dryer back in January; which looking back now with the delayed planting and cooler weather, looks like a really lucky decision. The dryer will really make a difference this year, but more so it was purchased to give us a two week head start on harvest while we waited for corn to dry down in the field like in a "traditional" year; whatever that is anymore.

We have also spent many hours in our corn fields the last few weeks scouting for insects and diseases.  Fungicide applications have been concluded for the year on our corn with us spraying just under 50% of our corn acres.  Our nonGMO corn was also sprayed with Prevathon, which is a new insecticide from DuPont.  This virtually eliminates damage from ear worm from pollination through the next month.  Ear worms can be a big problem in nonGMO corn because they damage kernels by eating through them as well as chewing through the ear tip exposing it to fungus and toxins.  

Between scouting and the grain bin project, we have also be hauling the last of our corn and assembling the chisel plow we will use this fall.  When someone is free from those activities we have sprayed corn field edges to kill the morning glory vines that seem to like to grow there and of course mowed road sides and waterways.

According to Growing Degree Day calculations based on our planting dates, it seems harvest won't be starting until mid September and could easily span all the way through November.  Traditionally, we have harvest operations completed by Halloween.  It may be a year where we have harvest, tillage, fertilizer, lime and anhydrous applications all going on at once... 

Putting the finishing touches to the new concrete pad for our wet bin

Piers for the bulk Lp tank were poured this week

Grain dryer is set

Applying fungicide to our corn

Almost appears he is spraying the road

A glistening morning dew

Assembling our chisel plow

Week Ending July 20th...

We have wrapped up our final herbicide applications on our soybeans and are just now beginning to make fungicide decisions on our corn.  The recent days have been extremely hot with high humidity, but luckily we received rainfall to get us through much of this hot weather with little damage.  Today the temperatures have moderated and we are again hopeful that rainfall will return to give our corn crop the final push it needs to achieve giant yields.  Our beans have finally shaded the rows and we remain vigilant watching for Japanese beetles which continue to chew on the outside rows, but have not moved into the hearts of the fields.  

We have most of the spring equipment put away and have begun hauling the last of the corn in our grain bins.  In between summer jobs we took off to St. Louis for a little vacation.  The boys enjoyed the St. Louis Zoo, The Magic House, and also took in a Cardinals game.  

Tassels reaching to the sky

Corn really silking in this warm weather

The boys and I out scouting corn

Adding tile to wet holes on a few of our Preventative Plant fields

Friends from Ohio who are also farmers stopping in for a summer visit to check our 20" corn

Visiting the Penguins at the St. Louis Zoo

Max's first Cardinals game

Week ending July 6th...

Summer is flying by!  Despite the later planting dates and cooler temperatures, our earliest planted corn is coming along nicely and a few fields have even started tasseling. We continue to spray the final pass of herbicides on the soybeans and mow road sides so they look good for the long Holiday weekend.  The guys also continue to wash spring machinery and put it in storage as time allows between spraying and mowing.  As those jobs wind down, we will begin working on our list of summer projects which include assembling a chisel plow and also a grain dryer project.  At some point we will get the harvest machinery out and work on making sure it all is ready to go when the time arrives.  Soon we will also start hauling the remainder of our corn out of the grain bins as many elevators are offering free storage which is always a good reason to get the bins cleaned out.

As I mentioned some of our fields are tasseling.  During this time we will ramp up our scouting efforts which means we will physically be in each field at least a couple times a week watching for Japanese beetles and Rootworm beetles clipping silks or mining pollen in the tassels.  We will also be on the lookout for leaf diseases such as Grey Leaf Spot, Goss Wilt, and Anthracnose.  If any of these are found, we will be calling in the air planes to spray.  

We have tassels on our April 30th and May 1st planted corn!

Mowing road banks on the County Line Farm

Adding and repairing tile on our Lehmann Farm

Lincoln Land FS "top-dressing" Urea on a field adjacent to Ashland

The calm before the storm...

Big soybeans

Owen playing in his last baseball game of the summer

Max conquered his fear of the diving board

Week ending June 22nd...

Since my last post the weather has turned sunny and warm.  The crops have taken advantage of the great weather and are growing rapidly.  We have wrapped up spotting in the wet holes on our corn fields and continue to work on the thin spots in our soybean fields.  Ironically, our area has turned dry and we would like to see a rain; especially on our Jacksonville farm and farms further South.  We continue to wash spring machinery and put away equipment.  The sprayer is now focused on the last herbicide applications on the soybeans.  We also have been mowing roadsides and spraying weeds in the fence rows and road banks.  Summer is going quickly and all those yellow school buses will be here before you know it.  

Planting soybeans on the Atwood Farm 

 Side-dressing 28% Nitrogen on the Daubard 80

The soybeans are getting big on the Elkhart 160 

Automated Ag unloading our new air system and wet bin 

No more down spouts - we ditched them under ground

The boys having fun at the Sangamon County Fair this week

Planting Update...

What a busy week!  On Monday we traveled to the John Deere Harvester Works in Moline, IL to view our new combine being built.  It was amazing to see all the details that go into manufacturing today's combines.  On Tuesday afternoon, we were able to get back in the fields and work on completing our soybean plantings.  We were fortunate to have Dan Brucker bring his planter and tractor down from the Bloomington area to help us cover more acres.  With his planter and our two planters, we managed to get all our soybean acres covered within a week.  A big thank you goes out to Dan for helping us.  We also finally wrapped up our corn on Saturday outside Jacksonville.  Is it bad to say we could use a rain on those fields to give the corn a good stand when we've experienced excessive rains all spring???  

We are now working on spraying herbicides and mowing roadsides.  Spotting in drowned out spots and washing up spring planting machinery are also some of the activities we are focused on.  What a spring - comparatively, we finished planting our 2013 corn crop 57 days later than we did our 2012 corn.  Unfortunately, that means our harvest this season will be pushed back into November and possibly even December.  Let's just hope our yield results will be significantly better than last year's as well.

Tom starting his new combine for the very first time on the John Deere Factory assembly line 

Much of the painting at Deere & Company is still done by hand 

Bob working ground on the Atwood farm across the road from our shop 

David replanting a wet hole in a corn field along Rt. 123

Tom spraying herbicides on corn outside of Ashland

Tom out with the disk on the Arnold Farm fixing wash outs from all the recent rains 

 Dan Brucker & Ron Brown loading the planter with more soybeans at the Arnold Farm outside Jacksonville

Dan Brucker making the final pass on a field outside Jacksonville 

Planting on our new County Line Farm South of Nortonville

Saturday, June 1st...

More rain this week with large amounts.  We will be taking preventative planting on the majority of our remaining corn acres.  This is the first time ever we have used preventative planting on corn; unheard of in Central Illinois.  We have over half our soybeans to plant, but there is still time to get those planted with good yield potential.  Our corn fields that have emerged have huge ponds of water sitting on them which will kill the young corn plants underneath the water's surface.  Even our best stands of corn took heavy amounts of rain last night.  Mother Nature is making a wicked average from last year...

Rail cars at the Scoular @ Waverly facility blown over from 70 mph straight line winds Thursday evening