Sunday, September 29th...

Harvest is underway on our farm.  Corn yields have been surprisingly good for as little rainfall as we received this summer.  We are focusing on our April 30 - May 2nd corn plantings as those fields have lower moisture content.  The bushels from those fields we are drying down in our grain dryer.  We are thankful to get started and very blessed to have good yields.  The corn we have harvested we have dried down and then hauled out to railroad elevator locations to our South in Waverly.  We sold quite a few bushels for a September delivery premium and as of today only have one more load to get delivered to satisfy our contracts.  Saturday afternoon, we missed the rains that came through, so we switched the combine over to soybeans and cut about 25 acres that tested 12.8%.  Yields from the soybeans were also surprising.  Fall is officially here!

Harvesting the end rows on our 1st field - harvest 2013

A view looking down from our wet bin at the dryer

Ron Brown and Phil Smith working on a roof for the grain cleaner

Taking our 1st load of Propane prior to harvest beginning

Sunday, September 15th...

More harvest preparations have occurred over the last two weeks.  We continue to prepare our grain drying facility with the final touches scheduled to be completed this week.  Last Thursday we fired up the combine and harvested the corn adjacent to our drying facility to make room for the grain pump and new circle drive way.  The corn's moisture tested 32.8% which is really wet so we only harvested half a truck load and stopped.  Our earlier planted corn is not drying as fast as we had hoped, but eventually we will need to get started as we have grain committed to be delivered by the end of the month.  We hope to start harvest in earnest on Monday the 23rd.  This allows us one more week to get all the machinery ready and wrap up any summer jobs we have managed to put off until now.  There is zero corn harvested in our immediate area as of this weekend.  

Harvesting corn to make more room around the grain dryer

An aerial view of our new dryer set up

Ron Brown's handy work installing concrete barriers to meet fire code on the bulk head of the large Lp tank

Fixing a tile hole on the Lehmann farm

Mowing downhill at a 30 degree angle on the County Line farm

Inter-planting clover in the CRP on our University of Illinois farm

Saturday, August 31st...

A little slower two weeks as we turn the corner towards harvest.  This past week we set both the generator and the large Lp tank for our dryer project.  Work continues as we focus on wiring and building the entrance and exit to our facility.  We have also continued to mow road banks and get harvest equipment ready.  

Later in the week we attended the Farm Progress Show in nearby Decatur.  It was one of the hottest shows we've ever attended, but it did allow us to visit with many exhibitors and see products we are interested in for our business.  Our main focus was trying to find a way to decrease the compaction in the corn rows that are adjacent to the transport tires on our planter.  At the moment, it seems we have two options; 1) an air system that allows us to inflate/deflate the tire pressure from the cab of the tractor and 2) tracks for our planter.  Luckily, we have a little time to make that decision.

Harvest appears to be 2-3 weeks away, although a few of our neighbors may try some corn in the next 10 days due to early delivery incentives and commitments made in early spring.  We are experiencing one of the driest August's in recent years.  Our corn crop is tolerating this hot and dry weather fairly well and we anticipate a 170-200 bpa average yield.  On the other hand, the soybeans depend on August rains and to date those have been non-existent.  We are on the cusp of having the worst yielding soybean crop in the last 20 years if it doesn't rain soon.  

Taking the 18,000 gal Lp tank off the trailer and putting it into place on the concrete piers

Making sure the generator gets set correctly so the wiring goes as planned

The generator is set

Max's 3rd birthday celebration

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