Harvest is here...

Yesterday we started harvesting the first of our 2009 corn crop. Yields are better than we expected and moistures are ranging from 18 to 23%. We spent most of the day harvesting end rows and opening fields up. We started on the Creed field and moved across the lane to LWJ's big field. Once we had half of the bin full we decided to move over to the Grand Prairie farm. We filled about half of one of the little bins and quit for the evening. Bob also got started yesterday on the Whiznat farm and based on a few yields checks with the weigh wagon he was very pleased. The April planted corn appears to be very good, but it also has major amounts of Dipolida damaged kernels on the outside 24 to 48 rows. It is really nice to get harvest started; especially four days earlier than we started in 2008.

Things at the farm have been busy since my last update. We are getting the combines and other fall machinery ready to go as well as wrapping up a few remaining summer projects. The grain bins are all empty in preparation for this year's crop. We are also finishing up an electrical project at our Grand Prairie farm bin site where we had to bring in 400 amp service to provide enough power for the additional fans we have added to the bins. This involved taking down the old power lines and running the new lines under ground from the road back to the bin site. We hope to have that completed by week's end.

We have not started harvest yet, but one of our neighbors began today and I am told the moisture was between 25 & 30%. This particular field was planted prior to Good Friday, so it should be one of the driest fields around. I was told the corn was "good."

As you can see from the picture, our plot planted on April 26th still has a lot of green left in it - should be October before we harvest it. The other picture is of the new combine in the shed being worked on by Steve Clement from Brandt. He is installing the Trimble AutoPilot system which allows the combine to steer itself. David and Dad have also been working on installing the yield monitor as well as other "add-on's" we utilize during harvest.

I hope to be able to share some of our actual yield results on the next update.

Getting closer...

No pictures for this update, but I did want to post that Dad was out walking corn today and stepped into one of our fields planted on April 18th and amazingly discovered that it had already black layered (roughly 32% moisture). That is a great sign considering how cool the weather has been this summer. Last week's weather was good for moving corn along to maturity as well as providing for record attendance at the Farm Progress Show in nearby Decatur.

As of today, we hope to start harvest on Monday, September 21st. We'll see what the weather brings us as I have windows open on the house this evening as I type. Enjoy your week!

Picking up...

Yesterday we picked up debris from the tornado at our Williamsville farm. Our fantastic crew consisted of Tom Johnson (Dad), Steve Schilling (father-in-law), and Ryan Aupperle (brother-in-law). We were able to pick up everything we could see from the trailer in just under a half day. A big thanks goes out to each one of them for helping us out!

Traveling across the field while picking up debris also gave us a good opportunity to evaluate what is left of the corn and start working on a game plan to harvest this mess. I should mention that we met with the Crop Insurance adjuster on Friday morning and yes, we will have to try and combine this.

Our prep work for harvesting this has already started as we ordered a Kelderman corn reel for our 12 row corn head through our local Pioneer dealer (Jeff Cosner). Thank you to Jeff for thinking of us and giving us an opportunity to pool our order with other farmers who will be needing a reel for their corn head this fall.

See you all at the Farm Progress Show this week!

Aerial view...

Today I had the opportunity to fly over our field at Williamsville that had the tornado damage from Wednesday's storm. While this was good in the fact that I was able to see how much debris is laying in our field, it was bad from the standpoint that my vantage point showed me that my initial estimation of 50% damage was wrong. From the air I could see that the flat corn encompasses more like 85-90% of the entire field...

Thank you to Mike & Steve Pfister for taking me up this afternoon. Click on the photos to enlarge.

Tornado damage...

Late this afternoon a tornado ripped through our Williamsville farm. Luckily, none of the neighboring home owners were affected although the town of Williamsville is in pretty bad shape. My estimate is that over 200 acres of the 415 field was leveled by the tornado. Some of the corn is laid over and some is snapped about 2' off the ground. Time will tell what the end results will be. Many power poles were snapped and we will have plenty of debris to pick up before we can even think about harvesting.

Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Tiling in the summer...

Pictures from today's tiling project at the Williamsville farm. The ground was so saturated that as soon as the tile was laid, water started draining towards the ditch. Thanks to Steve Jurgens and David Younkers today for their hard work!