Week ending January 26th...

This past week I had the opportunity to travel down to New Orleans and view ADM's AMA grain handling facility courtesy of Nathan Ehrhardt at 1st Farm Credit Services and Lynn Byington at ADM.  It was an excellent trip.  Here are a few facts I discovered while taking this tour:

• Even though this is on the mighty Mississippi River, you are still 117.5 miles up river from where the river exits into the Gulf of Mexico
• 40% of the Port of New Orleans business goes through one of the five NOLA ADM facilities; these combined for over a billion bushels of commodities loaded last year
• 55% of all commodities leave the US through NOLA
• ADM's NOLA locations shipped commodities to 57 different countries last year
• 90% of the grain these facilities receive is via river barges; the remainder is via rail
• ADM currently only owns seven ocean going Pana-max vessels
• This AMA location holds 22 different grains and grain by-products at one time
• AMA can off load an average of 80,000 bushels per hour direct to the waiting ship
• A typical Pana-max vessel holds 2.1m bushels and most carry four to five different commodities per run; these are called "destination loads"
• The only true "one commodity" vessels lately are soybeans headed to China
• It takes roughly 33 days to get from New Orleans to China at an average cost of $30,000 a day for vessel and crew costs
• A Pana-max vessel is 105' wide by 728' long; the new "Post-Pana-max" vessels will be 140' wide making it difficult for current facilities to load

It was amazing to see how this giant operation worked.  They track grain quality and barges throughout the entire US and are always looking 2-3 months forward.  Rarely, do they ship #2 corn and most corn loaded out of NOLA is grade #3.  Each load is tailored to meet rigorous and specific tolerances.  To achieve these exact tolerances, one person blends commodities coming from different silos simultaneously.  It is not a computer doing this, but rather a person trained for three months to perform this specific role.  Also, the amount of paperwork that goes with each shipment is crazy with each barge load on the vessel having to have it's original destination documented.  

If you ever get the chance to go on a tour like this, take the opportunity!

 ADM's AMA facility in New Orleans - one of five of their facilities

Looking across the levy on the Mississippi River side of ADM's AMA facility 

Command central - the gentleman on the left was controlling where the grain was being sent from the barges being unloaded while the gentleman on the right was loading the Pana-max vessel.  He was controlling three different commodities and the blends thereof at the same time... 

Looking up river off the bow of the ship headed for Guatemala

For dust control, this facility uses two giant mist cannons which grab the dust particles in mid air and drag them down in the mist as it settles.

A video of how they unload barges and move the grain in house.  This 77,000 bushel barge that came in from northern Mississippi was unloaded in 55 minutes...

 Another way to unload barges; anchor in the middle of the river and use cranes to grab the commodity and dump it directly into the ship.

Empty barges and a view looking down river.

Mid January...

My apologies for not posting recently.  Blogspot.com is having issues uploading pictures from your computer to the blog site so had to re-work some things with another browser, but now we are back in business.

The winter months bring with them a lot of office work planning for 2013 and wrapping up paperwork from 2012.  They also push us indoors where it's warm.  Lately, we have been busy performing winter maintenance on semi's and various other items.  We are also spending more time crafting our herbicide programs as this spring we will plant corn in 20" rows which will narrow our application window significantly.  In addition to that change, we will be growing some nonGMO or conventional corn with zero genetically modified traits on our Greene County farms and trying to figure out a herbicide program that doesn't involve glyphosate (RoundUp) anymore is a little challenging.  

The weather here has been variable to say the least.  Last Friday it was almost 60 degrees which allowed for enjoyable tear down of the Christmas lights, but the next day brought in a cold front which dumped over an inch of rain on us - thank you!  Two days later we had an ice storm and now we sit in a crystallized winter wonderland.  I guess as long as it's some form of precipitation we will take it.  

When the weather warms we will resume hauling corn from our bins again.

Winter maintenance on one of the semi's 

What we used to haul with 25 years ago...

Merry Christmas...

Owen practicing with the Illini 

Owen & Max playing outside in the recent snowfall

Week ending December 15th...

Not much exciting going on right now.  The clean up of fall tillage and fertilizer equipment continues and year end tax planning and execution are top on the list.  We hauled corn out of our bins to fill our December contracts because we feared the Illinois River would close due to low water levels on the Mississippi River, thus stranding full barges on the Illinois River; but that hasn't happened yet. 

The weather has allowed us to keep working outside which is abnormal for December.  Due to changing guidance system brands, we have been out in the fields with the Ranger running all new farm boundaries and AB lines in preparation for spring.  These boundaries will allow us to do many different things with our new guidance system and the more we get completed now, the less we will have to do in the spring. 

A nice rain came through the area last night which brought much needed moisture.  While our area has been blessed with a few rains that others have not received, our tiles are still not running and that is concerning going into winter. 

Our hearts and prayers go out to everyone in Newtown, Connecticut.

The new planter has arrived... 

Mapping boundaries and making new AB lines with the Ranger

Week ending December 1st...

This begins the winter blogging where finding pictures of farm equipment and daily activities become a struggle.  However, the work goes on.  This past week we continued to wash and put away the fall tillage equipment.  We also began hauling corn to the Illinois River terminals located 25 miles West of us in Beardstown.  Normally, this winter project does not start until later, but the threat of the river closure due to low water levels has local grain company's scrambling and requesting early shipments.  While we are hauling corn out of the bins, we are trying a new practice that we normally wouldn't to help lower the risk of testing positive for afloxtoxin in our grain samples.  According to neighbors who have already begun hauling their corn out of local grain bins, the center core is the most problematic area.  I will try to get pictures of that process for next weekend's blog update.

Meanwhile, the Christmas Holiday activities are nearing and the boys caught up with Santa on Saturday.  We now have officially communicated their "wish list" to Santa and he has all but guaranteed them delivery of these...as long as they are good little boys...:)  I almost forgot to mention that Owen lost his first tooth this week.  That means we have seen both Santa and the Tooth Fairy all in the same week.  And let me tell you, inflation has treated the Tooth Fairy's payment plan a lot better than the Federal Government's...

Have a great week!

Owen & Max with Santa at Bomke's Patch

www.bomkespatch.com 

Owen was MVP of his basketball game this weekend.  Here he is pictured with his award and his coach, Mario.  Congratulations Owen on your six baskets!

Week ending November 24th...

The last of the field work is close at hand.  We have wrapped up all our anhydrous ammonia applications and now only have some in-line ripping to finish on our Greenfield farms.  The weather has turned much colder and dry again.  What tiles were running are no longer.  Recent forecasts have put chances of rain in them and then removed them as the time has gotten closer.  Our hopes of going into winter with the soils fully charged are being dashed quickly; although we know we are better off than a lot of other farmers throughout the Midwest. 

The new rail spur being built on the South side of Jacksonville is going up fast.  This new facility will hold two million bushels of grain and has the capacity to dump 20,000 bushels per hour.  This is the third rail shuttle facility to be built in our area.  And rumour has it that a fourth will be built North of us in Menard County very soon.  Read more about the Bartlett expansion at http://www.bartlettandco.com/viewNews!details.do?newsArticle.id=76.

We continue to make 2013 seed and herbicide decisions as well as clean up fall equipment.  We hope to take in the Greater Peoria Farm Show this week too. 

 Loading the dry fertilizer into the strip-till bar 

Custom strip-tilling down in Loami 

The new railroad shuttle being built in South Jacksonville. 

Bartlett Grain expected to be online by July 2013.

The newer CaseIH tractors now take Urea to clean the exhaust so they meet the Tier 4 emissions requirements 

Owen getting in his last yard work of the year before the weather turned cold

Week ending November 4th...

Another busy week around the farm.  Earlier in the week I attended the Ag Engage seminar in Decatur.  Myself along with Wentworth Family Farms from Downs, IL were asked to present on "marketing our business."  We discussed blogging, having a website, farm resumes, etc.  It was a lot of fun and we got to see many friends we had not seen in a while.

Later in the week the anhydrous ammonia applications resumed.  With the forecast of heavy rains coming we decided to run three toolbars to try and get finished.  The rains arrived slightly ahead of schedule, but we are very close to wrapping it all up.  The rains dropped an even inch on us which should get the tiles running as we head into winter.  The forecast is for sunny weather for the next 10 days which should allow us to wrap up our fall work.  We continue to wash and put away the harvest equipment.  And meeting season has started as we continue to work on end of year financials and cropping plans for 2013. 

Ag Engage seminar in Decatur 

Getting an early start as the forecast was for 100% chances of rain 

Slip plating the inside of the big grain cart - hopefully, this will make higher moisture corn slide down into the auger hole easier