This summer has flown by! 2020 is proving to be another difficult year for farming, and the rest of the world. Luckily, COVID-19 hasn’t had a tremendous impact on how we function on a daily basis. Farming must go on! We were able to get both crops planted in a timely fashion and currently both are looking really well. The cool start had beans growing very slowly, but they seem to have rebounded nicely. We only wish the markets would rebound as well!
We are finishing the last of our spraying tasks this week with fungicide application. During August, we will let Mother Nature take over and hopefully she’ll provide us with some nice rains to finish out the crops.
Covid-19 has forced us to cancel our Annual Landowner Supper this year. We really struggled with this, but in the end we just can’t risk our landowners. It is always so nice to get the group together and catch up on their lives and give them a glimpse of what’s going on in ours (and to see our cute grandbabies in person!). We will certainly miss it this year.
Spring planting is well under way! So far, we are off to a much better start than last year (fingers crossed). We started off planting beans because the ground temperatures were still a bit chilly for corn. About 1/2 of our beans are already in the ground! Corn planting started yesterday as the weather looks to stay warmer now. We have some rain coming in tomorrow so I’m sure the guys will push hard today to get as much in the ground as they can. Hopefully, Mother Nature is kinder to us this year and we can finish planting with good conditions with a little rain here and there.
Wtih all the coronavirus craziness in the world, we have been able to stay pretty much “things as normal” here on the farm. We’ve taken precautions to try to spread out our work force to include some social distancing from each other and our suppliers. Work on the farm doesn’t stop though!
What a winter we’ve had so far, including wind chill there has been a 90 degree temperature swing in the last 7 days! Welcome to Indiana in the winter months. Temperature swings, along with rain and snow has made working in the fields almost impossible thus far as the fields are very saturated. We have several tile and fence row clearing projects on our to-do list since harvest ended mid November, but we can’t seem to string together enough good days between weather events to get the soil in good enough shape to work. That being said, we have been able to move a lot of grain out of our storage facilities lately. There is also no shortage of work to do in the shop during the nasty weather days, such as planter rebuilds/improvements, semi maintenance, tile plow repairs, and many other repairs/preventative maintenance type work. Hopefully the weather will shape up later this month and we can get out and accomplish tasks on our list before it’s time for the planters to roll, it won’t be long!
We are plugging along with Harvest 2018! We just have one more day of soybean harvest and we are 50% done with corn. The last half of corn harvest should go a little quicker as we have already combined all of our furthest away farms. Our yields have been consistently good and we are very pleased. We needed some good yields to make up for the terrible markets. The weather has been a roller coaster this fall with record highs and freezing temps falling in the same week. Also, we’ve had a few rain delays thrown in. If mother nature cooperates the rest of the way, we might be done by Halloween!
Wow! What a year we’ve had. A cold spring made for a later planting start than we were hoping for, but a warm-up in late April kicked planting into gear. We planted over half of our soybean acres before we even started corn this year due to colder than ideal soil temps, but once we started we didn’t stop! We were able to plant our corn crop in just five days, and finished beans a few days later. Since planting our crop has been in the fast lane headed for harvest, and we’ve been trying our best to keep up! This crop took us all the way to August working in the fields this year, now it’s time to get our equipment and facilities prepped and ready to take on harvest.
Harvest is going strong! We are just starting again today after a rain delay. Bean harvest is complete and we are very happy with yield results. We are approximately 50% done with corn harvest. So we have another couple weeks to go. We were blessed with some unseasonably warm fall temps but that all changed this week. Highs in the 50’s is probably closer to where we should be at this time of the year, but it’s definitely a little shocking after being in the high 70’s last week. As we finish up harvest, we’ll start applying fall fertilizer and making input choices for 2018.
April is ending with a little more than a spring shower! Plenty of moisture to bring May flowers and hopefully some corn and soybeans! We were able to work in two weather windows and finished planting corn on April 26th. We hope for the last time! We began planting on the 14th, starting slowly but able to run for four days. Corn planted in that window has emerged or is in the VE stage and looking good. We then had cold weather move in, dropping soil temperatures down into the high 30’s low 40’s. We chose to stop the planters for three days. You probably remember we talked about there being a couple days each spring you just shouldn’t plant. These felt like those days, but we will see! After a few showers, some warmer weather returned and we were able to finish corn in really good conditions three days before the heavy rains came. This is important because at 36 hours after planting the corn seed starts to imbibe or absorb water. If the first drink of water is too cold, it can cause hormonal changes in the plant making it very lethargic, slow growing, and not able to fight off disease.
We’ve also planted about 30% of our soybeans. The beans so far were planted in very good conditions. Soybeans seem to be able to handle temperature swings better than corn. Our first soybeans have also emerged and are looking healthy. Hopefully the weather will clear up this week and we can get back in and get another good run planting soybeans.
Below is a video taken by Carlile Ag from their drone of Randy and Mitchell planting last week:
The weather outlook is looking much more springlike. We have the planters ready to roll whenever the conditions become right. The target date is April 17th (that usually means we’ll start at least 3 days prior to that). It always takes a few days to get the planters set properly and things to begin working smoothly.
In the meantime, the mild winter has allowed the guys to get a lot of projects marked off the list including fence row clean up and tile projects. We’ve moved a lot of grain this month also.
We are eager to start the 2017 crop season! It’s always an exciting time!
We finished our corn harvest on November 2nd right before the rain! We do have a couple fields of double crop soybeans to go back and get but should have no problem getting that done in the next few days. It’s always such a relief to get the last of the crop out. It’s a very long, tiring stretch of working 14-16 hours a day for our crew. Overall, we are pleased with our yield results. They weren’t as good as the last couple but still good. The beans were the bright spot as yields were very good.
No rest for the weary though … now we start planning for 2017. Soil samples have been taken so we can make fertility plans for next year. We’ll start analyzing what worked and what didn’t so we can purchase inputs for 2017. Also, the guys will be working on equipment maintenance and cleanup before putting away equipment for the winter.
Harvest has officially begun! Corn harvest is starting today! We’ll probably have a couple more weeks before we start combining any beans. The first week or so is usually a lot of starting and stopping until everything is ready. We had several delays during planting season so the same thing will probably happen during harvest.
We are plugging along with Harvest 2018! We just have one more day of soybean harvest and we are 50% done with corn. The last half of corn harvest should go a little quicker as we have already combined all of our furthest away farms. Our yields have been consistently good and we are very pleased. We needed some good yields to make up for the terrible markets. The weather has been a roller coaster this fall with record highs and freezing temps falling in the same week. Also, we’ve had a few rain delays thrown in. If mother nature cooperates the rest of the way, we might be done by Halloween!
Harvest is going strong! We are just starting again today after a rain delay. Bean harvest is complete and we are very happy with yield results. We are approximately 50% done with corn harvest. So we have another couple weeks to go. We were blessed with some unseasonably warm fall temps but that all changed this week. Highs in the 50’s is probably closer to where we should be at this time of the year, but it’s definitely a little shocking after being in the high 70’s last week. As we finish up harvest, we’ll start applying fall fertilizer and making input choices for 2018.