Agriculture
Lots and lots of VRT
There seems to be the greatest interest in VRT this fall. From lime to P and K producers who never gave VRT a second thought seem to be fascinated with doing it. Its about time for many of them.
With fertilizer cost where they are and the prospect of a below normal or less than normal crop in many areas because of the heat this summer producers are looking for small ways to cut back on cost. This is funny in some ways because not to long ago when Potash spiked at $1200/t producers either put some on or didn’t put any on at all. In that year I wrote many a VRT recommendation, more than I had ever done, but it still is nothing compared to this year. This year has seed a whole new level of interest.
I think that we have found our point of “balance” between the price of an input and yield. Kind of like $4 gas for our cars. When gas gets to a point we watch our trips and how much we run in the tank. When gas is $2.50 we buy gas and don’t think to much of all the running around we do. But when gas is $3.00 we all at once buy gas and watch were we go because we know we are only going to buy what we need at $4.00.
So I think we have reached that balance here in Southern Illinois. Price is to the right of the middle. Its not as high as it has been but its going up. Yields are average to below average. So between the two, farmers say lets buy but lets buy with caution and apply it in a conservative manner. And VRT fits that line of thinking.
This is not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination.
Harvest Pictures
A few more shots from corn harvest last week. Plus a short video!
Here is a short 45 sec video, I just love the sound of that combine………
Time doesn’t allow me to do to much today with the pictures or video other than post them. Busy week and a lot to get done. Harvest will be put on hold for a few days: rain in the forecast and then we don’t have any more corn that is ready. But it wont take long!
Couple of quick observations from the pictures:
- You will note the black dust on the combine and the difference a little water makes.
- Also look at the black water that stained the driveway after washing.
- The yield has been great fo the year so far, above trend line.
- The foder is increadable!
First Day Follies
First days of corn shelling and we have our usual first day follies to report. (sorry for poor quality cell phone pics)
We went to the field with red combine but quickly it turned into a black combine as the corn was dry and dusty once we got inside the field. The yield monitor shows 15.5 avg moisture but we are seeing moisture in the 13.5 to 14.9 range in the middle of the field. So it is dusty and hard to see!
The yield has been great! the first ten acres or so had run about 180 then it began to drop off a bit, which is normal in this field and we are running a 150 avg. That will pick back up as we finish out this field but things are running very close to my yield estimate. Good corn and we will take every kernel.
The dry corn is creating a lot of header loss in the form of butt kernels shattering off the ear when they hit the stripper plate on the head. Not much that can be done about that but we are losing about 2% at the head. Good news, nothing lost out the rear of the combine!
As for our mandatory first day break downs:
- Blew fuses on the fan on the grain bin and then found out that the kill switch isn’t working. So that will be something to address this morning.
- The feeder house speed sensor came unhooked and it took a while and a phone call to find where it was located and then to hook it back up. No problems after plugging it back in.
- And the hitch pin in the big auger wagon broke/fell out/ bounced out / or just disappeared while driving across the end rows. Bad deal but it was EMPTY thank goodness. So a quick chain and three point hitch jack improvising and it was back in service in 30 minutes.
So I am off to check the bin, grease the head and get in the good ole red/black combine and hit it again today!
Be safe out there!
Everyone Gettin Busy
A short update here this morning.
I would say based on the comments over the weekend that about a third of the farmers in the area are about to head to the field today to start shelling some corn. Early corn is anywhere from 15 to 20 and everywhere in between.
It is also the first day of school for the kids around Benton. So some added excitement (not for the Robertson kids) to add to everything else going on.
I hope to replace this update with something more substantial later…………..
Friday Picture
Well at least it is a dark green this week. Last week before the rain we were a greenish yellow wilted color. That color isn’t good for indicating plant health.
Out the back door picture(s) for this week showing the drought and heat stressed beans here behind the house. The cool weather of late has helped and the rain of a week ago has the beans blooming again. But those pods that are being set are only 2 bean pods. That ain’t good! We will see what the weekend brings as we have another slight chance of rain.
Combine Cleaning
Of all the farm jobs, the one I hate the most is greasing the combine. Its not the maintenance I hate, its the fact that there is no way in the world to perform the maintenance or repairs on a combine without getting filthy. Combines are dirt magnets. Not just dirt magnets, but the most powerful dirt magnet in the world. Dirt will accumulate out of no where and to a depth that seems impossible for such a short time of use. It’s the kind of dirt will cause you to itch like crazy.
This dirt is also dangerous. It can catch fire and burn if it is an area that gets hot. Especially if it accumulates in those areas. So besides being a nuisance, dirt and dust are also a fire danger.
Matthew is becoming the official combine operator. Note the word operator, not driver. My new motto is that if you drive it, you clean it. If Matthew will clean it, I will repair and perform maintenance on the clean equipment. Fair enough exchange I think. Besides, Matthew loves to use the power washer and he doesn’t mind getting wet and dirty in the process.
So Matthew washes today and tomorrow and then we hook up the corn head and wash it. Then I will begin the process of performing maintenance and greasing the head and box while Matthew cleans up the cab. By the time this operation is done, we should be ready to get grain bins in order and set augers for corn harvest.
Then we wait. Wait for the corn to dry down. I suspect that we will be shelling corn by the first of September.
Ahh, shelling corn, my second favorite thing to do on the farm. Second only after side-dressing corn with nitrogen. Funny you get to do the second favorite thing after doing the first hated thing.
How far we have come.
Was cleaning out a bunch of junk from under my desk trying to find a bunch of other junk when I came across a milk crate full of old equipment manuals. I had took them out of the shed when we cleaned the shed out last winter and had forgot all about them.
There is a manual for just about everything it seems. All of them for equipment we don’t have anymore. Technology changes, thank goodness. I would hate to have to harvest on a combine with no cab! Not only that, but our efficiencies and our productivity increases when we adopt new technologies.
So, it is still amazing to me when some of the older generation out there doesn’t get it about technology. Yes, it costs money. But just because something worked then doesn’t mean it works now. Or maybe it works but it is not efficient or as productive. Maybe we didn’t have a choice “back then” and we do now. Maybe to be competitive we don’t have a choice but to adopt the newest technology, no matter short lived it might be.
GPS is one of those technologies that has brought about change. Chemicals are another. Things have changed greatly, but in some respect they haven’t changed all the much lately. You don’t see many cultivators anymore. You don’t find anyone with a rod and chain for measuring off acres. Yet there are those who say that cultivation is better than chemicals. There are also those who say that we don’t need all this GPS stuff to farm with either.
Those few loud voices are right to some extent. We don’t need all of the latest and greatest technology to farm. But it sure makes it much easier. And it makes it more productive.
It still rains
What an unexpected blessing this morning and afternoon. Rain.
Some pop up thunderstorms rolled this way. I poured half an inch of water in the gauge to prime the pump and we got .75 of an inch out of the two rain events today. It was much needed and changed the color of the beans very quickly.
The air temperature dropped almost 30 degrees after the rains moved through. That was a very nice addition to the rain!
Corn is being shelled southeast of here. I expect to see some shelled here in this county middle of next week if not earlier.
Corn, Heat, GDU’s and Yield.
Late last evening I spent some time in the corn field. According to my GDU clock, I have accumulated 2,703 GDU’s (Growing Degree Units. An excellent primer on GDU’s for corn is here at OSU)since 19 April. This corn field was planted on 18 April, so I know I should have few more GDU’s than that. That should be enough to bring this corn to physiological maturity, or black layer.
Dan Davidson does a great job of defining black layer here at his DTN Blog. Suffice it to say that when the black layer, a layer of “dead cells” forms at the base of the kernel, all water and dry matter accumulation quits in the kernel. The black layer can be seen when you split the kernel open as noted in the pictures I took below.
Now that the corn has black layered it is time to see what our expected yield is going to be. Using the formula I described on Monday, I went out and counted ears per 17.5 ft of row for corn planted in 30 inch rows. I averaged 30 or 30, 000 plants per acre. Not bad because I dropped 32,000 seeds, so I ended up with 94% of my dropped population. That’s better than the advertised or guaranteed % germ on the sack! Not bad.
Next, I counted the average number of rows per the sampled ears. Again, I chose the odd numbered ears starting with the fifth ear in my sample. One sample set is shown below. Here is a big hint: while your average number of rows can be an odd number, when you count the rows on each ear they will be an even number. If you ever come across an ear with an odd number of rows, let me know……….we will make a fortune! My sample came up with 17 rows on average.
Then you count the number of kernels long the ear is. I cheat a bit here. I don’t count the first 5 butt kernels or the last five tip kernels. Don’t ask me why, I just don’t. I don’t feel they are representative of the rest of the sample. In my sample set I got 31 average kernels per length of ear. Again not too bad.
At this point we can estimate yield. 30,000 ears per acre that are 17 rows around and 31 rows long equals (30,000 X 17 X 31) 15,810,000 kernels per acre. Divided by 90,000 kernels per bushel and that (15,810,000/90,000) gives us 175 bushel per acre. I will take that this year!
The one problem I see is that there is not much kernel depth as noted below. This is the effect of the hot weather on the corn crop. Corn likes night time temperatures of 67-70 degrees. This allows the corn to better move water and dry matter into the grain. With the high night time temps we have had (80+ now for 6 weeks) the fill has resulted in shallower grain depth.
As a result, I would knock off 15% of my yield estimate for shallower grain depth, and now say that 150 bushel an acre will be my yield. But rembember, I fudge a bit, not counting the butt and tip kernels, so I expect it to be a bit better than my reduced guess.
One thing to notice is that there are ears in the field that look like this one below. Here we see that the ear has robbed water and dry matter from the tip kernels (the last to fill) to the lower kernels to make sure the plant fills and reproduces. This will cut yields in a lot of fields this year.
Well, so much for my yield tour here at my own farm.
Today, I will be speaking at the Brookside Labs Consultants meeting in St Louis.
Busy Day
Awoke to fog this morning. The air was so think you could cut it with a knife. And you could feel it when you breathed.
While I was there I took a couple of picture so the double crop soybeans. They sure need a rain as they are blooming and beginning to get a few pods. They are going to be short. I just hope they make 30 bushel but realize that might not be possible. The nice thing about these double crops is that they still have a long way to go, and we still have most of August and September to fill them out. Especially if the heat holds on.
Well now its wheat to get cleaned today, then off to get a couple of computers fixed and few farm visits to get some recommendations done. I also have to put the finishing touches on my presentation for a meeting tomorrow in St Louis. Busy, busy day, again!
Is RTK oversold?
There is a lot of press on RTK right now. RTK is that super accurate GPS correction, survey grade, to plus or minus a half centimeter. It is pretty impressive. It is also pretty expensive. It is also, in my opinion, being over sold.
Accuracy is addictive. Just ask any target shooter. I admit that accuracy with a rifle is addictive. Being able to cut the same hole at 100 yards with my rifle is a goal. Its more about the man than the machine with a firearm. Yes the tolerances in the action and barrel along with the consistency in the load help to get better accuracy, but its more about if you can hold still, hold that same point of aim, and control the trigger than anything else.
With GPS, it’s all about the correction signal, not the GPS signal. It is all the machine and nothing to do with the man, minus the initial calibration, which a lot of people don’t do correctly. The more accurate the correction signal to the GPS unit, the more precise your implement will be in the field….assuming you calibrated it correctly.
And what are you doing with that level of accuracy? If you are not saving A B lines and moving them from machine to machine, or if you’re not employing management practices that require you to be that accurate, like ridge till, or you’re not using the mountain of data that is collected by the controller with that type of accuracy, then you have just blown a bunch of money for something that is underused.
I use the analogy that its like using a Barret .50 cal Sniper Rifle to shoot chipmunks. Impressive, but a bit of overkill at $10 something a shot vs. a .22 at something like $0.10 per shot. Yeah, you have to be a little more accurate with your .22 than the .50 cal, but the chipmunks can’t tell if they have been shot by one or the other.
So, why then do so many farmers bypass the WAAS system with its lower accuracy level to do RTK when they don’t do anything other then drive straight? Like the illustration above, you have to be a bit more precise in you calibrations but no one can tell the difference in +-.5 cm vs. +-3 inches at 6o mph while driving by your fields. A lot of times that pass-to-pass accuracy is even better with WAAS, than what is advertised. Again, it’s in the calibration of the machine, not the correction signal.
Don’t get me wrong, when it is properly employed, RTK can make your life and farm more profitable. But I have yet to see a farm that exploits RTK to its fullest potential. Most of the time, its just used to match up equipment of different widths for convenience of planting or harvest. And if that is the only use you have for RTK, you’re losing out on a bunch of real benefits other than being able to run your 12 row planters and combine with your 8 row head.
He who learns to exploit the accuracy and data goldmine of RTK will win the race to greater profits. And those that don’t are shooting chipmunks with a .50 cal, impressive but wasteful and expensive toys.
The top 25 is only 5 better
Yea, that’s right, the top 25% of farmers are, on the average, only 5% better than the rest of the crowd.
Think about that for a minute. What does that mean? Well, it means that being consistent is everything. It means that being or doing good in a bad year makes all the difference in the world. It means that the last 25% are so far behind…. well lets just say that they are in trouble. It means that this business of farming is a lot of up and down turns.
It also means that the margins are slim at the top…………..no matter what the size.
Turkeys
Well, we have wild turkeys on the farm now. I saw two last weekend and Matthew saw one last week.
Turkeys are pretty destructive animals to row crops. Deer are too, but deer seem to have a rhyme and reason to their grazing. Turkeys, on the other hand, seem to pick a row and go right down it…………eating and tearing out the crop and letting it lay. Not good.
I can’t say that I am all that excited about the turkeys showing up…………
Random thoughts.
The last few days have drove home some realities from some meetings I went to last winter.
Most people do believe that their food comes from a box, a bag, or the phone book. It is amazing how little people, especially city/urban people know about food. They seem to love their misconceptions and hold to them regardless of how much truth you tell them.
At one meeting this winter they said that 70% of Americans don’t know what they are going to eat for their evening meal at 4 pm. That number seems to be low, based on my experiences over the last few days. I would say that 90% don’t have a clue what they are going to eat at the evening meal. That being said, very few if any of them ever sit down to eat with their families. Sad.
There is a difference between stupid and ignorant. Stupid is that you can’t learn or just won’t learn. Ignorant is that you just don’t know because you have never learned, or needed to learn a subject.
I guess I am just amazed at how stupid people are these days about agriculture.
HyMark High Spots
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September SunriseSeptember 4, 2010AgWired
Know a California FarmerSeptember 4, 2010Macks Page
Annual ConferenceAugust 13, 2010