Soybeans
1st Major Announcement…Shed Day 5 and A Barn Fire
I guess we can let the cat out of the bag now and make the first of two major announcments that I alluded to earlier in January of some changes here on the farm.
Not only is this a shed we are building, but it will also be a warehouse for Pioneer Seed. Robertson Farms is now officially a Pioneer seed dealer. We will be servicing farmers mostly in the western part of Franklin Co. It is a natural fit for us. We have enjoyed a long and productive relationship with Pioneer as a seed customer and seed grower, mainly because I have felt that their agronomy and sales staff have always had my success at heart when offering me products and services. So when the opportunity presented itself last fall we began the process to become dealers for Pioneer. We have a lot to learn but are eager and ready for the challenge!
The end of day 5 on the new shed…………….now we are ready for metal! The nice sunny days have allowed for quick progress, but the bottom has fallen out of the ground around the site. We had to pull their forklifts and tellehandler out today. The telehandler was setting on the frame with the last truss suspended in the air………fun!
Meanwhile, while the last truss was going up, we spotted smoke accross the field and found that our neighbors old barn was on fire. By the time we got over there the major part of the black smoke was gone but the flames were still going as high as the silo tops!
The old barn has been a land mark on Rt 14 east of Benton and the silos are also the site where the original farm owner killed himself back in the 40′s or 50′s…………more on that later………
Happening now on the farm.
Busy under-describes the amount of activity going on right now.
Finished up hauling my January contracted corn this week. Glad to have that done……..it seems like it took for ever and I guess it did with all the meetings I have had and time away from the place.
Pioneer came and got their seed beans so we spent part of two days loading semis. The big plus is we got it done before the rains set in!
Progress on the new building has come to a halt with the rain and winds so no new updates or pictures of progress on that front.
Waiting on the last of the planter parts to get here so we can start the rebuild on it.
Waiting on the last of the NH3 parts so we can start the rebuild on the anhydrous tool bar.
We did get the planter monitors back from AgExpress………… that’s good news!
The next few days will be spend trying to catch up on all the paperwork that has piled up between meetings and hauling grain.
All in all, I would rather shovel grain than push papers………..
Missed it, too busy here
I was going to start the week off and get back to daily blogging but when I saw the forecast for next week I went back to work. Rain most of next week the way things look right now, so I worked some ground and spread P and K and had Browns spray some fields that I knew I most likely would not get to before it rained.
I had planned on doing some blogs on some shooting videos but that will wait until next week.
Oh, next week……is the SLE 2011 or State Level Exercise for IEMA and I have to play radio man. I am not ready, and dont look to have a lot of time to get ready this weekend either…..
So for a video on shooting how about this one…….
Or this one……
Soybean Harvest Update
The sun hung low this evening just before it dropped out of sight, so I took this picture with my phone.
Well, if everything holds together I can be done with beans tomorrow evening sometime. So far yields have been close to average for double crop beans for our farm, and from what I hear, my yields are not that far off of my nieghbors full season yields.
So once again its not what day you plant, its what happens after you plant that matters most.
44 acres left till harvest 2011 is in the books.
Corn done….on to beans
Matthew stayed home on Friday from school and ran the combine for me while I hauled to the bins so that we could get done shelling corn for 2011. I say done, as I am done with my part of corn harvest. U of I Dixon Springs still has 3 acres of corn to harvest as part of their fertility research that they have ongoing on my farm. So other than the little small patch all the corn is off the Robertson Farm.
I haven’t totaled up the bushels yet but we are below average in yields for the year. The corn-on-corn really hurt us yield wise but that field was also the field that had the majority of replanting, so it’s hard to say what should have been done there. Maybe replanted the whole thing? I don’t know. Something to think about later.
So today I will switch everything over to soybeans and begin bean harvest. That means that I will have to “decontaminate” the combine or clean it out thoroughly so I can cut seed production beans first before cutting my other commercial beans. The reason for the clean out is to avoid any other crop or bean variety from contaminating the desired seed production. Its not that hard but it is time consuming. The combine has to be cleaned out which means all the those corners and places where grain hangs up inside the guts and in the grain tank. The truck has to be cleaned and so does the auger used to load the bin.
I hope by dark that I have at least cut a truck load of beans and am well on my way to getting the big end behind me on Tuesday. But I have been constantly told that I plan too far ahead sometimes………
Stopped at 50% done.
Corn harvest is all but over for us except for the last 25 acres of corn that is still in the 18-20% moisture range. I thought it would go Saturday and got fooled when the yield monitor wouldn’t go below 17.5 . So we sit and wait on that field to dry down and hope it will stand, which I don’t think is going to be a problem because the stalks look like trees out there.
We are still a 0% on soybean harvest here. The leaves have fallen off about 40% of our crop but there is still a lot of green. Everyone forgets that we planted all double crops this year behind the wheat which has contributed to our lack of soybean harvest progress.
Of note this fall is a couple of oddities or at least oddities to me. First a six inch increase in elevation seems to indicated a 75 bu/ac increase in yield on the flat fields. The difference between the low ground and high ground is remarkable. It is also worth noting that this is only true on the corn on corn fields and not the other corn after bean flat fields. That is definitely something to cogitate on this winter.
Secondly the same corn planted on the same date has greatly different moisture levels by just crossing the road. I replanted most of the corn on corn field the same day with the same number I planted on the last 30 acres. Yet there is a 6% increase in moisture on the last 30 acres vs. the replanted corn on corn. Again go figure that out.
I am sure when I get into the soybeans that I will be scratching my head as well. Beans planted on 13 July into pure hog wallow mud, they shouldn’t make a thing but they don’t seem to be look to bad from a casual scout.
Harvest Progress Report (short)
Got done with the long rows………..GOOD CORN!
We are about 35% done with corn, 0% on soybeans…but the soys have just started to turn yellow.
Now we take a short pause to plant wheat and then back to the corn.
Here I am chasing Matthew with the grain cart about half way across the long rows.
Rain day and mid September observations.
Well it rained all day yesterday. We ended up with 1.41 inches in the gauge and it was greatly appreciated. It will help the double crop soybeans and it helped settle the dust. Cool weather followed the rain in and you need a sweatshirt this morning outside.
Some general observations this morning as we hit the middle of September. Corn harvest has started for about 80% of the farmers in the area but it is not a sprint this year but more of a walk-a-thon. Very casual. I think this has to do with lower yields and areas of higher moisture due to replants. I have yet to see the roads loaded up with trucks but I know it is coming.
Fertilizer prices keep going up and as more corn is shelled the amount of P and K that is going to get spread keeps going down. After a big hurry to get tonnage for prepay lots of folks are just not going to spread that much fertilizer this fall it seems.
Wheat acres are down it would appear. I say that now but know that a quick bump in the price will bring out more seed and more planting pretty fast. Corn prices have everyone looking to Dec 12 and not July 12. That being said there is also a lot of PP acres of DC Beans that will not get wheat planted back on it.
And last but not least……….the economy and the lack of direction and leadership out of Washington DC is weighting heavy on a lot of folks. Enough bad news beats down on everyone. Even in the Ag community where things are bright from a $ standpoint. This country needs a warm fuzzy reason to have hope and I fear we are not going to get more than a cold slimy from Washington for a while to come.
Whats Been Happening Here on the Farm Lately?
Garrison Keillor says “its been quite week in Lake Wobegon” as he gives his monologue on his radio show each week. Well we have been so busy here the last two weeks that I have not taken due time to make an account of what has happened. Really I have spent to much time reacting to the stupidity in Springfield, Washington DC and up the road so to speak.
So………
It been a busy two weeks here at Robertson Farms. I dare say from just the stand point of getting things marked off ”the list of things to do” we accomplished more in the last 10 days than we did all spring. All things are relative so to speak so what seems like a real busy week for one might not seem so busy for others. But we have been busy.
Some of the highlights………
Matthew got the prevented planting ground mowed with the bushhog, I opted to mow instead of spray or work the ground because I just didnt want to spray it or work it up in the middle of the summer to do it again later this fall. While he was at it a neighbor wanted his pasture mowed, so Matthew got to make some back to school money for his efforts while he was in the neighborhood.
After mowing we hauled out the remaining 2010 corn from the bins and worked on getting the wheat bin drawn down. Matthew got to learn how to clean out a bin and complained bitterly that it was hot in there. Hey, as least the outside air temp was in the 80′s and not 100+ like it was a few weeks ago. (Please save your OSHA comments on the lack of shield for another time, yes I know its missing and is needed)
In the process of cleaning out the bins we also transferred seed wheat to the seed wagon in preparation for seeding later this fall. In our operation that means moving seed from one wagon to another as the need arises. Here Matthew and his great grandpa Roy monitor the flow from the holding wagon to the seed tender.
We have been mowing water ways and right of ways trying to get weeds killed and make access easier for harvest. This mowing has showed that the 50 plus inches of rain up to August has made some real washouts and gullies that will need to be fixed next summer.
Now we are getting ready for Pioneer, who will show up Friday to start hauling out the seed wheat we grew for them. At that point its time to clean out and clean up around the bins to get ready for bin inspections before we fill them up with seed production soybeans! And I hope that we get the drill and the combine washed up this week as well.
So its been a very busy week here at Robertson Farms, and it looks to stay that way for a while………
Crazy days in the country side.
Its hot. I mean its real hot. The heat index the last few days has been well over 100 and in some cases over 110. By noon its hard to breath when your outside.
And outside is where I have been the last two days trying to get the spring soil sampling done. Normally I would have it all done but with the crazy rains and weather I still lack about a weeks worth of sampling. With the hot weather its cut my output to about half what I normally want to get done in a day. That sucks.
With the hot weather its also getting difficult to get the probe in the ground as the wet fields that were worked and planted wet are drying out. Again this slows things down.
Monday I also lost my cell phone in a field of soybeans. This is the first time I have ever lost a cell phone. It doesn’t bother me to much except for all the numbers that I hadn’t got backed up lately etc that are now lost. Oh well.
A drive around the country side shows some farmers still planting soybeans. Some have indicated that they will keep trying for another week.
The spring just keep going on…………..
Got Done Planting Beans
Got done planting beans. It was less then ideal by any stretch of the imagination.
That being said, they are planted, or more correctly drilled. In a comment to a couple of people I noted that 1/3 were planted just right, 1/3 were way to deep in the mud and 1/3 were laying on top of the ground. It was so wet that I had no down pressure on the drill and as a result it couldnt cut the straw or residue and would ride over it. Were there was little residue or a wheel track it was planting pretty good, and where there wasnt anything for the row unit to ride on it was planting them elbow deep.
So I am hoping that rain or no rain now that I will get at least 2/3 of a stand. (some of you will have to think on that one for a while)
Now to pull the remaining soil samples and then a break from all things agriculture at some point.
Planted some soybeans, FINALLY!!!
It wasn’t pretty folks. Had the 8770 (the big green 4wd you have seen in other pictures, just scroll down) hooked to the 15ft drill. Looked like an elephant pulling an ox cart, but other then driving around a few places of standing water I got some beans planted.
I told the seed rep that 1/3 were planted just right, 1/3 were way too deep in the mud and 1/3 were on top of the ground. Rain or no rain I hoped to get 2/3 of a stand. I had very little down pressure on the drill to keep it from burying the beans elbow deep in the mud. The result was that in places were there was heavy residue, it couldn’t cut it and would ride on top of it.
Oh well.
Early start in the morning and run until I either run out of seed, ground without water standing on it or I get done.
Running out of time…..
This has been a difficult year in many ways, difficult on so many levels. July the 3rd was about as low I think as I could get, maybe it was the 4th I don’t know. I just know that I hit rock bottom during that 24 hr period. Everything seemed to be working against me right then. Nothing was getting done. Nothing was getting done right.
The corn crop has been planted and replanted, most of it looks fair some looks good and some looks like crap. In some instances it is in the same field. I am pretty sure that it wont be a bumper crop if appearance has anything to do with it. When it quits raining this crop is going to suffer with no or shallow root systems with all the rain. But right now its green for the most part.
But I have no beans planted. None. Its not that I haven’t had a chance to plant I guess, but it has never been right. Others have planted, and replanted several times. Its way too muddy. OK, maybe even beyond muddy as there is water standing in most places I need to plant beans. So I sit. Waiting.
I thought I was close to planting beans on July 3rd when the chance of a scattered shower, a 0.25 rain event, turned into a 2+ inch rain event. Now we sit here on the 7th of July waiting for the ground to dry up. The 15th is the cut of day…..at least for insurance and for planting seed production beans. I knew right then that I wasn’t going to get done planting beans let alone get started.
And there is rain in the forecast. Today while Matthew and I were loading wheat we watched this storm cell develop south of us.
So, I may not get to plant any beans this year. I think the last two days I have gotten OK with that. I just want to get things done and done right. Nothing has got done right this year. Very little has got “done” either. Many things still linger uncompleted or done half way.
I never did get to spray my corn with the second shot of chemicals. Rain kept us out. So now I keep my fingers crossed that a half application will hold until harvest.
The wheat crop turned out to be the best crop of wheat I can remember. Great yields and despite the constant raining test wgts held at 59. It was a test and a race to get the wheat done and it got done, in the bin and now being hauled out. I thought sure we would lose it before it was all said and done but we didn’t. It got done, maybe not done right, but done.
So we are running out of time and I might be “done” with beans if it rains this week. And I am alright with that….really I am. At least that is one thing I can mark off my list that’s done……..
Then we can work on the other 99 things that have yet to be done, or done right……..
Wheat is done
Done with wheat. Looks to be the best wheat crop we ever had. It was muddy and still is too wet to plant beans.
Progress on the Wheat
Down to 20 acres. Waiting on trucks…….
Way too wet to plant beans right now. Almost been stuck twice with the combine.
