Today we are replanting soybeans. Sometimes the illusion is that every day is perfect sunrises and sunsets if you follow farms and farmers on social media. We all have frustrating, maddening days like everyone else. This field was well on its way to a great looking field of beans a week or two ago but being planted in a window of cold weather combined with a little chemical injury due to cold and disease brought on by that cold the population started dropping so here we are. June 9th and we are out re planting hoping to save as much yield as we can. Not all days are bluebird days, but we still love what we do.
Well, it’s been almost one and a half years since I have updated this blog, so I will admit it, I am a #crappyblogger. We are going to work to change that and have at least a couple updates a month here to keep everyone updated on the happenings on the farm and in our lives on the farm. If we fail in that endeavour, I will refer to the aforementioned hashtag and you can too!
Spring planting got off to a very dry start and the last week has brought 4.3 inches of rain. The conditions prior to that rain were incredibly difficult to plant in and we only put in around 160 acres. Now, with ample moisture to plant into and a weather forecast that looks favorable we plan to roll by the weekend on #plant16.
Below are a few photos from the spring here on the farm.
Getting the planter ready to goKristi and I at some business training working on our business planDelivering Producers Hybrids seed to customersOur son doing what he loves to doPlenty of help from the girlsTreating soybeans with Fungicide, insecticide and inoculant for #plant16
A picture taken from our DJI Phantom 2 Drone yesterday
Our baseball team doing a service project helping the residents of a local nursing home celebrate the opening on the MLB season.Our new house is taking shape on the farm. They are mudding the drywall today. We hope to be in by June.
Treating soybean seed with fngicide, Insecticide, Inoculant and an Organic Growth PromoterTook a trip to DC to lobby for speeding up the regulatory process relating to new technology in agriculture.My wife joined me in being over the hill in March. We had a great party at the farm with family and friends.
Many things are going on here at our farm this winter. We are spending time doing crop planning, receiving seed corn, booking chemicals, repairing equipment, building a few things and the list goes on and on.
Seed corn being unloaded at the Producers Hybrids facility in Battle Creek, NE. All seed corn is harvested on the ear, unlike commercial corn, popcorn, or white corn. This is the seed we will plant in 2013.
We have hired a full time employee this year. Mason just graduated from Hastings College in December and started full time with us on January 1st. He has worked part time for us the last year and we welcome him and are very happy to have him on board.
We have worked with Producers Hybrids as a dealer for the better part of two decades and they have worked really hard this year to make sure we have the tools necessary to succeed. To that end we took an extensive tour this year during the seed corn harvest and saw our products as they came out of the field and headed to the bags that we will deliver this spring for planting. Producers is a part of the Ag Reliant family and is independent in the fact that we are not owned by a chemical company which makes them a different kind of seed company.
Myself on the right with fellow dealer and friend Doug Luther in the middle and our District Sales Manager Jason Fryda. This was taken during lunch after visiting Ag Reliant’s Research facility on the southern side of Puerto Rico.
As part of equipping us with more knowledge of our company and our facilities, I am just returning from a visit with Producers to Puerto Rico where we toured our research facility there. They have the benefit of a climate which literally can allow three crop seasons in one year. They plant on most days and harvest on most days. This ability coupled with a dihaploid breeding process allows us to bring products to market faster than anyone in the industry. It was very beneficial to see what we have coming down the pipeline and have an opportunity to see the excitement that the people have for what is going on with our seed corn company.
The coming weeks will bring more prep work for the 2013 crop, my first meeting as a school board member at Adams Central, a meeting with the Dow Grower Technology Group, a vacation as a couple, and some basketball games the kids are playing in.
From our farm to yours, we all hope you had a blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Water flowing down a row on our gravity irrigated fields
It has been a very busy summer here as we have been in one of the worst droughts I have seen. We have caught a few timely rains here that other areas of the state have not. Our non-irrigated corn is just barely hanging on. We will have a crop from it, but it will be less than expected. Our irrigated fields look great and yield projections for those will most likely be record yields the way it looks now as we are way ahead on Growing Degree Units and have very minimal disease and insect pressure.
The popcorn looks good this year as do all of the soybeans also. I have included a few pictures of gravity irrigation and pictures of the crops to catch you all up with what is going on. Hope to get back to posting a little more often, but mother nature and kids activities dictate my free time this time of year.
a pipeline on one of our gravity irrigated fields. The water flows through the pipe and out individual gates for every row that we open manually. It is a labor intensive irrigation process.
This is the lower end of the field that the water flows to and we check to make sure the rows flow through to the end.
We are thankful to have the irrigation on our farms as much of this country’s ag producers are not so fortunate!
Our corn is nearing roasting ear stage and it looks like harvest will be around two weeks early this year.
This is a book we use to keep track of the rows that water reaches the end. This particular field has over 600 rows.
Days of the Weeks 