Been a slow last week here from the crop standpoint. Received 2.5-4.5 inches of rain last week and started off Monday and Tuesday both with rain and another 1/2 inch. We have around 375 acres of corn in the ground and are ready to roll on both corn and soybeans at the same time here in the next few days.
Time has been spent treating soybeans and taking care of the seed business along with coaching my son’s USSSA baseball team. A few pics from the week are below.
Well, after quite a bit of time off from the blog, here we go again. Been a busy 2013 so far. All of our crops are in the ground for this year and have all emerged. We will be raising popcorn, white corn, yellow corn, alfalfa and prairie hay this year.
We welcomed a full time employee to our operation this year. Mason is a graduate of Hastings College and had worked for us part time while attending college and playing college football. He graduated in December and started work for us at the beginning of the year. We are happy to have him helping us.
I have spent a lot of time this year coaching a USSSA 8u Hastings Brickyard Bombers baseball team. Coaching 8 year old kid pitch baseball has been a great experience. To see where the kids are now compared to the beginning of the year and to see them start to have some success has been very gratifying. It has been a year of fundamentals and learning how to play the game the right way. The main thing we want out of our team is for them to look at us at the end of the year and say they can’t wait to play next year.
We broke from our color scheme on the farm this year and bought a John Deere tractor which has brought me much joy(sarcasm) in the form of all the ribbing I have taken from friends and neighbors.
Weather has created some interesting situations this year also. We have had a flipped pivot, some minor hail, gone from dry to wet and experienced relatively cool temperatures so far outside of one 100 degree day.
We have also decided after two years of subdivision living that it is time to be back on the farm and will start the construction of our new house in the next couple weeks. The mailbox is up, plans are done and we are off and running with it. I spend a lot of time talking about the disconnect from agriculture in our society and we felt like we were contributing to that with our children. There are many benefits of subdivision living like neighbors, kids for our kids to play with, socialization, etc, but we also enjoy the peace, family, responsibility, work ethic, freedom and privacy living on the farm provides us. So, back to the home place we go! Wishing you a safe and prosperous spring and summer season. The Weeks Family
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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.
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.
Spring work is in full swing at our farm theses days. This is probbly the earliest we have been able to get field work done that I can remember. It was a very mild winter and that in turn will present its own set of problems this year.
One of the problems we will see is that our compaction zones in the soild were not broke by the natural freeze and thaw that we usually experience. Another issue we will deal with may be heavier than normal disease and pest pressures in our crops. This is going to mean increased costs for our farm most likely and the use of fungicides and some insecticides which we have not had to use for quite a few years, at least on our conventional corn.
We do use both fungicides and insecticides on all of our popcorn acres as the popcorn plant is a much more susceptible plant than our yellow commercial corns. Popcorn in general has weak scores when it comes to plant diseases and pest like corn borer and rootworm as all of our popcorn is non-GMO. Much of our popcorn ends up in export channels and it is a requirement that it is non-GMO. It is all source verified and can be traced all the way back to individual fields it was rasied in. We also document every single thing we do in that field regarding application, and what is put on the crop regarding fertilier, chemicals, etc.
The one thing I think a lot of people do not realize is that we do this same documentation for all of our crops. It is a requirement of the federal government and we can be audited at any time for compliance. The majority of the yellow corn that we grow is GMO corn and requires little to no fungicides or insecticides as the plant has a natural resistance to most of our major concerns. On our farm we use GPS technology and computers to document everything we do with a time stamp. We can telll you exactly what time of day we were in a certain spot in the field, how fast we were traveling, amounts applied, wind direction, and its speed. This keeps us in compliance and also provides us documentation regarding potential drift, etc. should there be a concern with a neighbors field or farm.
So, spring work has begun, but so has the task of documenting all that we do to ensure a safe, abundant food source for all.
This is a great blog post by Chris Chinn, a farmer from Missouri. Her number one concern is the welfare of her animals!
Did You Know McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s and Sonic All Support HSUS?.
Chris does a great job of explaining her family’s reasons for adopting modern pork production practices!!!
Just a few pictures to catch you up with what we have going this time of year. We are currently very busy with yellow corn harvest and have seen some very good yields. We finished soybeans a few days ago. The corn is still a little too wet to go to the elevator with it so we are putting it in bins to dry it down and store.
Also included is a short video of how I taught my black lab Coal to jump up to the combine platform to ride along. I apologize for the video being sideways as I held my phone that way. Tilt your head a little to the left and you will never notice!!!
The last couple weeks we have been busy with State Fair, incorporating manure for next years corn crop, readying harvest equipment and making decisions for the 2012 crop year such as seed, fertilizer, cropping system, etc.
One of the things I really came to the realization of this weekend at the Agchat Foundation Conference is that as hard as you try to be yourself in your online conversations, the real you doesn’t get across until you have those in person conversations not limited by 140 characters or the time we spend in our endeavours to promote agriculture. So, in light of that, this is a blog post to introduce you to me. This is not our farm, what happens on our farm, or an agvocating post! It is a post about all of those things in the title that are me and create the fire inside. In short, how do all of the words in this post title fit together?
Many on here know and have experienced my intense passion for the occupation in which I work, but there is much more that lays the foundation for who I am. I view my interests as rather diverse for a country kid raised on the farm. I am equally comfortable in Wranglers as I am in a Business Suit. I enoy being covered in grease, sweat, and mud while working but enjoy an evening of golf with my wife or friends at the country club. There is nothing better than charburgers on the grill and fresh sweetcorn, although to me equally good is great sushi and a Sapporo. 
I love Country Music, but a little Eminem now and then with some Nickleback suits me also. Taste testing different local beers is something I love to do, and I also enjoy the experience with wine. Leadership roles come naturally to me, but I can serve in structure of an organization effectively. I can carry a hard edge when working, but have three kids that soften me more with age. 
I love college football, parrticulary the Nebraska Cornhuskers and also have an artsy side that appreciates greatly the gifts
artists have as I don’t play an instument and the only drawing I can do is a picture of Snoopy! I like to Hunt and Fish, but also enjoy a night on the town with my wife. I have a strong feeling that all need to serve their commuity in some kind of volunteer capactiy as working for something besides money is satisfying to me. I used to love politics, now it infuriates me! I believe strongly in the community in which I live and will continue to fight to preserve it for my kids. But most of all I just want to be a good Husband, Father, and Friend!So while this gives you a glimpse of the things that drive my passion and are parts of my life, the one thing I realized and heard over and over this weekend was how important your real life connections are and that you must find a balance. I am very fortunate to have a very diverse group of friends and family in my life.
Future blog posts are going to try to reflect our lives as a whole on this farm and not just the agvocating that we do. In order to effectively communicate our thoughts and ideas relating to agriculture, you must know who we are also.
THis is
This is a picture of our kids and Kristi’s brother’s son as he got to explore the farm yesterday. They live in the city and this was his first chance to come to the farm for a tractor ride, explore the combine, and take a ride in the Rangers
Taking a ride in the ranger on our farm
The corn is growing quickly here and has hidden the pivot tires from view. We are around 10 days away from tasseling. The sweetcorn we planted tasseled a few days ago here.
Soybeans almost canopying the row. These soybeans are planted in 30 inch rows.
Days of the Weeks 