Well, it’s late Saturday night, October 8th, and we finished with the soybean harvest… sort of. Left uncut are some acres that were re-planted after some flooding on the Cox and Pond farms, as well as Commer and Huey. We drove around those areas as we were harvesting on those fields– a return trip will be necessary. That may total 70 acres, and then there are the double-crop acres which are ‘turning’, but will be toward the end of the month before they are ripe and dry and ready for the combines. Maybe those re-plant acres will be ready in a week, hope so anyway.
Therefore, on Monday, we will return to corn harvest. I hope the moisture content is dry enough not to need the dryer, but if it is over 17%, to the dryer it will go. About half the corn has been harvested, so another week of combine work will go a long way to getting it done. The problem is the corn at the Huey farm; it was planted in June after the flooding episodes, so it looks rather green. If we go ahead and gather it in, it will definitely need to go through the dryer.
We got across the Freddie and Huey farm soybeans yesterday and today, over 500 acres between the two. The average yields were down somewhat on those two locations, but there were also areas where the yields were great. Our best soybeans were on the Cox farm and Crook and the Pond. Those locations really produced some great yields, near 70. I understand that many farmers are quite pleased with their bean yields and disappointed with their corn yields. For us, it seems that the opposite is true. Not surprising.
We are not storing any soybeans, even though our fall delivery contracts are now filled, we continued to deliver the beans to market, accepting the current market price. We plan to do the same when we return to beans again. We are not confident that there is much upside potential for soybean prices, as much as we are for corn. We will begin on Monday to fill our remaining storage bins with corn, and plan to deliver it to market beginning in December.
Wheat planting was finished on Thursday. Soon those fields will be covered with a soft green color.
We have Mr. Olan Worland at work, on the Crook farm and on Nellie and Grubb to do some conservation improvements, as well as some major repair work to the flood damage. Also engaged are the Shepard brothers who will install many acres of drainage tile, re-shape an eroded area on the Home farm, and re-configure some surface drainage on the Huey farm. Bulldozers and track backhoes and tiling machines will soon be very occupied making these improvements. It will certainly help if it stays dry for all that work to get done before the muddy days arrive. Both Mr. Worland and the Shepards have done this type of work for us for many years. We are very pleased with the quality of their work, and they are very pleasant folks with whom to do business.
The 10-day forecast is for dry and warm days…thank you, Lord. Is there anything more pleasant than a clear, warm October day in southern Indiana?
