Wednesday, September 26, 2012

During the night and this morning, we have received 2+inches (57mm) of rain.  The harvest is stopped, waiting for drier soil conditions.  I am pretty sure the drought is over!

John is running the dryer to empty it out.  When it is drying corn, it runs continuously, and the filling system calls for more corn every few minutes.  When it runs out of corn to re-fill, it shuts down… but the dryer remains full of corn, wetter at the top, drier and cooler at the bottom.  At this time, to get it empty in case of more rain, John is running some dry corn into the top.  He will then operate the dryer in ‘batch mode’ and when all the corn is dried and cooled, he empties it manually.   It has to be started like a batch dryer and emptied like one.  But in the ‘run’ mode, it is unloading continuously, and the columns of corn in the dryer move steadily toward the bottom.  By the time the grain reaches the unload system, it is dry and cool, ready for storage or delivery.

Philip is delivering some corn to market.

I am hopeful that the remainder of the soybeans, besides the double-crop beans (DCB) of course, will be ready once all the corn has been harvested.  Only 2 locations remain of corn, and it is ready to harvest as soon as the soil will support the combines and trucks.  The fall rains are helping the DCB produce more yield, and they are showing just a tiny hint of ripening.  We would expect that DCB harvest to come in the 2nd or 3rd week of October.