Thursday, July 18, 2013

The sun’s rising in the sky this morning, and it’s getting quite warm.  77F already at 8 am. It feels like summer this week with the 90+ degree temperatures and the return of the humidity.

Today, we will take the air drill to Nellie, Grubb, and Freddie to run in some soybeans in spots that were killed in the late June flood event.  The water is now gone, and I think almost every spot that was flood-damaged will be plant-able.  I expect this to entail about 60-70 acres total.  The air cart has enough seed in it to cover about that many acres.

When this operation is done today, the drill will be the next candidate for a thorough cleaning, and then it will go into storage until we need it next spring!  I’m always eager to get it hooked up in late March or early April, and equally as eager to put it away in June. This year, the planting season wore on much longer than typical.  And we put in hundreds of acres of replanting with it… some places were planted a third time!

We understand that whatever is planted today will, at best, be harvested separately… and later… probably into early- to mid-November.  It will complicate harvest somewhat, but the potential bushels of soybeans makes today worth the effort and expense.  One thing we can know for sure today:  if we don’t replant, even though it is very late, those areas will yield zero.

There has been a lot of maintenance going on this week.  Haley has been spraying sprouts in ditches, Ben has been mowing riparian areas and waterways and roadsides.  Nick has been spraying our nemesis johnsongrass in field borders where it is too difficult to reach from the seat of the Gator.   We will mow all the farm lots today, and gather the materials for painting a couple buildings here at the farm.  Hopefully, next week will be a little cooler for that painting task.

Off to the field!

Ready to go this morning to replant soybean acres killed in the June flood event of White River. Will this be the last day of soybean planting for 2013? Hope so!