Thursday, September 28, 2017
The dry weather continues, but it has cooled off a bit. No more days in the 90s. Today’s high is predicted in the mid 70s. And tonight, they’re saying temps in the 40s! I may have to trade my shorts in for jeans tomorrow!
We continue to move through the soybean crop. We are using these dry days to the best advantage, to cut beans. Another hope is that by leaving corn standing while we cut soybeans, the grain will dry enough so that we do not have to run it through the dryer. We will see.
The planting of the 2018 wheat crop continues. We have two more fields where we must cut the soybeans for the wheat to be planted, and that may occur today or tomorrow. Then, Larry can return to finish off the wheat planting.
The CPS truck has the wheat seed blended in with the granular fertilizer. The blend is uniformly spread on the field. We have used this method of wheat planting for many years.
Larry comes along in the JD 9330 with the disk and crumbler to mix the seed/fertilizer blend into the top 2″ of the soil. Typically this gets the wheat going quickly, but this year a rain will be helpful to a good start.
We are now over halfway done with the soybean harvest. We monitor the results with our FieldView app on the phone. It gives a good report of the yields segregated by variety, or soil type, or location. This data is collected in the FieldView Cab app in an iPad in each combine. It is a very good data management system for us.
We had a good neighbor who lost a combine yesterday to a fire. Because of that, we re-commit to blowing off the dust each evening before we leave the combines. We have a leaf blower that is just right for that task. Last time we bought a new combine, the JD dealer gave us this blower, and it turns out that we use it as he suggested!
The side panels are opened up on the combine, ready for the leaf blower to clean off the accumulated dust and debris. It’s much easier if there is some wind to take away the dust as the leaf blower blasts it off the combine.
Tuesday was an especially good day, harvesting at the Burke farm. The field was nearly level, and the beans were good-yielding. We kept Brandon busy with the grain cart. The machines worked well, and it was just a lot of fun to be in the field that day.
This was Tuesday afternoon at the Burke farm. A good place to work, and a fun task for that day!
As the hours accumulate on the combines, we are inching towards an oil change in the engines. The JD is about 40 hours away from this required service.
We keep marching ahead, day by day.
