Monday, October 21, 2019
Rain today. We awoke to the sounds of rolling thunder. The lightning show before daylight was quite spectacular. The rain is welcome today. By noon, we’ve received about an inch. That will really help the emerging wheat; it’s nice to see those fields turning a pretty green again.
The grain carts wait outside in today’s rain.
We have nearly completed our #harvest19. The DCB are wrapped up, with the best yield in our history. We still have a couple patches of soybeans, replanted in July, that will take a nice afternoon to wrap up. The most unharvested acres are in the corn, where we need to bring in about 220 acres. Even though it was planted on June 3, it looks pretty good, and will likely test near 20% moisture. We need about 3 good days’ running to finish off this harvest season.
Harvesting soybeans. My favorite farm task.
View from the seat of the JD S780 in the corn field.
A load of soybeans, ready to go to market.
Corn yields have been so-so this year. If it was 10 years ago, we’d be celebrating the good yields, but our corn yield expectations have grown over the years. Still, we are very pleased to be harvesting the corn we have… some Midwest farmers were not able to plant corn at all. No whining here!
We got our Demco 1350 grain cart back on its tracks. It was out of service for 16 days, sparking our reaction to add a used Kinze 1050 (blue) cart to keep our harvest rolling. John found the parts for the Demco’s Camso track system (some had to be fabricated at Camso) and rebuilt the entire track in our shop. Then, Brandon and Ross took that rebuilt system and installed it back onto the Demco cart. The plan is to trade both these carts during the off-season for a new cart (brand to be determined). The thing we learned from this extensive and expensive repair on the cart tracks is that we need to keep the cart fairly new.
Last weekend’s inch of rain allowed both combines to come into our shop for their first oil change.
The CIH 8250 was in our shop last Saturday getting an oil change.
We also have the STX 420 back from the shop. We had to press the JD 9360R into grain cart service for a few days. Brandon really missed the tracked tractor as he was hurrying across our corn and soybean fields, shuttling between the combines and the trucks. He’ll have a smoother ride now for the wrap-up.
In addition to helping the wheat, the rain will also help the cover-crop oats we planted across our hilly fields. The oats help protect from water erosion. They will eventually be stopped by the cold of winter, but the decaying plant matter will keep on protecting the soil well into spring.
Can you see the strips of oats here in the field?
Planning for #plant20 is already underway. Most of the soil testing has occurred, and recommendations for fertility are being received. Some of the corn fertility has been applied, and more is under consideration. There is one field that will be having lime applied soon. As an integral part of this fertility planning, the financial projections will impact the plan. Our tax year ends on November 30, so we will also be figuring out and executing that year-end plan over the next 5 weeks. Once the field work gets done, the office work floats to the top of the priority list!
Yes, it’s raining today, and that may complicate the final few days of #harvest19. But the weather all fall has been superb for field work. We are grateful.
I’ll close today with a picture sent to me by a friend from church. He was there last Saturday evening, as we were working the nearby corn field.
A fine day of corn harvest draws to a close near Wheatland, Indiana on Saturday, October 19.
James 5:7 1 Thessalonians 5:18
