Thursday, January 27, 2022
We had a super-cold night Tuesday night. Got down to about 5ºF (-15C). Yes, I know that’s nothing compared to others across the upper Midwest, but for us, it’s pretty darn chilly! But, as you would figure, that cold snap is just that– a short period of cold. By the weekend, we are predicted to have temps back in the 40s. Up and down… weather in southern Indiana.
5.4 degrees Wednesday morning!
I could see a few flakes of snow this morning as I came to the office. It got a little more significant about 9 am. But I don’t expect it to get very deep. Just a ‘dusting’.
After watching the weather forecast, it is likely that we will begin applying the first pass of nitrogen to the wheat crop on Monday. Of course, we can only do what the conditions allow, but it looks like we will have a couple days that will allow us to put that “food” on the wheat crop. We just received the results of some wheat tissue samples, and that will also guide us in what is put down in this application. We will likely add a trace amount of Boron to the liquid N.
Just think: it’s not very many weeks away from the beginning of field work for 2022 corn and soybeans! We are not quite fully prepared with the machines yet, and the new anhydrous ammonia application machine we ordered back in June may not arrive–which will cause us to scramble to put the old machine back into service. But we will do what we must do to get our field work done in a timely and efficient manner. Spring work will be here soon… we will do all we can to be ready.
During this cold spell, I got the nitrogen prescriptions written for the 2022 corn crop. We apply the N as anhydrous ammonia before planting (pre-plant). These prescription maps guide the application system to vary the rate of N for different areas of the field…according the productivity capability of the soil type. Before this technology was available, we simply applied one rate to every acre. Prescription maps allow us to use this expensive input in the most effective and efficient manner. It is one of our methods to implement “precision farming” in our operation. I use an Agrian program imbedded within JD Operations Center to create the maps. I call up a soil survey map and then to each soil type in the map, I can assign a nitrogen rate. These maps are sent wirelessly to the tractor’ s Greenstar screen, where they are loaded into the system. When the application machine gets to a corn field, the map is brought up. As the machine moves back-and-forth across the field, the system reads the map, and applies the corresponding rate to the soil. It is neat to watch the rate change as you move across the field. This method is very precise so that a “just right” rate is applied to every acre.
Agrian program within Operations Center shows a soil survey map of the Cox farm… a unique rate of N will be assigned for each soil type.
Basketball season is winding down for our local HS girls’ team. Last regular season game is tonight, and the tournament starts next Tuesday. The season has really gone by fast. The boys’ season runs through February with the state tournament in March. There is still plenty of Big Ten basketball to be played. Our Boilermakers have an important game out in Iowa City tonight. They’ll have to do well to win out there. Pat and I went out there a few winters ago to see Purdue play Iowa. We didn’t come away with a win that day, but we still enjoyed out time there. I must say that Carver-Hawkeye Arena is very impressive. And we learned that Iowans love ice cream at the game!
Wednesday evening sunset at Carnahan & Sons.
Have a good weekend.
