Thursday, October 5, 2023
At about 11 am, the rain began to fall, very light at first, and more is on the way. The radar predicts that this rain event will last until about 5pm, and we should receive .6″ (15mm). This should help the newly-planted wheat, and settle the dust for a couple days. The rain is falling gently, and the parched fields are soaking it in.
Speaking of wheat, the planting of the 2024 crop was completed last night about 830pm. Larry has now finished disking in another crop, probably his 45th or so for us. For the first-planted wheat from 9/28/23, we are just today beginning to see a faint green cast to the fields as the wheat begins to emerge.
Larry uses a disk to work the wheat and granular fertilizer into the soil. He has grown to like driving the new JD 8R 340.
The is is Operations Center map showing Larry’s progress on Tuesday afternoon. OpCtr makes it easy to check in on work that is taking place in the fields.
We are now down to two fields of regular-crop soybeans to harvest. Today’s rain will put that off, but if the rain is light, (<.75″), we will probably return to harvesting them tomorrow afternoon. We need two good days to finish off the soybeans. After that, we will return to corn harvest. The double-crop soybeans (DCB) have started to turn yellow, and may be ready by the end of the month. Even the very latest-planted soybeans that we put in after the conservation work at the Harry farm, are now beginning to “turn”.
Yesterday morning, there was a beautiful sunrise.
Sunrise over Palmyra Township, Knox County, Indiana on October 4.
Wednesday afternoon, I had a problem with the JD S780 combine. While harvesting soybeans at the Huey farm, the belt that runs the clean grain elevator broke. I called Alliance Tractor for some help, and JR was here very quickly. It turned out that there was more wrong than just the belt… the inclined auger in the grain tank was not engaging with its drive gear, causing the belt problem. That required a new drive cog and inclined auger, as well as a belt. JR got them ordered, and John helped him install those new parts this morning. When we return to harvesting, that problem should be behind me!
This morning, JR from Alliance Tractor used his service truck’s crane to remove the old auger and lift the new auger into place. This is the new one being placed in the housing inside the grain tank. After the auger was installed, the rain began, and we had to move the combine inside the barn to complete the repair.
Even on this rainy day, the trucks are busy, with Larry, Bill, and Ryan making deliveries of corn to GPC at Washington and soybeans to ADM in Newburgh. Since harvest started 3 weeks ago, they are making good progress to fill our fall contracts.
We are rejoicing over today’s gentle rain.
