Thursday morning, April 24, 2025
Well, we got going yesterday afternoon with the corn planter. Brandon went down to the field at VanVleet, and later to the Dunn farm and he got two fields planted with corn. We are about 5% planted with corn now! It feels good to finally get going. John has been running two days with the sprayer, getting the corn burndown herbicide applied ahead of the planter. We hope Brandon can find some more fields today with soil dry enough to plant!
As Brandon plants a field, he records the operation into his GS4 screen, which subsequently sends the information wirelessly to Operations Center. We can access that information in both the office and on a Mobile app on our phones. One of the important things that gets recorded at corn planting is a thing called “AutoPath”. From that, guidance lines are created that will assist the sprayer this summer and the combines this fall. No more “counting rows” to find the correct pass when making a turnaround on the end of a field. AutoPath knows which machine you’re operating, and then steers it into the correct row to eliminate overlapping or skipping. We are very pleased with AutoPath.
Getting started
I’m headed off this morning with the 9R540 and N550 air drill to start with the soybean planting today. I have about 3-4 days of soybean planting to do in the fields where I have applied the burndown herbicide. I’m not sure all of those are ready (soils dry enough) to run the planter. But I think I can work in 3 or 4 fields today.
Yesterday was a good drying day. It was sunny, sunup to sundown, and got up to 80ºF (27C). A sunny day is predicted for today, but rain is in the forecast for tomorrow. At least I should get a start today. It is always good to get some crop in the ground in April. Yes, we would have preferred to plant some around April 10, but that just wasn’t possible this spring.
Brandon has toured the fields near White River that were flooded (with the 2nd highest river crest in history). He says there is some damage to our levee, but we hope we can put that repair off until fall.
I spent most of yesterday in my recliner at home. Somehow, either allergies or something had got me down with the dreaded “man cold”. But I went to our doctor yesterday and got a shot and some antibiotics, and today I’m more clear-headed and alert. The shot had some steroids in it, which prevented much sleep last night, but I still feel rested and ready for the day.
Pat took the beautiful afternoon yesterday to mow the yard. I think she likes the new mower, and the yard looks really nice after her work.
Pat pauses the mowing to view the messages on her phone.
Here’s to #plant25 getting fully underway today.
