Monday, June 5, 2023
Last week was a flurry of activity…at least for the sprayer. John was very occupied each day, early morning to late evening, applying herbicides. With water trailer support from Brandon and me, he was able to get the corn ‘laid by’ –which means it has received its final treatment until harvest… final, that is, unless a fungicide application becomes necessary. That will likely require the services of an aerial applicator.
When the corn work wrapped up, John immediately and thoroughly cleaned his sprayer inside and out to switch over to spraying soybeans. We cannot have any residue of corn chemicals left in the system…it might damage the beans! He then set to work for long days of herbicide application over-the-top of the soybeans. The main culprits to stop were the johnsongrass (of course), waterhemp, and cockleburs. John wrapped up that task on Friday afternoon, which left him time to do another clean-out before the weekend. Today, we can see the effects of the glyphosate (Roundup) on the johnsongrass in every soybean field.
John sprays corn at the Huey farm. This field of corn is now ‘laid by’.
This is a screen capture of JD Operations Center on my phone showing John spraying the Freddie farm.
I had to go out on Tuesday and Friday to do some soybean replanting. On our Cox farm, there was a spot of 7 acres that were flooded out soon after planting. Then, on Friday, I went down to the Freddie farm to plant a couple spots that were not dry enough to plant when I was there in early May. All in all, I replanted 25.6 acres of soybeans. For me, planting soybeans is fun, but replanting is kinda like work… a few years ago, I had to replant over 800 acres that had flooded. So, last week’s replant seemed like no big deal.
The prolonged period of dry and hot (above 90ºF) weather has us concerned about the progress of the corn and soybeans. During the hottest part of the afternoons, some of the corn is now beginning to ‘roll‘. This is a self-preservation response that happens in drought-stressed corn. So far, however, the corn ‘unrolls’ in the evenings and it still looks rather healthy. The temperatures predicted for this week are in the 80s rather than the 90s, which will help… but a rain is something we need.
Ray is here from Hutson, Inc. today for two reasons. First, he is installing the flip-over conveyor on the air cart… it took longer for this attachment to arrive from its manufacturer, KSI. So, to get us by, Hutson’s moved the attachment from our trade-in to the new air cart. Now, that the new attachment has arrived, Ray is here to swap it out! Ray’s other task is to track down a problem I experienced when I was doing some soybean replanting. The blockage monitor in the drill was acting wacky, and not all the rows were being monitored properly. Strange warning screens kept popping up and I had low confidence in the blockage monitor. Ray will make sure that’s working, too. It’s nice that the morning is cooler and more comfortable for him to do this work.
Ray sets his hand to removing the old conveyor
In this crate is the new conveyor that Ray will install
This is the blockage monitor screen showing the malfunction while I was replanting last Friday. You can see 4 sections working properly, and 4 are offline.
We are closely monitoring the development of the wheat crop. These hot and dry days have seemingly accelerated its dry-down towards harvest. We will be more fully preparing the combines and headers very soon in order to be ready when the wheat is ready! The days continue to march along, and we seem to keep busy with each new day.
Have a wonderful week. Pray for rain.
