2007 Crop Year

Below are some highlights from the 2007 growing season.  2007 was an excellent year for us.  Despite the dry conditions in the early summer, July and August rains provided enough moisture for excellent yields on most of our fields.  Most fields averaged over 200 bushels per acre for corn and 55 bushels per acre for soybeans.

Getting Ready to Plant Corn
Throughout the winter and early spring, we got machinery ready for the planting season.  The pictures below show the machinery and seed we moved into the Farmer City location in early April.  We started planting there and worked our way back to the north.

We purchased a Cat MT 875B tractor this spring.  It has 575 hp.  It is shown below hooked up to a 62-foot field cultivator ready to start working ground ahead of the planters as soon as the weather cooperates.

Planting Corn

We were able to get started planting corn on April 20th in Farmer City.  Soil conditions were good, and the ground worked well.  This year we worked the ground with a field cultivator and planted with 2 - 24 row planters.  The tillage equipment and planters are each 60 feet wide.  We used using GPS auto steering systems on each of the tractors so that the planters follow in the exact same wheel tracks as the tillage tractor.  This controlled traffic pattern helped us reduce the impact of soil compaction.   

Spraying Corn

We used a two-pass herbicide program on most of our corn acres this year.  The first pass was Harness Xtra at planting, and the second was Round-Up.  The picture below shows the Round-Up pass made when the corn was 6 to 12 inches tall.  We used AutoSteering on the sprayer to guide us down the corn rows.  We also used autoswath which automatically turns the boom sections on and off with GPS, reducing application overlap.

Side-Dressing Corn

Over half of the corn acres were side-dressed with 32% nitrogen.  This corn ground received 70 units of ammonium sulfate in the winter and another 100 units of nitrogen sidedressed.  We used a 24-row application bar.  We utilized autosteer again in this pass to keep us on the rows.  We again ran down the same wheel track as the spring tillage and planter passes to reduce compaction.

Growing Corn

The corn crop suffered from dry conditions in June, but by pollination time in July, we had received some timely rains. During the summer, we finished cleaning out the 2006 corn from our on-farm storage to get ready for the new crop.

Fungicide Application

We applied fungicide to about 70% of the corn this year just after pollination.  We selected areas to treat with fungicide-based corn varieties and recommendations from our crop scouts.  We used Quilt fungicide and Coron foliar fertilizer in a tank mix.  The Coron provided another shot of nitrogen and the mico nutrient boron. We applied all of the fungicides with our own sprayer as a ground application.  The sprayer made it through the corn well despite the fact that some of the corn was over 10 feet high.  The autosteer on the sprayer again paid its way since it was nearly impossible to count rows at the end as we turned. The fungicide application paid off at harvest.  We saw an average of 20 bushels per acre benefit of fungicide application vs. non-treated.  The treated areas also had much better plant health at harvest.

Appreciation Dinner

We held an appreciation dinner for our landowners and associates in August.  It gave us a good time to socialize with everyone before the start of the busy harvest season.

Harvest

Corn harvest started in mid-September in the Farmer City area.  Our harvesting crew typically consisted 1 combine, 2 grain carts, and 3 semis.  The Cat 590R combine with a 16-row head was able to average over 200 acres harvested per day. 

The combine (and the good corn) was able to keep two 1,000-bushel grain carts and 3 to 5 semis busy hauling away the grain. At harvest, we again utilized auto-steering systems on the combine and grain carts.  The combine was able to keep directly on the row, and the grain carts were able to follow alongside the head at a set spacing. 

Overall the corn stood very well.  We did have some issues with corn lodging in the north.  Most of the down corn was late in the season and in small patches.

Below are some pictures we gathered though the long but bountiful harvest season.

Fall Tillage

Our fall tillage work this year was a Krause Dominator, which is a disc-ripper.  The 21-foot model did a nice job for us.  We ran one tool behind the Cat 875B on all of the acres. 

The fall tillage crew ran 24 hours per day for a good portion of season.

Thanksgiving

As the 2007 crop season wrapped up, we were tired out as this picture of Keith in the combine late in the season shows.  However, we are very thankful for the safe and bountiful harvest we enjoyed.