2013 Crop Year
Harvest Season
Week Ending December 7th
Our fall tillage work season came to an end this week with the onset of the cold weather and frost. We finished working all of the corn stalks and most of the soybean stubble that we wanted to run the rippers through. By this weekend we have 3-4 inches of frost in the ground and snow expected. Winter is here.
We continue to run the scraper to reshape waterways washed by this spring and summer flooding. Most of the problem areas have now been repaired.
We took advantage of the last of the warm days (50 degrees) this week to get the combine cleaned up and put away. Keith enjoyed cleaning the mud off of one of the rippers in the shop. There are always plenty of clean-up jobs to keep everyone busy this time of year.
Below are some pictures from the week. The kids were enjoying the snow this weekend as we took out the Cat sled for a spin.
Week Ending November 29th
We finished our last small patches of soybeans this week on the day before Thanksgiving. The ground was frozen and the beans were down to 14-15% moisture. Our replant soybeans planted in mid-July did better than expected making it worth our time to plant and harvest them. It is a great feeling to have all the crops out now.
We continue to do tillage work in the frost. We are thankful that this season is coming to an end.
Below are some pictures from the week including the last crop rows from 2013.
Week Ending November 24th
Despite some mid-week rains, we got a lot of fall tillage work done this week. We ran both rippers as much as we could. Once the field conditions were fit we ran for over 24 hours straight to get caught up. The pictures and videos below show some of the work. Efren and Randy did a great job of keeping the machines up and running. The machines are doing a nice job and staying together. We are able to run them at nearly 7 mph at a depth of 11-12 inches.
We were not able to make any progress on our small field of soybeans that we have left. We tried some soybeans on Tuesday and they were still 18% moisture. We have not had any good bean drying days for a while.
We have started cleaning up some of the harvest equipment including the grain dryer which is a big dirty job. We also got started on some drainge ditch maintenance work.
Week Ending November 17th
We finished up corn this week and most of our soybeans before storms set in on Saturday, November 16th. The last of the corn yielded well, above 230 bushels per acre. We did have to fight some snow plugging up our sieves towards the end but we made it.
We were able to get switched back to beans by Thursday. The remaining beans were finally fit and we went after them with 2 Claas 780 combines. We ran until 3 am on Saturday morning trying to finish up the soybeans when light rain shut us down with about 80 acres to go.
The tillage crew continued to make good progress this week as well.
Week Ending November 10
We started off the week with some good progress on corn harvest. Midweek brought some heavy rains to the area again. During the rain delays, we took care of some maintenance issues. One of the 3 fan motors on the drier went down last week. We had it rebuilt and got it back into the drier. It is a fairly large undertaking to get the 850 lb motor back into the drier but with the help of the excavator and a boom, we got it back together.
The heavy rains made it impossible to load trucks in the field at some field locations so we spent one afternoon installing a new culvert and stone in a field entrance so we could load out trucks on the stone.
Clear weather returned later in the week and we were able to get a lot of corn done. Field conditions were still wet but thanks to the tracks on the combine and carts we were able to run without a problem.
Corn yield continues to be variable depending on where the water from the spring floods sat on the fields.
This weekend we were able to get some more of our next-generation farm workers out to the field for some training. Kristine (16) and Karoline (13) tried running the combine and found out that there is more to it than just driving straight down the rows.
Some pictures and videos of this week are below.
Week Ending November 2
The week started out dry and we made some good progress on soybeans. The middle of the week turned wet. We had nearly 3 inches of rain in some places which brought harvest to a standstill for a couple of days.
We had some bad luck in soybeans with equipment. We ingested a discarded tire into the combine. The tire made it all the way through the threshing cylinder and got caught as it was entering the rotors. After about 5 hours of disassembling the machine, we were able to pull out the tire. Luckily there was no damage to the machine. Some pictures of the tire problem including the torn down machine are below.
Soybean yields continue to be good while corn yields have been variable in the north. Fields that caught the late-season rains are doing ok.
Week Ending October 26
We had a good harvest week. We harvested several good fields of corn early in the week and got back to soybeans later in the week.
Kelli was on grain cart duty for several days. She did a great job. She had several junior farmers come to ride along with her.
The tillage crew finished up tillage work in Farmer City. Efren will be moving the machines back up north to run up this way next week.
Limestone applciations have started in the north.
Week Ending October 20
Rain and wet conditions slowed up harvest progress this week. We were able to get some corn out but no soybeans. Corn yields in the north have been highly variable depending on where water stood on the fields back during the flooding in May and June. Fields with drainage issues are again performing below the better-drained fields.
Corn moisture levels remain relatively high for this time of year. We are seeing moisture levels still in the range of 22 to 25%.
We continue to work on hauling in limestone and do fall tillage work. We have also started doing some surface drainage work in the fields that are now harvested.
Keith (9) started running a grain cart this week. He did a great job for his first time running the machine by himself. He and Grandpa Craig were on duty with the carts for a day.
Below are some pictures from the week.
Week Ending October 15
We had another good harvest week. We finished up both corn and soybean harvest in the Farmer City area. Corn yields were good and soybeans were excellent. We had several fields make almost 80 bushels per acre. Yields were better than expected given the lack of rain in that area during July-September.
We had Birky custom harvesting help us with the last of the soybeans in Farmer City. For the last couple of days, we had three Lexion combines running. We were able to knock out a lot of soybeans and get them done ahead of the rain that hit on October 15.
We got the machinery moved back home on October 15 to get ready to harvest again in the north. We have both corn and soybeans to harvest here yet.
The tillage and limestone crews are making good progress in Farmer City. They are nearly half done.
Below are some photos from the week including one of daughter Kristine in her new/used car. She just turned 16 and is hitting the roads.
Week Ending October 5th
Harvest is now in full swing. We made good progress this week on both corn and soybean harvest. Early in the week, we harvested our early maturity soybeans in the Yorkville area. Yields were good at over 60 bushels per acre. We finished up the early beans by midweek just ahead of some rains and then we moved the machinery south to the Farmer City area to start corn harvest there. The Farmer City corn yields have been highly variable depending on which fields caught some crucial August rains. So far field averages have ranged from 170 to over 200 bushels per acre. These yields are better than expected given the general lack of rain in that area from July through August. Corn moisture levels have been in the 22 to 25% range.
This next week we hope to finish corn in the Farmer City area and start soybeans there. The weather forecast is calling for a nice clear harvest week.
Our tillage crew is making good progress. We are again using CaseIH 870 rippers this year. Efren has been busy working all of the seed corn acres that have already been harvested.
Limestone applications to manage soil acidity have started. We stockpiled limestone this summer and those piles are now being spread.
Below are some pictures from this week's work.
Harvest update October 2
We started harvesting this week in the Yorkville area. We first tried some corn but quickly determined it was still too wet at 30%. We went to our early maturity soybeans which were dry on September 30th. The beans have been harvesting well and yielding above expectations at about 62 bushels per acre.
We are running a new Lexion 780 combine this year. This is a class 10 machine with 600 hp. So far it has been working well. It handles the 45 ft draper head easily in tough soybeans.
DeKalb has harvested some of our seed corn fields already. We started limestone applications and tillage work on those fields this week.
We have now finished up our early-maturity soybeans in the north and will move down to start corn in the south later this week.
Week Ending August 23rd
We had a good week both in terms of weather and activities on the farm. The week started off dry with the corn showing more signs of drought stress. However, we were fortunate to get 1 inch of rain on Thursday in the Yorkville area which will help out the crops significantly. We could still use some rain in central Illinois where conditions continue to be dry.
Monday of this week we picked up our new combine. It is a Claas/Lexion 780 machine. This is a class 10 machine. It has a lot of new features including a new cooling system and more horsepower. We are looking forward to getting it to the field this fall.
Tuesday we hosted our annual farm appreciation dinner. We had over 100 people out to the farm. The big attraction for the kids was the Claas combine bounce house that we borrowed from Claas for the event.
Below are some pictures from the week including our new combine and our appreciation dinner.
Week Ending August 18th
We have been getting things ready for our annual farm open house and barbecue. We have been polishing up the equipment and washing down the shop.
We usually have some activities for kids at our open house including some type of "bounce house." This year we were fortunate to be able to borrow the Lexion combine bounce house from our friends at Claas. The combine arrived this week and our kids got a chance to test it out. It is very cool.
Field conditions continue to be dry here. We have been short on rainfall for over a month. After the very wet spring we have now unfortunately gone back to dry conditions. Hopefully we will get some rain soon.
Week Ending August 11th
We finished spraying soybeans this week with fungicide and insecticide this week. Field operations are now done until harvest starts.
We have been hauling out the remaining corn in storage and getting machinery ready for harvest.
Field conditions remain dry. The high areas of the fields are starting to show signs of moisture stress.
Week Ending August 3rd
Soil conditions keep getting dryer here. It would be good to have some of our rains back that we had too much of back in the spring. Crop conditions are still much better than they were last year.
We spent the week getting the ditches and pastures trimmed up.
The Kendall County fair was this week. Kristine's corn project got a blue ribbon.
Week Ending July 27th
We finished spraying fungicide on corn and started spraying soybeans this week. The crops continue to look good but we could use rain.
We were able to get back to one of our tiling projects from last winter to finish up some work on the tile inlets and outlets this week. The pictures below some of that work. It was a little warmer working on this project now than it was fighting the frost last year.
The kids showed horses at the Illinois State 4-H horse show this week. Both Kristine and Karoline did well.
Farming Update for 7/22/2013
We started spraying fungicide on corn today. We are spraying foliar fertilizer along with the fungicide to give the crop one more shot of fertilizer. The fungicide will help hold back any late-season diseases, keep the corn greener into the fall, and help with keep the corn standing into harvest. As shown in the video below, the corn is tall. The Hagie sprayer appears to be swimming in the corn. We are running with the boom all the way up to make it over the corn that is 10 feet tall in places.
The crop continues to look good. We could use rain after a streak of 90 degrees plus days.
We have a few rootworm beetles feeding on corn silks but they are not too bad at the moment.
Below are some pictures of the current crop conditions plus a photo of Keith and the dogs hunting a mole in the front yard. So far the mole is still winning.
Week Ending July 14th
Crop conditions are improving in our area. Many of the wet areas from the earlier heavy rains are finally recovering. The recent warm temperatures and adequate soil moisture are helping the crops catch up from the late spring. The corn in the north is now about 2 leaves from tasseling.
We sprayed most of the soybean fields for weeds this week. The pre-plant herbicide held the weeds back until now. This is the first pass of RoundUp on the beans and it may only take one pass this year.
We have also been busy mowing roadside ditches and getting the spring equipment cleaned up and put away. We planted some beans in the remaining wet holes this week. It is very late for soybean planting but they will hold back the weeds and they might have a chance of making it to maturity before the frost. The good news is that we can finally put the planters away.
Below are some pictures from the week.
Week Ending July 7th
We finished side-dressing the late-planted seed corn this week. We also finished corn spraying and started spraying soybeans. The heavy rains earlier in Farmer City took their toll on the low areas. We lost several acres to ponding.
Week Ending June 30th
We had a wet week again with heavy rains in both the north and the south farms. We have standing water again in the low areas of the fields. We were not able to make much progress on field work due to the wet conditions.
We still have some corn to side-dress in the south. With the corn growing quickly and the rain delays, we may need to start using the nitrogen applicator on the Hagie sprayer. It can still go even in corn that is 5 feet tall. See the picture below.
The corn may not make 6 feet tall by the 4th of July but it is getting there. It is taller than Vincent (5) now. Vincent was out helping scout fields the other day and we got him to measure the corn below.
The highlight of our week was hosting a group of German farmers out to our farm for a tour. We enjoyed visiting with them and sharing ideas about production agriculture. We learned that they are using many of the same types of technology in Germany that we are using.
Below are some pictures from the week.
Week Ending June 23
We had a good week of field work this week. We finished up side-dressing nitrogen on corn in the north by the end of the week just ahead of some heavy rains. We are side-dressing with liquid 32% nitrogen again this year. We are applying about 24 gallons per acre. We are using a Fast 60ft bar and using auto-steer to run down the same traffic pattern as the planters. We are able to run about 10 mph.
We also got caught up on corn spraying in both the north and south. The crops are looking better but we still have some drowned-out holes in the fields in the north that we would like to replant. However, it has been too wet to replant them. It is getting late for replant so we may have to let them go.
Below are some pictures from the week including a video of the side-dress bar running.
Week Ending June 16th
It was a tough week for us with the loss of our employee and friend, Lee Hage. Lee passed away this week. See note below.
The week started off well with us getting the rest of our wet spots planted in that had drowned out from earlier rains. We finished planting in the holes by Tuesday. We also made good progress on spraying corn and side-dressing nitrogen.
Wednesday evening we had a bad storm with damaging winds, hail, and about 3 inches of rain. The rain came too fast and caused significant flooding. We ended up with more ponding in the fields than we have had all spring. We will have to replant those spots again.
By late in the week things were starting to dry off and we could at least get back to mowing roadside ditches.
Below are some pictures from the week.
June 12th
We are deeply saddened to report the loss of a good employee and great friend, Lee Hage. Lee passed away Wednesday, June 12th. Lee was a close friend of our family since he was a child and a loyal employee of our farm since 2005. Lee's smile and encouraging words will be missed. Our prayers are with Lee's family.
Times like these show what is really important. We have had a challenging spring with all the rain but the weather delays do not seem to be all that critical after the loss of a good friend.
Below are some pictures of Lee's work with us. He was with us through good times and bad. Always willing to lend a hand and his catchphrase, "You can do it....."
Lee Hage
March 23, 1944 - June 12, 2013
Lee Harold Hage, age 69, of Plainfield, IL, passed away unexpectedly on Wednesday, June 12, 2013, at the Rush-Copley Medical Center in Aurora, IL. He was born on March 23, 1944, in Aurora, IL, the son of Harold G. and Marian N. (Maier) Hage.
Lee was a 1962 graduate of Yorkville High School. He was a veteran of the United States Army, having served his country proudly as a member of the Military Police in Vietnam. Lee was united in marriage on June 29, 1968, in Aurora, IL, to the former Suzann K. Johnson, and they would have celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary this month. He was a lifelong member of the Cross Lutheran Church in Yorkville, Illinois. Lee had been employed as a dedicated Inspector for NICOR Gas Company in Aurora, IL, until his retirement in 2005. He was born and raised on a farm and had a passion for farming throughout his life. After his retirement, Lee went back to his roots working for Stewart Farms in Yorkville, Illinois. Love of the land ran in Lee’s veins and he will be dearly missed by his Stewart Farm Family and all who knew him.
He is survived by his loving wife, Suzann Hage, of Plainfield, IL; his daughter and son-in-law, Leah and Jim Freuler, of Brown Deer, WI, and their sons, Jacob, Alex, and Eric; and his son, Kyle Hage, of Sandwich, IL; his sisters, Ardis Kueteman, Myrna Hage, and Phyllis (Greg) Peck; his sister-in-law, Mary (Richard) Williams; his brother-in-law, John (Karla) Johnson; and several nieces and nephews.
He was preceded in death by his parents; and his father and mother-in-law, John and Mary Johnson.
Funeral Services will be held at 3:00 pm on Sunday, June 16, 2013, at the Cross Lutheran Church, 8609 Route 47, Yorkville, IL, with Pastor Erik Gauss officiating. Interment with Military Honors will follow in the Cross Lutheran Cemetery, Yorkville, Illinois. Serving as pallbearers will be his three grandsons, Jacob, Alex, and Eric Freuler, as well as Jerry Johnson, Richard Williams, and Dave Munson.
Friends may visit from 1:00 pm until the Hour of Service on Sunday, June 16, 2013, at the Cross Lutheran Church in Yorkville, IL.
In lieu of flowers, memorials in Lee’s name may be directed to the Open Door Rehabilitation Center, 405 S. Wells St., Sandwich, IL 60548, or to the Cross Lutheran Church, 8609 Rt. 47, Yorkville, IL 60560.
Week Ending June 9th
We were able to get back in the fields this week. We planted beans midweek in Farmer City and then moved home to finish planting beans on Sunday, June 9th. As of this post, we still had some holes in both the corn and bean fields to replant.
The soybeans went in OK but we still had to go around some wet areas that still had not dried out.
We changed the tracks on the Challenger 765C that does the side-dressing this week. We change from 25" belts to 18" belts to side-dress. We should be ready to start side-dressing and spraying corn over the top next week.
Below are some pictures from the week.
Week Ending June 1
We were not able to do any field work this week. Our fields had 2 to 3 inches of rain. We had standing water and washed-out areas again in the fields. It is starting to become hard to keep upbeat about this season. At least the corn and beans that we do have in the ground look good.
We spent the week cleaning out ditches and fixing washed-out areas from all the rain. This is the second time this spring we have had to repair major washed-out areas in some of the fields.
We have also started mowing roadside ditches. The grass is not having any trouble with all the rain.
Below are some current pictures of the crop conditions from this week.
Week Ending May 25th
It was another wet week in our area. Rains early in the week kept us out of the fields until Thursday. We were able to run planting soybeans Friday and Saturday in the Farmer City area before being rained out Saturday afternoon.
We are raising seed corn for DeKalb seeds in Farmer City again this year. Kyle Kopp and his crew are planting the seed corn for us. They were able to get back in the fields this week as well and get a few more of our fields planted.
The Plunk Brothers continue to take good care of us in the Farmer City area. We appreciate their support through exceptional service on Pioneer Seed and even the use of their buildings to keep our planters dry through all the rain. They are very good neighbors to have.
Below are some pictures from the week. The last images show the worn-out farm crew on their way home this week.
Week Ending May 19th
We finished planting commercial corn on Sunday, May 19th. We were able to run in both Yorkville and Farmer City this week. About 1/2 of the soybeans and seed corn are planted as well. We continue to race planters back and forth between the two locations depending on field conditions. We moved a corn planter south early in the week to plant corn. Late in the week, we were running soybeans with one planter in the north, one on soybeans in the south, and one in corn in the south.
All the earlier planted corn is now up. The stands look good. The corn will really start to take off now with the warm weather.
By late in the week, we were all getting a little tired after running for more than a week on little sleep.
Below are some pictures and videos from this week's work.
Week Ending May 12th
We were finally able to start planting corn this week in the Yorkville area. We moved machines back from Farmer City on Monday and started planting on Tuesday. We ran the rest of the week, dodging some scattered showers.
Field conditions were good most of the week. We did have to continue to deal with the washed-out areas in the fields from the earlier floods. We ran the scraper early in the week reshaping waterways ahead of the planters.
One of the highlights of the week was the demonstration of the Horsch planter on our farm. We were able to run the new Horsch 24-row planter on about 200 acres. Some of the unique features of the planter are electric drives on the row units, hydraulic down pressure, weight transfer across the planter bar, bulk fill (150 bushels), and starter fertilizer (1,000 gallons). The planter is able to plant well at high speeds. We ran it at 7.5 to 8 mph and it performed well, keeping a consistent depth and seed spacing. It was good to be able to run the planter after learning so much about it this winter when we visited the Horsch headquarters in Germany earlier this year.
Below are some pictures from the week and a video of the Horsch planter running.
Week Ending May 4th
Another week without much field work progress. We were able to get some fields in the Farmer City area sprayed for weeds this week. We ran there on Wednesday and Thursday before being rained out Thursday night. The end of the week brought back heavy rains to the area. The Farmer City farms received 1 inch of rain from Thursday through Sunday.
We moved more machinery into Farmer City early in the week with hopes of starting to plant in that area. That move may have been a mistake given the rains late in the week. We may now be moving some pieces home as we did not have as much rain up here. Soil conditions are getting close to dry enough to run around home now.
We have started repairing the waterways and ditches that were washed out by the heavy floods. The pictures below show the scraper work we are doing to reshape the waterways. The GPS-controlled scraper works very well for reshaping the waterways and getting the slopes correct. We are running a Trimble FMX monitor to control the grade of the scraper. We will have to keep a tractor on that scraper most of the spring to catch up with the waterway repairs.
It is turning out to be a challenging spring but we will work things out. Below are some more pictures from the week. We have lots of machines around waiting on the weather.
Week Ending April 27th
The fields dried out some this week after our heavy rains from the week before. We had an additional 1/2 to 1 inch of rain this week which did not help the wet field conditions. The weather forecast is calling for some nice warm days early this coming week so hopefully, we can get in the fields by mid-week.
We have started to move some more machinery down to the Farmer City area with hopes of starting down that way. It is always a challenge to figure out which area will go first. We usually wait to move all the equipment either way until we know for sure field conditions are fit.
We were able to close on a piece of farmland this week that we have been working on for a while. We were fortunate to put together two new pieces right next to the home farm.
Lucky (the farm dog) is ready for spring to finally get here (see below).
Week Ending April 20th
Our area was hit by heavy rains Wednesday night. We had over 5 inches of rain overnight on top of soil that was already saturated from earlier rains. There was extensive flooding. Unfortunately, the rain came too fast to soak into the ground very much. The flowing water eroded ditches and cut notches in many rolling fields. It will now be a while again before the soil dries up enough to do field work. We will have to do some dirt work leveling out gullies and reshaping waterways. The photos below show some of the standing water at the height of the storm. At one point, there were about 300 acres underwater surrounding the main ditch that goes through our home farm.
We had to do some work on our sprayer this week with the boom folded out so we took it into the horse area to get it out of the rain. It fit nicely in there but I doubt we will be able to talk the Horse Department (mom) into letting us pour cement on the floor to make it into a shop.
Hopefully we will see some drier weather next week.
Week Ending April 13th
Another week of cool/wet weather. Some of our farms had over 4 inches of rain for the week. The has been good for recharging the soil moisture but it has delayed any spring field work. More rain and cool conditions are forecast for next week.
We continue to work on equipment in the shop, making some modifications and making sure things are ready to go when the weather breaks. We finished up the new seed tender including the hydraulic drive plumbing, fertilizer plumbing, lights, and modifications to the air suspension. Both the seed conveyors and liquid fertilizer pump are run off of the hydraulics on the truck. We modified the air suspension so we could dump the air on the rear axle to make it around tight corners. We are looking forward to using it.
Kristine (15) helped out in the shop on Saturday. She must have had a long week of school because she needed a nap by the end of the day. See below.
Week Ending April 6th
The calendar says it is spring but it has not felt much like spring yet. Cold and damp conditions have kept us from doing any field work yet. We have been cleaning up some old fence lines and working on machinery. It will likely be another week or two before field work starts.
We took out an old fence line this past week. The fence was full of rocks and a few trees which took some time to get cleaned up. Below are some before, during, and after photos of that project.
We are putting together a new seed tender for this spring. The tender is built on a drop deck trailer. It has room for 8 pro-boxes and 2400 gallons of starter fertilizer. The trailer has a belt conveyor that runs down the center of the trailer under the boxes and another conveyor that swings to the side to load the planters. The conveyor is driven with hydraulics off of the truck. The conveyor is all stainless steel so we can take off the pro-box holders and use the trailer to haul dry fertilizer in the fall. Two bulk boxes will go on in place of the pro-box racks.
We have been putting a new drag on one of the field cultivators. We went with a Remlinger 3-bar harrow with a rolling basket. We are hoping it will give us a better seedbed than the original spring tooth harrow. The new drag is well built and looks like it should do a good job.
Winter Activities
Week Ending March 25
The continued cold/wintery weather makes it hard to believe spring has arrived on the calendar. We still have snow on the ground and frost.
We have been working on getting the planters ready for spring this week. We have been replacing a lot of chains, seed disks, and other wear items on the planters. We should have them totally ready by the end of next week.
We have started moving some of the tractors south to Farmer City to be in position for spring work starting there.
We changed over the tires on the sprayer from narrow row-crop tires to the wide tires we use in the spring. The wide tires give it much better floatation in the soft ground.
More grain is being hauled. The poor weather conditions have made grain hauling a little challenging.
Week Ending March 2nd
More grain hauling to Corn Products in Chicago this week. We finished up our grain trailer modifications where we mounted air cylinders to open the hopper doors on a hopper bottom trailer. This week we installed the electric connections to allow the doors to be opened with a remote control. There are some safety features including a lock-out switch and a flashing light to tell you the doors are open. We will start using the system this week hauling grain to see how well it works.
We started building a new seed tender trailer this week. The new trailer will be on a drop deck semi-trailer and have room for 8 - 50 bushel seedboxes and liquid starter fertilizer. The trailer will use a conveyor system to move the seed.
Week Ending March 23rd
Sarah and I enjoyed a great trip to Germany this week to visit the Claas company facilities. Check this page for details on the trip.
Week Ending February 16th
Mom and Dad, and Brad and his family got away to Florida this week for some vacation time at Disney World. They had a great time. Temperatures in the 70s were much better than they left behind.
We continue to haul grain to market out of the farm storage. Bob and Sarah got ready to go on their trip to Germany next week.
Week Ending February 9th
We were back working in the shop this going through machines and designing a new system to unload our hopper bottom grain trailers. We came up with a way to use air cylinders to open the slide gates on the trailers. The system is still experimental but we think with a few modifications we will have a fast and simple way to open the doors. We have had electric and hydraulic-operated doors in the past but we have had some issues with reliability and speed. Our goal is to have to trucks dump as quickly as possible so they can make it back to the field for the next load. A faster turn cycle allows us to get by with fewer trucks.
Below is some work in progress on the air doors. More details to follow as we get the system refined.
We did get just a touch of snow this past week, enough for a little sledding for the kids. Most of the precipitation came as rain which is welcome. We still need a lot of rain to build back up our subsoil moisture.
Week Ending February 2nd
We had a full week of conferences and trade shows this week. We attended the Ag Connect farm machinery show and conference in Kansas City. It was a good show. We learned more about several pieces of machinery we were interested in. The new CLAAS combine was displayed. The latest model has more power, a new cooling system, faster unloading, and many other minor improvements over the previous machines. We are looking forward to running one in the fall.
We also learned about several high-speed planters that are coming out this year by Kinze and Horsch. Both have electric meter drives and improved meters to help plant at higher speeds. We hope to see both of these brands run this spring to see how they perform.
We finished up the week by exhibiting at the Farmland Investment Fair in Joliet. The fair is put on annually by the Chicago Farmers Group. We have a booth there each year to meet investors looking to acquire land in our area. We have started some good relationships with people we have met at this fair over the years.
Below are some photos of the Ag Connect show including the CLAAS and Horsch planter displays. We were honored to have our farm feature in the CLAAS display as part of their 100-year anniversary celebration.
Week Ending January 26th
We are back to working on equipment in the shop this week. We needed to run our Challenger 765B in the shop on a dyno to diagnose an electrical problem with the engine. Trying to be fancy we made up an exhaust system to pull the fumes off the tractor and blow them outside. It worked great until the tractor got up to operating temperature. The exhaust fan that we had in the line quit and the aluminum duct work that made up the piping melted. So much for that idea. The good news is the Cat mechanics were able to diagnose the tractor's issues.
We met with a subsurface drip tape irrigation company this week. After the extremely dry weather, we are considering adding some irrigation to some of our fields. Irrigation is new to us. We do not irrigate any of the land now. Subsurface irrigation is intriguing in that it takes about 3/4 of the water of a traditional system, it can be used to reach all corners of a field, and it can be used to distribute fertilizers as well as water. The company we are working with is Netafim. The drip tape is typically installed every 60 inches across the entire field. The tape is run with the crop rows.
Week Ending January 19
We tried plowing in some more field tile this week but we ran into +6 inches of frost which made for tough going. The plow tractor was able to make it through most areas but we had trouble spinning out where the frost was too solid.
The video below shows the machine running. We were able to run right along where the frost was broken up. We were installing 4-inch tile at a depth of about 3 feet. We are running a Trimble FMX system which is controlling the tile grade and steering of the tractor. There are also some pictures below of stringing out the tile ahead of the plow and making the connections to the tile main.
Given the tough field conditions and forecast for more wintry weather coming, we decided to park the tile plow for the winter and hit our drainage projects again in the spring. We have now returned to projects in the heated shop. Efren got his Challenger 875C serviced, waxed, and ready for spring this week. It looks good.
Week Ending January 12th
We are off to a good start in 2013. We were able to take some time off to enjoy family and friends over Christmas. We had just a touch of snow for the kids to sled on in the picture below but not much. We are now back to some of our winter projects including machinery maintenance and drainage tile.
Despite some winter weather, we were able to get some drainage tile installed last week. We installed a 15-inch main. We are digging in the main with the excavator. We made a large steel tooth to go on the bucket that makes a half-circle form in the bottom of the tile trench to hold the tile. We ran laser guidance on the excavator to set the grade for the tile. We are using a dual-walled pipe that comes in 8-foot sections. The 15-inch main runs about 1/4 mile. We will be hooking 4-inch laterals into the main every 50 feet across the field.
Installing the main was a challenge with 6 inches of frost when we started. We then had about 1/2 inch of rain and had to deal with mud on top of the frost. The main is totally installed now.
We will try to install the laterals this next week with the tile plow. We will see how the plow tractor handles the mud and ice.
Below are some pictures of the work from this week.
