2021 Crop Year
Fall Harvest Season
Week Ending November 14
We were able to make some good progress on corn and beans this week around Yorkville despite the wet conditions. We cut soybeans early in the week. Yields remain good and moisture levels were around 13%. Beans are cutting much easier now that we have had a frost.
We were rained out mid-week and we moved back to corn. Corn progress was slowed up on Friday when we had our first snow flurries. Winter is coming.
We also started hauling corn out of storage this week. We will run out of on-farm storage space due to the good yields. We are hauling to the corn processing plant in Chicago.
Below are some pictures from the week.
Week Ending November 7
We harvested corn this week in the Yorkville/Oswego area. Field conditions were dry enough for corn but not for soybeans. Yields continue to be very good with some field averages exceeding 250 bushels per acre. Moisture levels are around 20%. We are fighting some down corn in places impacted by high winds.
Below are some pictures from the week.
Week Ending October 14
We moved machines back south to run on soybeans this week. We made some good progress between the rain showers.
Week Ending October 10
We switched back to corn this week due to the wet field conditions. Several fields in the Farmer City area had over 5 inches of rain this past week. We were able to get most of the corn done there before getting rained out midweek.
We moved one of the combines home late in the week to try corn around Yorkville. Corn moisture levels were around 20% when we started around home. This was good since we had heard reports of corn falling below 13%. Standability is becoming an issue. Wind-damaged fields from summer storms are lodged.
It was good to be harvesting back around home and family. Below are some pictures from the week.
Week Ending October 2
We had a productive week harvesting soybeans. Soybean moisture levels continue to drop lower than we would like. Most beans have been below 11%. Warm temperatures and lack of rain have resulted in rapidly drying crops. Yields have been good where we did not have standing water this summer. Our best fields are averaging 85-90 bushels per acre.
Rains came in Friday night. We switched to corn Saturday only be to chased out of the fields Saturday afternoon. Heavy rains hit Saturday and Sunday. We have some fields with 4 inches of rain in the last 2 days. Our dry field conditions have disappeared.
Corn moisture levels dropped from 25% last week to 17% this week. The race to get this crop out before it deteriorates in the field continues.
Week Ending September 26
We had a good week of harvesting despite the rains that hit the area midweek. We had about 1.2 inches of rain on Tuesday and Wednesday which shut us down for a while. We were able the get some more corn done and get started on soybeans late in the week.
We were able to get started on fall tillage as well. We are running a new Challenger MT 867 and a new CaseIH 875 ripper. We like the new tractor so far. It is fuel efficient and rides nice. It has a CVT transmission.
Below are some pictures from the week.
Week Ending September 19
Harvest started this week in Farmer City for us. Corn moisture was in the mid 20's. Yields were good but variable. Many areas in the fields were hit with too much rain back in June which killed the corn.
We are running a new Claas 8700 combine and a Claas 780 machine this year. Both have 16-row heads. We also took delivery on a new Challenger/Fendt 867 tracked tractor this week. We are looking forward to putting it to work.
Spring Planting Season
Week Ending May 17th
We finished plating on Monday, May 17th. Favorable weather conditions allowed us to get done ahead of the last couple of year's schedule.
We received 3 inches of rain early last week which was very welcome. We were getting dry enough that it was debatable if we should keep planting. We shut the planters down a day ahead of the expected cold rain which may have hurt the germinating corn. We were able to get back in the field later in the week and get things wrapped up.
We are now moving back to hauling grain and getting ready for the next round of crop spraying.
Week Ending May 2
We made good planting progress this week. We are working on corn both north and south. We have kept the planters separated in the two areas which has created some logistics challenges. Soil conditions are starting to get very dry in the north which has caused us to slow up a bit to wait on a rain. Soil moisture remains good south with ample rains.
Nearly all of the soybeans have now emerged. The early corn is just up.
Week Ending April 23
We slowed up planting this week to wait for the cold weather to pass. We had snow and freezing temperatures in both central and northern Illinois this week.
Early in the week we did some building clean-up projects. By late in the week we were back planting.
Week Ending April 18
We finished planting beans in the Farmer City area this week and moved a soybean planter home to Yorkville to start there. After about 1/2 inch of rain last weekend we were able to get back in the fields by midweek. Ground conditions were good by the end of the week. Soybean planting got off to a good start late in the week around Yorkville. We did plant a small amount of corn in Farmer City late in the week. We are concerned about the cold wet weather coming next week which will not be good for corn emergence.
Week Ending April 11
We started planting soybeans in the Farmer City, Illinois area on Monday, April 5th. This is a somewhat early start date for us but the field conditions were good so we got started. We held off on planting any corn given the forecast for cold conditions to return next week. We have had good luck in the past planting soybeans early, even in cold conditions.
We were able to run hard for a couple of days before rains came in. We got in 2200 acres of soybean by the end of the week.
We are running two Hagie STS1600 sprayers with 120' booms this year. This is helping us get over the ground much faster and will help out in the summer crunch time when we side-dress with one of them. The beans get a single tillage pass after the pre-plant herbicide. There are two 60' cultivators running most of the time, pulled with Challenger MT857C's. We are again running two Horsch 24r30 planters, pulled by MT765 Challenger tractors. Depending on conditions, the soybeans will get rolled with a 60' roller pulled by a Challenger 1050 within a day of being planted. The roller pass is to knock down any dirt clods and rocks to make harvest more efficient and safe from rock damage.
As in the past, we are using a 60' controlled traffic pattern in all the fields. Pre-saved guidance lines are run by all machines on RTK guidance. All of the machines have 120-inch wheel spacing to follow the same wheel traffic patterns.
One change we have made with technology this year is that we are running AgLeader Displaycast in all the machines. We had been using it in the planters in the past to share coverage maps. Now we are using it in all machines to track locations and share coverage maps.
Below are some pictures from the week.
