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This year during harvest Melinda Charbonneau came out to ride in the combine and broadcast her experience live for a class of local third graders. Melinda is an Ag Literacy Coordinator for the University of Illinois Extension. Watch the video below:

Every farm season is different.  This one had many significant developments in weather, prices and, of course, the Covid-19 impact.

In a nutshell, weather for 2020 was very cooperative for planting and harvesting.  There was a lot of sun and moisture in June and July but very little rain in August.  That scarcity of rain in that month developed quickly into what is referred to as a “flash drought”.  It did impact both crops as it took the top 10% off of what was going to be a fantastic yield.  Some thin areas suffered already in July but still held on.  Good, deep soil held together well.  Planting the crop was quick but emergence was slow.  There were three nights in the low 20’s which hurt some stands.

The water table has been rising since 2017 causing corn to die from wet roots.  This contributed to thin stands that couldn’t hold back weeds in spite of three herbicide applications.

China trade wars dealt commodity prices a severe blow.  Covid-19 and less cars on the road drove down ethanol use, further hurting corn prices.

Both soybean and corn prices have now recovered nicely so that farming should be able to operate in the black again in 2021.

We are basically just completing getting all the systems ready for harvest.  Bins, dryers, combines and carts have all been serviced and inspected in an effort to forestall any down time during September and October.

The crop looks to be huge for both corn and beans.   It could quite possibly be a record for us.  This remains to be seen as it is all still in the field.  We have survived 14″ or monsoon rains in June and now another 12″ in late summer.  This is three or four times the normal rainfall.

Unfortunately, talk of big crops and tariffs has really depressed prices for our crops, at least for now.  Storage will be the name of the game as we all try to wait out this low value period as best we can.

Planting the 2018 crop was far better than the 2017 crop.  One thing about farming is that no two years are the same.  In 2017, it took six weeks to get the corn planted because of excessive rain.  In 2018, it took seven days!  No rain delays occurred while planting corn.  The starting date of April 23 was a little late because April of 2018 was the second coldest April on record.  It snowed just days prior to our starting to plant.  Once started, however, we had a very nice stretch of about 10 days without rain.

Corn is all up and looks good.  For the first time in memory, corn planting, bean planting and spraying all started on the same day.  Bean planting took an extra two weeks after corn was done because normal rainfall began to arrive during our second week of planting.  This meant that roughly half of each of the next three weeks the bean planter sat waiting for the ground to dry.  Not to complain though.  Normal rainfall at generally gentle rates is always a good thing.  The soybeans are in and mostly emerged as of May 20.

The first of two to three rounds of spraying is also complete.  Timely termination of cover crops is important to allow nearly emerged corn and beans to establish without having to compete with the rye for sunshine and water.  Windy days are a sprayer’s nemesis and spring is always windy by definition.  The job is done for now, and things look very good for mid May.  Spraying operations will continue through May, June and part of July.

While the calendar indicates spring is here, March and April temperatures are closer to February than May by a long shot.

The winter of 2018 brought with it the kind of weather that the fields are least able to handle.  Case in point: rain on frozen ground.  Without any absorbency by the ground, 100 percent of the water runs.  It runs downhill, of course, gaining energy, speed, volume and destructive ability.  The result was a lot of gully erosion in the valleys, some even where grass waterways existed.

So, as soon as we could, we went to work with three or four different implements to close, shape, seed and incorporate the seed.  This was to make not only the field navigable again, but to establish or re-establish grass waterways to hold and stabilize the ground in the event of such negative weather happening again.

This work is now done.  We are waiting for that first 60 or 70 degree day to start the soil warming process so planting can ensue by April 15.

In February and March we start getting excited about planting, and that means getting the planters out of the machine shed and into the shop for maintenance and upgrades. Pictured above is our Case IH Early Riser planter that we use for soybeans. It plants 24 rows at once with a spacing of 20 inches between each row.

Several years ago we installed Precision Planting’s CleanSweep row cleaners on our soybean planter. Since we no-till and rotate between soybeans and corn, that means that we are planting soybeans into last year’s corn stalks and leaves. There are many benefits to this residue, but it can be a hassle during planting because it is laying or standing between the planter and the soil. The CleanSweep system sits on the front of each row unit and sweeps away the residue just enough so the rest of the unit behind it can interact with the soil without bouncing over stalks or plugging with leaves.

This winter we upgraded our Case IH corn planter (pictured below) by adding Precision Planting’s DeltaForce and vSet. DeltaForce hydraulically controls the downforce on each individual row unit so that every seed gets planted at the proper depth regardless of the varying soil densities that might exist across the width of the planter. Uniform depth of planting ensures that seeds emerge from the ground at the same time.

Whereas DeltaForce controls depth, vSet is a seed meter that is designed to improve the accuracy of spacing between each seed horizontally in the row as the planter moves forward. There should be equal spacing between each seed as you go along, as opposed to two seeds closer together and the next seed further ahead.

We expect DeltaForce and vSet to help our planter give every seed an even better chance of achieving its maximum yield potential.