All fields …
Dry P and K broadcast applied during the winter months at normal crop removal rates … 100% no-till … Planted at approximately 30,000 plants per acre … 6 row 30 inch John Deere 7000 Conservation planter … liquid nitrogen and herbicides floated over the top by Co-op after planting (quite) a few days and (hopefully) rained in
North of I-80 … 24 acres planted into standing alfalfa/brome … Sunday April 28 start … Monday April 29 Done
Northrup King … Syngenta … Agrisure Traits
Seed treated with Avicta Complete
Brand … N68B-3111
Variety ……. X72314XP.1
111 day Relative Maturity
Lot # 10969528
Origin … Indiana
And
Refuge … Croplan by Winfield
Brand … 6178RR
Variety ……. A1005660
112 day Relative Maturity
Lot # T93C6467
Origin … Iowa
North of town … 40 acres planted into soybean stubble … Started and finished Monday April 29
Northrup King … Syngenta … Agrisure Traits
Seed treated with Avicta Complete
Brand … N68B-3111
Variety ……. X72314XP.1
111 day Relative Maturity
Lot # 10969528
Origin … Indiana
And
Croplan by Winfield
Brand … 6263AS3111
Variety ……. 1716125
112 day Relative Maturity
Lot # E13C6131
Origin … Indiana
And
Refuge … Croplan by Winfield
Brand … 6178RR
Variety ……. A1005660
112 day Relative Maturity
Lot # T93C6467
Origin … Iowa
Home By Road … 15 acres planted into soybean stubble … Started and finished Monday May 13
Croplan by Winfield
Brand … 6263AS3111
Variety ……. 1716125
112 day Relative Maturity
Lot # E13C6131
Origin … Indiana
And
Refuge … Croplan by Winfield
Brand … 6178RR
Variety ……. A1005660
112 day Relative Maturity
Lot # T93C6467
Origin … Iowa
West Farm … 80+ acres planted into soybean stubble … Tuesday May 14 Start … Thursday May 16 Done
Croplan by Winfield
Brand … 6263AS3111
Variety ……. 1716125
112 day Relative Maturity
Lot # E13C6131
Origin … Indiana
And
Croplan by Winfield
Brand … 6125VT3/P
Variety … A1013695
109 day Relative Maturity
Lot # B23A4009
Origin … Nebraska
And
Refuge … Croplan by Winfield
Brand … 6178RR
Variety ……. A1005660
112 day Relative Maturity
Lot # T93C6467
Origin … Iowa
Next Door Neighbor’s … 90 acres planted into soybean stubble … Thursday May 16 Start … Friday May 17 Done
Croplan by Winfield
Brand … 6125VT3/P
Variety … A1013695
109 day Relative Maturity
Lot # B23A4009
Origin … Nebraska
And
Croplan by Winfield
Brand … 6431VT3
Variety … 1712936
112 day Relative Maturity
Lot # E13C6102
Origin … Nebraska
And
Refuge … Croplan by Winfield
Brand … 6178RR
Variety ……. A1005660
112 day Relative Maturity
Lot # T93C6467
Origin … Iowa
Home Across Creek … 35 acres planted into last years corn stalks … Friday May 17 Start … Saturday May 18 Done
Dekalb
Refuge In Bag
Brand … DKC59-37RIB (GENSS)
Variety … A1023069 … 94%
Variety … A1027874 … 5%
109 day Relative Maturities
Lot # 754TE97JX
Origin … Iowa
I was so happy to be close to getting done that getting done was anti-climatic. Saturday the eighteenth I finished up about three in the afternoon. I drove the Dodge up to the building site, leaving the 1466 and planter out in the field and took a nap. Overnight Saturday and off and on Sunday it rained. All day yesterday the wind blew and the sun was mostly present. This morning Co-op is spraying on the liquid nitrogen and the herbicides for the three farms down home on Rosewood Road. Last Tuesday they finally sprayed what I had planted to corn on the two farms north of town. Some of the young plants were spiking through the surface of the planting furrows. (If you can still call them that, more like a few inch wide strip) By the end of this week all my corn should be coming up.
One of my regular readers asked to give the varieties and such. I guess I could make this the official planting report. I would rather have as little commentary as possible for the report since I print it up and take it along to the free government cheese office. So I will make tomorrow’s post the official planting report for corn. I wasn’t going to do one on here this year but that’s letting an opportunity go by. As long as I have this tool I had better keep using it or it may go rusty. Rusty tools are inefficient and harder to use. I’ve learned that one the hard way. Best to keep them shined up with use. I kept and stacked the seed bags in the order I planted them. Recreating the logistics of what went where will be relatively easy.
Friday the seventeenth I fed the cows my last bale of hay. They are all gone now. The big round bales, I have small square bales still in the barn. It has been years since I’ve had all the hay outside in big round bales fed up. I think the last time was right before the north farm was offered to me to farm. It was over half sowed down to pasture and hay when I rented it. It still is but the herds had grown so large that last year’s drouth removed any buffer I had from feed shortages. Last fall I sold off the northern herd. I still barely had the hay to make it. That said I did sell a little more than I bought shuffling around hay this past winter.
Saturday evening we let the herd out on the grass. I haven’t heard hardly a moo since. Yesterday, on Monday evening I finally went around putting all the hot wires back up around where they’ve been grazing. They were so content they never even noticed the wires were missing. They were so sick of the dry lot I’d been haying them in that they never went through it for water down in the creek until last evening right before sunset. I think all the rain soaked grass may have been a factor on the thirst situation. Wet grass has the drink incorporated on it.
I have removed the shot tire from the stock trailer. (Don’t tell the bulls) I am heading into town for a pair of new rears on the Dodge and to get the trailer tire replaced. Then it’s off to the big city and Bomgaar’s. I need to grab some mineral/salt blocks, Safe Guard de-wormer blocks, and Dare (The Best) plastic insulators for re bar posts. While I’m in the city I think I’ll stop at Sug’s Diner and have a Phillie Steak sandwich for dinner. I may even get it to go and eat it up on Lewis and Clark’s lookout, a monument to the great expedition that sits atop a bluff overlooking the Missouri River, I-29, and Eply Airfield across the river in Omaha. It’s a very pleasant place to sit and have dinner. There’s a train track directly below the bluff that is quite busy, across a small field lies the interstate that’s always busy, then the Muddy Mo, finally across the river jets are taking off and landing with the city as a backdrop. The monument is usually deserted on work days so it’s the ideal spot to eat and think, watch and listen. Did I mention the soaring hawks? Sigh ……. … .
.
On the fifteenth I all but finished up planting the west farm On the sixteenth I planted the last couple acres around the buildings on the west farm and moved to the next door neighbor’s. By sundown I had thirty plus acres planted to corn on the west side hill of the ninety acre patch next door. I was about to the top, actually to the top where I stopped to have a beer with a friend. Sun setting, cold beer and machinery that’s not broken, who could ask for anything more?
Today I finished the ninety acres. Then I opened the gate between that patch and ……. … . THE LAST FARM. Not only the last farm, the last patch on the last farm. No stopping for sunset tonight. The hill just west of me that I had spent the better part of the day planting down was setting the sun an hour easy earlier than last night’s horizon had done. Plus all that twilight to make a few more rounds in. By o’dark thirty I had a third or more of the thirty five acre patch done. With any luck by this time tomorrow I will be able to say that about all the corn planting, done. But until the dawn I’d best get some much needed sleep. I’d hate to fall asleep on the last field. I’d end up in the creek.
Good night.
Cc
Tuesday afternoon. Bulldozing is done. Well, tractor and loader dozing is done. Let the planting begin. Again. Your either getting started or getting started again. Given the rain. And gullies. I decided to plant through all the ones I went west to fix. Last year I disked them up nice before I drilled them to soybeans. The washouts that is. I don’t disk anything before I plant unless it’s an emergency. I had been fighting those ditches and others since the farm was bought and rented to me.
Some of the ditches that came with the farm I have nearly healed. Some of the ones I had given up on ever healing and disked shut last year were the originals. Some were brand new from fixing the others. None of them were as bad as I remember last fall cutting the beans with the 1460. But I was disgusted with seeing any. After all the work disking em shut. The seven inch rains in June last year may have had something to do with them. I saw nothing as bad as what I had fixed yesterday down home.
I did a few things otherwise I’ve wanted to do for a few years down by the creek. Abilities that surprised me. Then I ran around checking the rest of what I thought were basically uncrossable gullies and even fixed one of the worse. I think I made it better. I’m better at spreading it out evenly than I am at filling the bucket without gouging out holes. Beatty holes. I flew back home after moving the disk out of the way and throwing an old ladder that fell off a 1440 a few years back onto the loader bucket whilst I was at it. Any thing to justify running all the way over there with the loader for ditches that needed no work. Ditches on that farm better than I have ever planted through. On a late season spring.
What was I thinking? Another May day. Was that hair standing …….
Oh! Another patch planted. The 35 acres east of the creek on the west farm. The turtle marches on. Another Tuesday afternoon.
Cc