An update from down on the farm

This is always a challenging time of year for us wrapping up spring planting while getting ready for wheat harvest. Adding to the challenge this year is that it seems like we get about a 1 1/2 days of planting between rains.

All the corn and early planted sunflowers are in and doing very well. Soybean planting seems to be dragging along and grain sorghum planting is right on schedule for us. Most of the wheat that was planted early is golden and nearly ready for harvest, later planted wheat is still green and needs more time to mature. It isn't uncommon for me to sneak away the first day or two of wheat harvest to finish planting grain sorghum.


In the down time between planting we got the combines out and washed up. Last fall's harvest got them very dirty. Then they all got a preharvest inspection.


Here I'm changing the planter over from sunflowers to grain sorghum. The seed metering disk is changed and with the one laying on top of the yellow seed hopper.


One of our tractors and our soybean planter. I snapped this picture while catching a ride to the seed truck. The old concrete road was US81 at one time, built in the 1910's.


A field of soybeans that are just starting to come up. I was surprised at how fast they were emerging from the soil. These are planted in last year's corn stubble.


Sunflowers starting to come up. Everything is coming up nicely right now, warm soil and plenty of moisture helps things pop up out of the soil. We planted these into last year's grain sorghum stubble and will plant wheat into it next fall.



This was the first corn field planted this year. This is the first time we have ever planted corn on it, possibly the first time corn has ever been planted since this part of Kansas is primarily a wheat producing area.