Tales of a Kansas Farmer

To Cover Crop or not

2012-02-02T21:28:00.006-06:00

Authors note: Much of this is my recap of the 2012 No Till on the Plains Winter Conference. I went into the conference wanting to wrap my mind around utilizing cover crops in no till better. I still have many questions, but they might be best answered from experimenting.

Implementing cover crops in no till cropping systems has been a concept introduced to me at the No Till on the Plains winter conference a couple of years ago. Cover crops are plants seeded and grown between cash crops. These plants can be legumes that takes nitrogen from the air for the plant to use, brassica's that are deep rooted that help break compacted layers of soil and trap nitrogen, or grasses that hold soil and take up nutrients.

Gabe Brown, North Dakota farmer and rancher, was the first farmer that really got me interested in this crazy idea. He had found that a complex blend of plant species with varying root depths not only survived, but thrived in through North Dakota droughts. In the initial presentation a few years ago he talked about grazing cow/calf pairs for a month on a cover crop blend, I think he estimated the weight gain on the calves generated $100 or more an acre, that really perked my interest. At his presentation this past winter we told of a corn crop planted in a cover crop blend of cereal rye, vetches, oil seed radishes, turnips and a variety of other plants species. His cost of production was $1.10/bu he made one herbicide application to terminate the rye and set back the vetch enough to not compete with the corn and the cover crop blends provided all the nutrients. The expenses for his cover crops were covered by grazing them with cattle. He showed pictures of a corn crop that was planted into some of the heaviest ground cover of I've ever seen, at around tassel stage the trash was very deteriorated, at harvest the space between the rows were bare with the exception of some vetch that looked about a foot tall, and a couple of weeks later the vetch really started growing.

So Gabe Brown had luck with his cover crops during North Dakota droughts, but how would they deal with a Kansas drought? Gail Fuller, east central Kansas and Ryan Speer, south central Kansas, each gave presentations about their use of cover crops in last summer's drought.

Fuller has had cover crops longer in his rotation and felt early in the season his corn had the potential to be some of his best ever. He showed pictures of it green where his neighbor's corn was burned up from the drought, but relief from the drought came too late for it. After harvesting as forage he planted cover crop blends back to it to protect the soil and keep soil ecology working. The cover crops looked like they had good growth in his photos.

Ryan Speer is transitioning cover crops to his crop rotation and has experimented some the past few years. Speer's dryland corn was horrible, I think he said it yielded in the 15 to 20 bushel per acre range this year, but he noticed his yield monitor jumped up to 60 to 70 bushel range in a spot where there had been a plot of sun hemp between wheat crops three years ago. He stated that evaporation in the fairly short fallow period, late June to early October, is more than the water requirements of many of the cover crops. Speer has also been having rye and radishes flown on to irrigated corn fields late in the irrigation season. These are some very sandy field and he's seen an increase in soil organic matter to help increase both the water holding capacity and fertility of these fields.

So how do I tell how much nutrients are these cover crops are either tying up to be released when they decompose or nitrogen they are "making" in the case of legumes? Ray Ward of Ward Lab, recommends farmers either estimate how many tons of hay the cover crop may make and determine protein value of the various plants or send a vegetative sample from one square yard for a cover crop analysis. Many cover crop advocates emphasizing some very diverse mixes so I feel sending a sample would be more helpful.

How do cover crops effect soil biology? Dr. Jill Clapperton soil biologist and president of Rhizoterra Inc explained that poor soil biology produced poor crops in terms of both crop yields and nutrient content. She went on to tell us that most soil organisms are fed by the soil organic matter and when cover crops are used there are more actively growing roots throughout the entire growing season to keep producing soil organic matter. She also stated that the more diverse mix of plants that are growing on top of the soil the more diversity in soil organisms, since a monocropping system is used for cash crops this leaves cover crops to be a major source of plant diversity. Earth worms are one of the biggest and easiest to recognize soil organisms and they absolutely dislike soils that have had mechanical tillage performed. Mechanical tillage disrupts the soil organisms that earth worms live on.

Fuller commented on having part of a field that was poor even though soil tests revealed that fertility was the same as the rest of the field. A mycorrhizea test revealed that it was severely out of balance there. Clapperton mentioned that Ward Lab and a few others are capable of testing for it now. Determining which cover crops helps correct mycorrhizea problems is a challenge.

I sat in a presentation of Dr. Jonathan Lundgren an entomologist with USDA-ARS, stationed at North Central Agriculture Research Laboratory, Brookings, South Dakota. He does extensive research and studying of predator insects. He stressed that reducing soil disturbance and careful scouting and using insecticides only when thresholds are met are a help preserve insect predators. He felt cover crop blends are helpful in recruiting more predators insects to fields to reduce need for insecticides.

I ran into a neighbor, Craig Ballou, he had a stop on a sunflower crop tour last summer at a double crop sunflower field without commercial nitrogen fertilizer. The field had been in a sun hemp cover crop between two wheat crops. It's a common practice of no till farmers in my area to raise two continuous crops of wheat. From past soil tests on double crop sunflowers in this rotation the nitrogen left was the same as what he had applied so he decided to not apply it. With our winter wheat growing season the soil doesn't warm soon enough for the residual nitrogen from a legume to be available for the wheat other than a possible protein boost.

Here are Craig Ballou's double crop sunflowers on August 30th. No nitrogen fertilizer was applied and Craig said they did very good, I could tell he was proud of them when I asked him about them.

I feel transitioning to cover crops is the next step in our no till rotation. I feel it will be a fairly slow transition as we learn what mix of plants and how to seed them in a timely manner. We will need to start on land we own, partially to insure we receive the long term benefits of it and to also prove to landlords that this crazy idea is viable.

August update from down on the farm

2011-08-28T22:04:00.004-05:00

In my area, north of I70 in central Kansas many of the crops look good, the corn will be disappointing due the heat and drought conditions in July. Sorghum and soybeans look good thanks to timely rains in early August. My understanding that the area south of I70 is still in drought conditions.

Two ears of corn from the same field. The ear on the left is very nice but you can see where that heat affected the pollination. The ear on the right was on the edge of getting irrigation water, so it had water in addition to heat stress. There are ears like both of these scattered through the field, but more like the one on the left than the one on the right.

A couple of picture of our grain sorghum. It's headed out very nice and thanks to timely rains the past few weeks it has tremendous potential. Being a crop that originated from Africa it handles the heat well. In fact it thrives on the heat that is common in July and August. From my experience in dry years we will receive August rains, in addition to soil water savings from seeding directly into last year's wheat stubble that is timely for sorghum production.

I haven't taken a picture of our soybeans but they have the potential for having a nice crop also.

News from the Good Old Days

2011-07-25T22:34:00.006-05:00

I came across this in last week's, July 21, 2011, Minneapolis Messenger's. The Wells News column has a segment titled News from the good old days. They reprint local news stories from the 1930's. With the drought conditions in the southern plains that are reaching into many areas of Kansas in addition to the heat wave we're currently enduring this article about the local wheat harvest in 1937 perked my interest.

Originally published July 1, 1937 on the front page of the Minneapolis Messenger. "Elevators Are Making Record Runs - Wheat is pouring into the market as fast as it can be handled. While Ottawa County was expecting a good crop, no one was expecting as big as a crop as in evidence already. In the eastern part of the state the yield proved a big disappointment. Black rust seems to be the cause of smaller yields. Wheat was bringing $1.03 a bushel and Wednesday morning it was bringing $1.10 a bushel. (1935 and 36 were very dry years and very little wheat was raised. Some brave farmers planted in the fall not knowing if they would get a crop.)" Currently wheat is selling for $7.45 a bushel, it wasn't very many years ago that $4.00 a bushel was considered a very good price.

I'm interested in how the depression and dust bowl effected my local area. My granddad grew up in this era and has passed on a few stories to me about it.While he is still around I need to record more of his stories of farm life in the 30's and 40's.

Heat wave

2011-07-25T00:25:00.007-05:00

We are in the grips of the heat wave that is sweeping most of the nation. It's hard on everything outside. Our corn is in the high water use growth stage, it's using .40 inches of water use a day. It can be a challenge keeping irrigation running. Engines that run the pumps and generators can overheat and shut off, we have gauges that will shut off the engines before they're damaged. Our low humidity is increasing the evaporation even with drop nozzles that put water into the corn's canopy.

This is a corn field that has either been put up as hay or chopped for silage. The brown strips are corn that has been left for insurance adjustors to verify loss. Normally the corn would still be green rather than brown. This field is only 80 miles from where we farm.

The corn yields are being hampered by the high temperatures even with adequate water. During pollination the pollen is damaged from the high heat and reduces the kernels that will be on each ear of corn. With temperatures in the low 90's at midnight it's hard for corn to release the water it used earlier in the day to transport nutrients from the soil, this also hampers yields.

Our irrigated soybeans need .30 inches of water a day, but they are getting sacrificed some right now to keep the water on the corn. They are a very resilient crop and if we can get some rain soon they will be fine, the more critical time for them to have water will be in a few weeks when they start setting and filling pods. So there is still time to water them to make a respectable yield.

On a drought tour of extreme southwest Kansas Governor Brownback he was quoted in the news saying. “There’s been less rainfall this year than in the peak of the 1930s Dust Bowl with the same heat and wind. Hats off to the producers for being such good stewards.” This shows just how extreme the drought is in the south western portion of the state. It is also a testament to farming practices that have been implementing since then, we no longer bury the stubble leaving bare soil vulnerable to wind.

Report from the farm

2011-07-24T01:57:00.010-05:00

Things have been mighty hectic down on the farm since the last time I took time to write. All the spring seeded crops are in, wheat harvest went pretty smooth, and I was able to plant 300 acres of sunflowers in wheat stubble. We did have a hail storm move through at the beginning of wheat harvest, it stripped the leaves off of the corn and knocked wheat out of the heads. Our non irrigated corn which is planted earlier still shows signs of stripped leaves, but the irrigated corn that was still going through a growth spurt and has nice healthy leaves.

This was taken the day after the hail storm. This field had the least damage done to it, but it was still sickening to look at it that morning.

Our wheat yields were average to slightly better. Quality was high, both test weight and protein content was high this year. The standardized weight for wheat is 60 pounds a bushel for number 1 wheat, nearly every load of our wheat had a test weight of 6o or better with many loads 61.5 or better. The protein content of our wheat ranged from 10.5% to 12% with most of it in the 11% range. This is a very good protein content for our region, in the lower rainfall areas of western Kansas.

I took this right before wheat harvest. The darker stripes are a different variety of wheat. I had just a little bit left in the seeder and it mixed with the other seed.

This is the same field at harvest, facing a different direction in this photo. Dad is cutting the terraces, terraces are ridges put made in fields to redirect water to reduce soil erosion. The headers, the part on the front that cuts off the crop, doesn't flex so we have to harvest with the terraces.

I've added various pictures and descriptions to my Flickr account. My photos that I use from my blog are there along with many that I haven't used. The photos range from basic information to more technical issues.

Spring '11 update

2011-05-25T11:31:00.006-05:00

We've been through some extreme weather the past month. There were records set for high temperatures and then records were set for low high temperatures a few days later. When we started planting corn in early April we had idea soil moisture, but after a few hot and windy days the top soil dried out for proper seed germination on our irrigated land and required an irrigation application, except for one field that had raised wheat and then had a sunflower crop on it last year. Wheat stubble served as a blanket to protect the soil from the wind and hot temperatures that helped dry out the other fields. The dry conditions extended into soybean planting up to last week, knowing there was a strong chance of rain for multiple days in the forecast and field conditions were favorable I planted late into the night on both Monday and Tuesday night. From Wednesday through Friday we had up to 4 inches of rain. On this past Monday I was able to resume planting soybeans and Tuesday I had enough time to load the planter with seed before it rained again. We have about 300 acres of soybeans left to seed, which should take about 3.5 days including moving the tractor and planter half way across the county.

One of the rainy day projects was selecting a bull for the cow herd. My youngest son and I traveled to Wolf Creek Angus Ranch to look over their selection of bulls. We got there just as a storm was starting to bear down so we sat in their office looking over the performance data on thier remaining bulls and visited. After the storm ended we walked through the bulls and made the selection. Shortly after leaving the ranch I noticed water running off of fields and filling ditches, I was surprised because they only had 1/4 inch of rain at the ranch. About half way home we drove into a driving rain where we could barely see the road so we pulled into a tractor dealership at a little town, little man only gets excited over John Deere equipment and this wasn't a Deere dealership.

These rains and cooler temperatures will help our wheat fill. Our later seeded wheat will benefit the most, which appears to be a week or so later in maturity even though it may have been seeded several weeks later.

Today I discovered these videos from King Arthur Flour. We are grower owners of a cooperative flour mill that sells hard white wheat flour to King Arthur Flour. We're proud to work with a group of people such as King Arthur Flour that are as passionate about the flour they sell as we are about the wheat we raise.

Rural Volunteer First Responders

2011-04-25T23:11:00.004-05:00

Saturday night while driving home after taking our kids to a movie in a nearby town we saw a motorcycle stopped in the middle of the road and what we first thought was a road kill deer on the side of the road. When we got closer the motorcycle was laying on it's side and what I thought was a dead deer was the rider laying on the edge of the road. He had hit a deer and laid his Harley down.

I walked up to him quickly with my phone in my hand, not knowing what to expect. He was alert and I asked if he had called 911 yet and he told me they had been contacted. With it being a calm night and close to town I heard the sirens for the volunteer fire department going off, I reassured him that help would be there shortly and the best thing for him to do was to just lay there.

The firemen pulled up and jumped out and started evaluating him before the ambulance was there. All the firemen are men are from the community that have other jobs, one of them is the county sheriff, a couple are mechanics, and I didn't know the others. These men give their time to help ensure the safety of our rural communities, they might get some compensation when they're on a call or at training, but not enough for the time gone from their jobs or family or the danger they put themselves in.

Update from Flyover Country

2011-04-08T21:26:00.004-05:00

Things are starting to get busy down on the farm. We're about to kick off spring planting that rolls right up to the start of wheat harvest followed by what seems like an intense irrigation season, I really appreciate rain then. After a month or so of doing other things the cycle will repeat with fall harvest and wheat seeding that will generally doesn't end until Thanksgiving.

I'm also involved with Progressive Farmer/DTN's View from the Cab column this growing season which should be interesting. Thursday I had a photographer follow me around for part of the day. It was a drizzly slow day at the farm so there wasn't much farming taking place, he plans to return in a couple of weeks and we should be planting irrigated corn then and running pretty hard.

All of our wheat has been fertilized and the fields that needed a herbicide to control weeds have been treated. In the past few weeks our wheat has had a tremendous growth and looks good. The wheat still has a long ways to go, so I won't get to optimistic yet and weather dictates if we have an average or great crop this year.

We've started spraying fields that will go to spring planted crops: corn, soybeans, sunflowers and grain sorghum. We intend to start planting corn on fields without irrigation next week. We plant these fields first and use shorter maturity varieties trying to time the plant's water needs to our normal weather patterns. We've had non irrigated corn yield as low as 20 and as high as 140 bushels an acre. We plant and fertilize for a 100 bushel an acre yield so 140 is maximizing all the inputs, seed and plant nutrients.

This year we will be planting with a tractor equipped with gps guided auto steer. I used it last fall for seeding wheat and was very impressed with how it works , but with spring planting maintaining distance between rows of plants is far more critical for optimum plant growth and development and ease of harvest than it is for wheat.

This past week we reentered the cattle industry with the purchase of 26 heifer cow calf pairs. A heifer is a female bovine that hasn't had a calf, but in this case we use the term heifer to represent her age and the fact she needs some special attention in terms of nutrition. They aren't what I consider fancy cows, but I consider them slightly above average. These girls are very calm and walked away from me then stopped and looked at me when I walked through them the other night. Temperment was a strong selling point for us, a cow that takes her calf and runs to the other end of the pasture will be dangerous to both us and other cattle when they need to be handled and their calves usually have a slower gains weight gains and under utilize natural resources. We intend to own the calves until they reach slaughter weight. I

It'll be great to share with everyone how the cattle business works and all the options cattlemen have available and why we make the choices that we do. The livestock sector is a real passion of mine, but we had to step away to refocus on our cropping system and determine how to incorporate cattle on the farm without sacrificing either them or crops.

Wheat update

2011-03-11T23:37:00.004-06:00

Our wheat started breaking dormancy the last couple of weeks. Things are looking good right now, but it still has a long time to go before we harvest in late June.

This field is wheat seeded directly into last year's wheat stubble. Second year of wheat is the best yielding wheat in our rotation.

This field was planted in soybean stubble. The bigger pieces of crop residue is from the previous grain sorghum crop. Our stand tends to be a little thin after soybeans, some of it is from the heavy trash, there is some thoughts floating around glyphosate, Roundup's active ingredient, this will need more investigation.

This field was seeded into sunflower stubble. We seem to get real good stands and yields will rival wheat planted into wheat stubble following sunflowers. This field happens to be Hard White Winter Wheat, it's more of a specialty wheat that we only plant a few acres of. The more common wheat for my area is Hard Red Winter Wheat. The only real noticeable difference in growing white wheat is slightly less disease resistance and slightly more head sprout in a very wet summer. I prefer the taste of white wheat, it seems to be a little sweeter taste.

We started fertilizing our wheat. We use a liquid fertilizer solution that is 28% nitrogen. We are trying to fertilize it as late as we can, but before the plant needs it and becomes deficient. By late fertilizing we are attempting to add as much protein to grain as possible, our area isn't known for producing high protein wheat and is mixed with wheat from western Kansas. If we let our wheat become deficient then we lose yield potential because the plant will only make the amount of grain that it can support even if nutrients are provided later when it needs them.

My wife and I drove home from Florida after attending the Commodity Classic going through Texas north of Dallas, the middle of Oklahoma and Kansas the wheat looked pretty decent at highway speed or faster. The western part of Kansas is going to have a poor crop due to not having enough top soil moisture last fall at seeding time. The poorer wheat will be destroyed, some never emerged last fall and I've heard reports that many fields weren't even seeded due to lack of rain.

Winter meetings

2011-01-31T10:29:00.007-06:00

After the first of the year when things are generally slow on the farm, meetings heat up. There are many production meetings ranging from local to national level. I'm fortunate to have a good one in what is practically my back yard.

Last week I attending No-till on the Plains Winter Conference. This was their 15th annual meeting and my 7th, I've been to everyone of them since coming back to the farm, my dad was one of the founding board members. Attendees were primarily from the Great Plains, the region that covers Texas to North Dakota and Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains. Each year brings more international attendees, particularly from the Canadian prairie Providences, in the past a lady connected to a Former Soviet Union State has attended.

Over the years the list of presenters have had an international flair either from experience and cooperating with foreign researchers or are farmers or crop consultants. This year the international guest speakers was a crop consultant from South Africa, a group of Canadian farmers from Saskatchewan and Alberta and Canadian researchers.

The conference kicked off with with Apple computers co founder Steve Wozniak speaking in a relaxed question and answer setting. He focused on innovation and mentioned how smaller companies can be more flexible and can cater to specific markets to fill a niche that larger companies can't meet. I didn't win the Ipad door prize autographed by the Woz.

There were three speakers in the breakout sessions that left an impression on me. Part of the reason they left the impression is not just validation for what we currently do, but also help nudge us in the direction of even more sustainability. As the definition of sustainability changes I have determined I will never claim as being sustainable.

Jill Clapperton, a soil scientist that studies soil biology and health. She had an in depth presentation about how soil residue, soil structure and soil biology are inter related and essential in a healthy no till cropping system. She also teased us with the findings in a soon to be released study by a graduate student working under her on healthy soils producing healthy food, I will be looking for it. Instead of attending her last presentation I went to Paul Jasa, engineer with University of Nebraska Lincoln, he understands no till systems and the equipment upgrades required, great source for sifting through the various attachments.

Francis Yeatman, a South African crop consultant had a very interesting presentation on soil fertility and the need for indepth analysis of soil tests and following up with tissue testings. He had many clients that had over applied fertilizer and lacked the proper balance of available nutrients that resulted in deficiencies. In his work he has found that not all nutrient sources are the same, some can help build soil structure while supplying crops with the nutrients while others only provide the crop with nutrients. In his information packet was a chart showing the effect of high and low nutrients levels have on other nutrients.

Jonathan Lungren, a USDA-ARS researcher at the North Central Agricultural Research Laboratory. Spoke about preserving beneficial insects in a no till system. Much of his work revolved around corn rootworms which seems to have a built in defense mechanism that requires a great number of beneficials to control. Dewayne Beck of Dakota Lakes research farm had contacted him to determine why corn rootworms weren't a problem. They determined after adding rootworms to the rows of corn that enough predators were present to prevent any noticeable loss. A favorable environment was created for beneficials due to a varied crop rotation that included cover crops and limited needs of pesticides.

I feel our farm is moving in the right direction. We soil test on a regular basis and observing plants for nutrient deficiencies is part of our in season scouting program. Our increasing use of sunflowers as a double crop between second year wheat and grain sorghum or corn shows several benefits because of more plant diversity, increase in beneficial insects, we have actively growing plants feeding soil biology during what would be a long period of not having desirable plants growing, and I feel wheat stubble decomposes faster putting carbon into the soil faster. We have an irrigated field that has a wheat and double crop sunflowers prior to a corn crop might be a candidate for some non Bt corn trial based on some of Lungrens comments about sunflowers attracting beneficial insects.

I also visited with some an up start oil processor that was trying to generate interest in Safflower for bio diesel. The timing of seeding and harvest works well for us as a replacement for some acres of soybeans and it also the oil content ranges from 35% to 40% even with lower grain yields it has potential to out produce soybeans in oil content. I feel as an industry we need to keep finding and improving crops to increase oil production on current crop acres.

Rural Decline

2010-12-11T14:28:00.006-06:00

This morning I learned a high school classmate's dad passed away. Leo ranched and farmed and commonly combined resources with his brothers to build operations that would support their families. I went to school with his sons Darren, a classmate, and Dustin, a year ahead of me in school, both ranch in the area. These are some of the very few that I went to high school went that chose a career in production agriculture.

Thinking about them today, a problem that will soon effect rural America in the next few years became clearer. Many farmers and ranchers are approaching retirement age and many do not have another generation to take over.

For many decades we've told rural kids that there wasn't a future for them in rural America and they needed to go to college and move to the city. In fact we give college scholarships to the brightest to ship them out even faster. The kids took the rural work ethic with them and many have been successful. As a result our rural towns and communities are declining in both population and leadership.

Reversing the decline and increase opportunities in rural America will take input from many people with diverse areas of expertise. Rural development plans can not be a one size fits all and will need to be tailored to each location.

New Markets??

2010-09-26T18:00:00.011-05:00

As I look forward to the long hours and near madness of seeding wheat starting this week, I also think about how to market it. With much debate and interest in local/regional food the question I find myself asking is, "How can I take advantage of marketing it to bakeries and restaurants in Kansas City and Wichita as flour?"

Normally we sell all of it, except for a small portion that's kept for seed, as a commodity to either our local grain elevator, which in turns markets it to a multinational grain company, or we haul it directly to the multinational ourselves. Multinational companies offer many advantages such as a variety of forward contracts that allow us to capture potentially favorable prices and peace of mind of getting paid timely .

On the other hand a small flour mill offers the opportunity to market the grain as a finished product to bakeries, restaurants, and the public that want closer contact to the farmers that produced it. A small flour mill is another opportunity to add a few needed jobs in rural America, it won't provide enough jobs to stop the out migration though. The potential downside is a small mill could be slow paying and lack the economies of scale for longevity even when charging a premium price.

Shepard's Grain is an excellent example of a group of farmers in the Pacific Northwest working with an ADM flour mill to develop flour products to their specifications and then marketing the flour to bakeries, delis and other commercial wheat flour users. Using a cost plus pricing system creates a very transparent pricing scheme and rely on farmer owners to help with promotion allowing end users to meet the farmer owners. Mid-scale food value chains case study: Shepherd’s Grain gives a detailed look at how Shepard's Grain works.

Rainstorms on the plaines

2010-09-13T23:37:00.004-05:00

Farmers aren't the only ones that stare at distant lightning wondering if it's going to rain, and if it will be nice a gentle rain or gully washing down pour.

Tonight I drove to one of our irrigated fields to turn off the irrigation system, the last watering for that soybean field for the year. When I pulled in to field I noticed eyes glowing in the headlights and saw the outline of deer. It's not uncommon to see one or two deer there at night, they usually run out of the wheat stubble and into our soybeans. This time there were several deer, just standing there watching the lightning to the north and west, completely unaware of me. Then on the drive back home I nearly ran into two deer that were standing beside the road, just staring at the lightning.

As I finish writing, thunder is rocking the house and I can hear rain pounding the roof. This isn't one of those nice rains that soaks in. Rather it pounds the ground faster than the soil can let it in, running off of fields taking precious top soil with.

Corn harvest

2010-09-03T22:23:00.005-05:00

Life down on the farm has been slow, but very shortly things will be busy with fall harvest and wheat seeding.

This old girl is the combine that we harvest corn with.

We have started harvesting our non irrigated corn this past week. Most of the corn goes to our local "neighborhood" cattle feedlot. We sell some of our corn there directly from the field and they are very competitive on the price they pay for corn. They use corn everyday as a part of the feed ration to cattle, so they can take some corn that is too high in moisture for long term storage. When the moisture inside the kernel of corn is above 15% it will deteriorate over long storage periods and warm temperatures speed up the process.

Here is a partially harvested field of corn. We are cutting non irrigated portion of the field, foreground. The irrigated portion in the background will be harvested at a later date.

Our irrigated corn is longer maturity, planted a few days later, and had water when the planted needed it the most so it matures slower. Corn has an amazing ability to maintain grain quality and not fall down while standing in the field so it might not be harvested until November after soybean harvest and wheat seeding. Much of our irrigated corn will be stored on the farm and sold later to either the "neighborhood" feedlot, one of the feedlots within 100 miles of the farm, or an elevator that might blend higher quality with lower quality corn and will most likely sell it to a feedlot or ethanol plant. The demand for corn in my part of Kansas is higher than the supply which allows us to take advantage of good prices.

Late July update from down on the farm

2010-08-02T23:28:00.005-05:00

The past few weeks has found me finishing planting sunflowers after wheat and now keeping sprinkler irrigation systems running.

Here is a field of sunflowers I planted in early July. I was surprised at how much they have grown the past few days.

Our early planted sunflowers in bloom. The blooms last for about a week and then the petals fall off as the seeds start developing. We will harvest them mid to late September. The seeds will go to a processing plant where oil will be extracted for a no to low trans fat cooking oil.

The grain sorghum has pushed it's seed heads up. It seems early to me, but with nice rain and hot weather has sped up it's maturity. Grain Sorghum is a crop from Africa so it thrives on the hot weather and hot, humid nights that we're having now. Corn on the other hand thrives on cool nights.

This is not a sight that any farmer with irrigation wants to see when crops need irrigation. Lightning struck the electrical connections at the center and disassembly was required to get the replacement part in place. We then spent several hours the next couple of days diagnosing other problems with this system. It felt good to get it running right.

This was a great sight on a hot summer evening. After being out in the heat and the frustration of diagnosing an irrigation system that wasn't working it was refreshing to see this one putting water on soybeans. The soybeans are using just under a half inch of water a day, and we're applying 1 inches every 2 to 3 days.

Wheat harvest down on the farm

2010-07-07T23:28:00.005-05:00

We started harvesting wheat June 20th and finished July 2nd. There was only one day that the weather didn't cooperate with us and we couldn't harvest. Wheat doesn't have the ability to stand in the field after maturity like many crops can, so wheat harvest begins as soon as the crop is mature and we try to finish as quickly as possible to reduce weather related quality problems. The wheat yields and protein was respectable, we were a little concerned about the quality reports coming from Texas and Oklahoma before our harvest and quality related discounts. The first week I was in a combine and the second week I was planting and catching up on other work after I helped get the combines and crew running each morning.

A picture of all 3 of our combines working in the same part of a field during wheat harvest. Our combines are older, but they still get the job done.

Here I am unloading wheat on the grain cart while it's unloading on the semi. We commonly dump like this rather than waiting for the grain cart to finish unloading, besides Tyler does a great job of loading the trucks.

One of the combine's header is too wide to transport on the combine so it's transported on a trailer. I thought it would be neat to snap a picture of it looking in my side mirror.

We store some wheat on the farm. This happens to be Hard White Winter Wheat. White wheat from a farming perspective grows nearly identical to our Hard Red Winter Wheat. I think the berries have a sweeter taste, I love to grab a handful to snack on while unloading.

We also started irrigating our corn during wheat harvest. Weather that allows for a good wheat harvest is not the best for corn. Depending on how much rain we get between now and sometime in mid August, when corn reaches physical maturity, will dictate how much irrigation water we apply.

An update from down on the farm

2010-06-12T09:15:00.003-05:00

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.

Corn planting down on the farm

2010-05-19T21:51:00.002-05:00

Quite a bit has happened down on the farm since my last update. All of our corn is planted and growing nicely. There have been rain delays and we are late getting started planting soybeans and full season sunflowers. Our wheat is headed out and enjoying the added rain and cool weather as it enters the grain fill period.

A picture of our corn planter. We can plant 12 rows spaces 30 inches apart.

Another picture of our planter. The big tank holds fertilizer, plant nutrients, we apply all the fertilizer at planting time spaces 2 inches the side and 2 inches below the seed. Putting this much fertilizer any closer to the seed causes problems for the seed's germination, when the seed transforms to a plant.

Here the corn is spiking through the soil.

Here the corn plant is dug up showing how the roots are developing. It's still living off the seed until the roots and leaves become better developed.

Here is what our corn looked like a couple of weeks ago. It's growing very nicely despite the cold, wet weather we have been having lately.

Fall harvest is finished

2010-03-05T23:53:00.002-06:00

Fall harvest is officially finished. We were able to finish harvesting double crop sunflowers. These were seeded in mid July after wheat was harvested off the field.

The sunflowers going into the combine's header. The header cuts the plant of and moves it into the combine for separating the grain from the rest of the plant.

Harvested sunflowers in the combine. They have a little more trash than normally, part of this is due to them being extremely dry.

This is what the sunflower looks like when it's ready for harvest. They aren't as pretty here as they are when they bloom.

This is what's left in the field after harvest. The combine chews up the plant and spits it out the back so there isn't much left. This field will be going to either corn or grain sorghum this spring. Normally grain sorghum is the choice for fields like this, but with the soil moisture we currently have and advances in corn's drought tolerance corn is becoming a viable option.

which corn to plant

2010-02-08T14:48:00.007-06:00

As time goes on different opportunities become available for farmers to take advantages of different markets. One that is becoming more attractive to many farmers is conventional corn. During a conversation with a seed salesman last week the subject came up and he mentioned that in north east Kansas conventional, non GMO, corn had quite a bit of interest and that his seed supplies were becoming tight. He showed me variety tests and pointed out a conventional variety that had performed well in the tests.

When considering going to a specialty crop such as this, several things have to be taken into consideration. Am I going to have to add different equipment to seed or harvest? What am I going to do with it after I harvest it, store it on the farm? How far will I have to ship it to get a premium? I will no longer have insect resistance in my plant so I might have to add insecticide at planting time for root worms, and then I might have to apply insecticides again for insects when the corn is bigger. How close can I plant to GMO corn?

The equipment is the same for planting. A detailed cleaning is required to ensure seeds don't find their way into the field since this is is a field size trial. Planters are easy to clean out, a few minutes a row and that is accomplished. The combine on the other hand, can be more time consuming to clean. If I plan to have that field ready for harvest first then I can ensure the combine being free of GMO seeds because of wheat harvest.

Being a specialty crop I won't be able to market it for a premium locally, particularly in my low corn production area. I will have to store it on the farm and ship it at a later date. The good thing is we have more than adequate storage space and equipment to handle it and keep it in condition.

It will most likely have to be shipped to Kansas City or farther, so the premium has to be enough to make it worthwhile. My local corn price is strong and the trucking can eat up much of the premium. I can still sell the corn locally to the feedlot, it's still yellow corn except it doesn't contain genes that protect it from herbicides or insects, without a premium.

Plant protection is the next challenge since the plant is no longer herbicide tolerant and insect resistant. We haven't been using Round Up in our corn, even though it is tolerant of it, because we wanted to reduce our chances of resistant weeds. Our normal weed control protocol shouldn't be a problem. Insect control could be a problem, working with a Certified Crop Adviser is a benefit in this area. He will help scout fields for troubling insects and recommend the best product to use.

Non GMO corn will need a buffer from GMO corn. I know that corn pollen from yellow corn can blow across a road and contaminate white corn. In the article Banking on non-biotech "You need to grow non-GM corn at least 660 ft. from a GM variety, said G.W. Dimmett Premium Ag Products general manager." I can easily accomplish this from the lack of corn production in my area and fields that are isolated.

I think it is possible to raise conventional corn, especially with supplemental irrigation. I want to see varieties in some more yield tests and how the heat stress from a normal year effects them.

Always changing down on the farm

2010-01-15T00:06:00.009-06:00

I am going in a different direction in this blog. Based off a tweet I posted on Twitter the other day. "Farming is not static, it's always evolving: better genetics, new crops, different methods." These few words generated numerous reposts, retweets, and a discussion with a gentleman about genetically modified organisms, GMO.

Farmers have always planted the best seed that they could get. In the past they saved seed from the best plants for next years crop. Then plant breeders became involved cross pollinating different plant lines to bring better characteristics to the plant. Now in the day and age of DNA testing and gene mapping, plant breeders have tools to identify the specific seeds that resulted from the cross speeding up seed development.

Companies such as Monsanto, DuPont, and Sygenta, have become involved in the seed business. These companies have brought advanced science that allows them to insert a gene from different plant species to make them resistant to herbicides and insects. Currently the only GMO crops in production are corn, soybeans, cotton, and canola. These plants are thoroughly tested and approve by the various regulation agencies in the United States. European countries have been resistant to allow Genetically Modified Organisms to be raised, and limits imports. However the countries that make up the European Union are allowing research plots and evaluating the safety of GMO crops. I feel that GMO crops are safe, I trust the regulatory agency to use sound science to allow crops to enter our food system. I also feel that these agencies will pull a product, based on sound science, if they are found to be unsafe after release.

There has been several crops tried on our farm in addition to wheat over the past 100 some years that my family has farmed in Ottawa county Kansas. We are always looking for new crops that will fit into our cropping system. A crop that looks promising for our rotation is winter canola. Being a broad leaf plant with a similar growing season as wheat it will allow us to use different classes of herbicides to control troublesome grassy weeds that plague our wheat. A change that is going to take place is an increase our acres of dryland corn, advances from traditional breeding have made it better at tolerating droughts, a drought tolerant GMO corn is expected to be available in 5 or 6 years. With grain sorghum prices lagging behind corn we are evaluating food grade grain sorghum for the gluten free market and we have an acquaintance that in the past has shown interest for milling some into flour.

Farming methods have changed a great deal in the past several years on the farm. When I was growing up moldboard plowing wheat fields was the accepted norm, weed seeds were buried deep and the fields were kept bare with additional tillage leaving the top soil very fine and prone to blow away . Then we started burning the wheat stubble to sterilize weed seed and some mid to deep tillage to break up compaction layers, still keeping the ground bare until fall wheat seeding. On fields with less weed pressure we would be less aggressive with tillage and would leave some wheat stubble on the surface until fall wheat seeding. Then in the mid 90's we took a leap of faith and started no till farming on select fields, leaving the stubble. No till was working on those fields and we had found what crops worked and where to place them in a crop rotation so more acres were added. Now 80% of our farm land is in a long term no till system, because of lease agreements that require that land to be in continuous wheat unless it needs rotated out for weed control we would be at 100% no till.

Some of the benefits of no till is that it saves labor, fuel, it greatly reduces soil erosion, and traps soil stored carbon. It saves labor by not requiring as many people spending several hours a day performing tillage operations, but with our rotations we spend more time seeding spring planted crops and harvesting them in the fall. It takes a tremendous amout of fuel to turn the soil during tillage operations. Every time soil is turned over carbon is released into the atmosphere in addition to a tremendous amount of dust. Tillage can also create a hard layer in the soil, soil compaction, that prevents plants from reaching water and nutrients, after a few years in no till this layer disappers. Bacteria and micro-organisms essential for plants thrive under no till. The wind doesn't blow the soil away because of the crop residue shields the soil and water doesn't wash the soil away as much because it will soak into the soil much the way it did when it was a prairie. We do rely on herbicides for weed control, but with our crop rotation we can use different crops and herbicides with different modes of action to help control them. I feel in the future we will learn more about dealing with weeds and pests from the organic community and eventually there will be less difference in commercial and organic.

Farming has changed in the last 38 years of my life and will continue to change using traditional plant breeding methods with modern genetic manipulations to bring them to their fullest potential. New crops will be brought into the cropping mix as they become better suited and more economical for a farmer to produce. Farming methods will slowly continue to change, the acceptance of no till and it's variants such as strip till is growing. Who knows perennial crops might become viable or Kansas might become the leading produce state.

What's happening down on the farm.

2009-12-29T23:43:00.005-06:00

I would like to wish everyone a belated merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year. Grain Sorghum harvest is finished. The snow was on the ground, but we able to keep the combines rolling after a few days let the snow work out the grain heads.

Snow between the rows of sorghum. I found it funny to harvest a tropical plant with snow on the ground.

A picture of my dad harvesting in the snow. We had to leave some on the edge where the snow drifted. Snow will plug up the inside of the combine that seperates the grain from the rest of the plant.

We started on the double crop sunflowers. Seed has shattered out of the heads, the last 2 fields that were planted had shattered bad and won't be harvested. The sunflowers that are still in the field seem to be holding their seeds good.

At the moment our attention has shifted to delivering corn that is stored on the farm. We are taking it to a local cattle feedlot where it will be combined with hay, wet distillers grain with solubles, and supplement to be fed to the cattle. The corn provides the energy and some of the protein in the diet. Hay helps ruminants, animals with four compartment stomachs, digest feed and provides some nutrients. The wet distillers grain with solubles is the grain that is left over from making ethanol, it is high in protein and minerals. Supplements are additional minerals that the feed is lacking. This makes for a very efficient method of raising tender and juicy beef. I weigh in and out on their scales next to the where they move cattle to the vet shed for vaccinations and I see the cattle handled quietly and calmly with a low amount of stress.

Unloading corn at the feedlot. The machine on the left grinds the corn, making it more palatable and the nutrients more available.

Snow down on the farm

2009-12-10T22:48:00.004-06:00

Grain Sorghum harvest is on hold because of a blizzard earlier in the week. Other than cleaning the drives at the farm we have been pretty idle. If we had cattle, like in the past, then we would have been busy making sure they had water and feeding them. For a great read on how a Kansas cattle rancher handles winter weather read Life on a Cattle Ranch, the author does a great job of telling about her day on the ranch during snow and cold.

Here is a snow drift that I was lucky to get out of.

The wheat stubble did a great job of catching snow and not letting it blow away. This field will be planted to grain sorghum this spring.

The snow drifted up to some unharvested sunflowers. The sunflowers acted as a natural snow fence. The sunflowers should be harvested in a week or so, as soon as grain sorghum harvest is finished. This field will be planted to corn next spring.

We should restart sorghum harvest next week and should finish in 2 or 3 days. Then we will start on the sunflowers.

Sorghum harvest down on the farm

2009-12-03T22:14:00.004-06:00

This past week has found us busy harvesting Grain Sorghum, milo. The yield has been tremendous so far and the plants are standing nice and straight. Some years with a late harvest the plant will weaken and fall over.

A picture of my dad harvesting across the field from my combine.

Looking down on dad as he harvests a terrace. A terrace is a ridge of dirt built on sloped land that slows and redirects water to help prevent the soil from washing away.

Both of us dumping on the grain cart. A grain cart is a trailer that is pulled with a tractor and is used to shuttle grain from the field to a waiting truck.

Waiting on the truck. We were waiting on the truck to get back so the grain cart could unload.

Some interesting facts about grain sorghum. Grain Sorghum originated in Africa and is drought tolerant and loves hot summers. The major growing states are Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Louisiana. It will grow as far north as South Dakota, but a cool summer or early frost can reduce the yield. Animal feed is the largest user of grain sorghum and it can be found in most bird seed blends. One bushel of sorghum will produce as much ethanol fuel as a bushel of corn. Sorghum can be ground into flour to replace wheat flour in a gluten free diet.

Milo is production is slowly being reduced in Kansas as corn is becoming more drought tolerant and having a better price. I feel milo will still have a place in our crop rotation on less productive fields.

Down on the farm during a rainy harvest.

2009-11-25T22:52:00.003-06:00

Another rainy week at the farm. These past few weeks has dragged on with little harvesting taking place. It seems like there is 2 or 3 days that we can work in the field before the next rain. Dad and the rest of the crew finished soybean harvest while I was gone to meetings over the weekend and I was able to get the corn finished Monday before this last rain. Despite the rains our yields have been good this year and grain quality has remained good. There have been reports of mold problems in different parts of the country in corn and some in soybeans. The moisture level in the grain has been reasonably low also, grain has to be at a certain level or lower to be stored without having quality problems during storage.

My son Trevor standing in a Milo field. He is 6 years old and is 4 foot tall to give some reference to the height of the milo. The field is a little weedy, but most of that is along the edges of it.

Some of our down time has been spent at the shop working on the combines preparing for milo, grain sorghum, harvest. Normally we make a few changes to the header on the combines and a couple of quick changes on the combines as quickly as possible so we can start harvest. This year we have looked them over closer and changed the engine oil. We also plan on using our third combine for milo this year also, if we can get the logistics of trucking worked out.

All of our milo will go to an elevator, even though we will store some of it on the farm and deliver it to an elevator later this winter. From the elevator there are many places that it might go. It could go to a poultry farm for feed, it might be used as a feedstock at an ethanol plant, or exported to another country for use as livestock feed or as food for humans.

Day on the farm during corn harvest

2009-11-16T23:27:00.005-06:00

Here is a typical day for me during corn harvest. After dropping my son off at school. I go to the farm shop and pick up supplies and any parts that I might need. Generally I make sure that I have engine oil, hydraulic fluid, and grease for the combine.

An ear of corn on the plant with it's husk pulled back. This is what it looks like when it is ready to harvest.

This is what it looks like as the combine's header moves through the corn. It pulls the plants down crushing the stalk while it strips the ears off.

When I get to the field I start fueling the combine. While it is fueling I check the fluid levels, grease the combine and check for anything that might to be out of place. The combine will normally take 50 gallons of diesel fuel or more, but that is enough for me to operate for 2 days. Combines have many moving parts that require grease to keep them operating smoothly and to prevent premature wear. I inspect much of the combine while I am greasing it. After fueling and greasing I wash the windows. A great deal of dust is produced while harvesting and it sticks to the windows, the dust makes it hard to see particularly at night.

A load of corn on a semi. Something wasn't set right and we were getting part of the cob with the grain.

Corn is unique to other crops that we harvest in that the combine's header pulls the ears off and takes very little else of the plant. This allows us to begin harvesting earlier in the morning and stop later in the evening. With the other crops the plant is cut off and many times the dew from the previous night needs to dry off so that the grain will separate easier.

These are a couple of pictures of our on farm grain storage and a truck unloading corn.

Then I begin harvesting corn. The combine's header will take 6 rows of corn at a time. I move through the field harvesting at about 3 miles an hour. When I get to the other end I unload and harvest back the the other end. I watch to stay lined up on the rows and monitor the grain coming into the grain tank. If I start getting too much of the plant or cob I will have to stop and adjust the combine. Many times I will spend 10 hours or more harvesting corn, sometimes longer if I have empty trucks to unload in.

We store most of the corn on the farm in grain bins and will sell it during the winter and spring. The part of Kansas that I live in is unique in the fact that we use more corn, mostly for cattle feed, than is raised. This allows for a strong market for corn throughout the year. Most of our corn will be sold and fed within 100 miles of where we raise it. There is an ethanol plant that is close, but they use grain sorghum.

Another great day

2009-11-05T22:25:00.003-06:00

It was a beautiful day on the farm. When I was driving to the field this morning to start seeding wheat a group of Prairie Chickens, also known as Prairie Grouse, flew out from some grass along a field. Prairie Chicken populations have been steadily increasing over the last few years from low populations. It's very common to see wildlife when I am working in the fields. The most common wildlife seen is deer and turkeys, the population of both animals has grown greatly the past few years.

Wheat planting has resumed. I would have liked to been finished with wheat seeding at least a week ago, but because of rainy weather all field work had ground to a halt. Much of our wheat, 1/3 to 1/2, is seeded into land immediately following soybeans, but because our soybeans were late maturing and then two weeks of rain we are late seeding wheat.

Wheat plants, at least Hard Red Winter Wheat that we grow, has the ability to produce several shoots from the main one. With late seeding it decreases it's ability to do this and we have to use more seed to help compensate. The yield on this wheat will be reduced.

Back on the blog

2009-11-03T22:20:00.002-06:00

I thought I would dust this off again and see if I can keep motivated to do this. I have a better idea on what I want to do and how to promote it through social media.

This past year has been interesting. Our wheat crop was average to a little above and we took advantage of marketing opportunities last year. The fall crops this year are fantastic, the sunflowers passed the yield goals, the non irrigated corn was good where it didn't drown out, the irrigated corn is meeting or exceeding yield goals, the grain sorghum and late sunflowers look awesome. Our weather conditions were idea most of the summer, in late July/early August the crops experienced some heat stress. Our crops showed less stress damage than some neighbors. Part of this is due to our long term no-till cropping system and proper fertilization and plant health.

No-till is a cropping system that relies on herbicides and crop rotation to control weeds. Our rotation is two winter wheat crops, sometimes with a double crop of sunflowers or soybeans, grain sorghum, and then soybeans or sunflowers. We have a fairly diverse crop rotation that allows us to use different herbicides with different modes of action to help control weed without creating resistance. This cropping method reduces the carbon emitted from the soil, greatly reduces topsoil erosion from wind and water, builds soil health and organic matter. We also use far less fuel than when we were tilling the soil and have a tremendous labor savings, I'm not in a tractor 14 hours a day 6 to 7 days a week from the first of July to the middle of October.

In the fields again

2008-10-20T22:57:00.003-05:00

Our fields have dried out enough that soybean harvest and wheat seeding could resume today. The rain and cool weather last week stopped harvest and seeding until the fields were dry enough that our equipment would not leave ruts, and that the moisture of the soybeans plants was low enough to properly harvest. I started seeding a field this afternoon as soybeans were still being harvested from it, if I had a camera I would have pictures of it to share.
With the soil temperature being low I have increased the amount of wheat seed from 95 pounds per acre to 105 pounds per acre. The reason for having more seeds to the acre is because cool soil slows the process that seeds go through to start growing and we won't have enough plants in the field. If we have too many plants it will reduce the amount of seed the wheat seed to be harvested and if a disease gets into the wheat it is harder to get rid of. Not enough plants will also reduces the seed to be harvested and weeds will become a problem, weeds rob water and nutrients that crops need and also makes harvest more difficult.

10/14

2008-10-14T22:31:00.007-05:00

It rained yesterday and today which has stopped us from being in the fields. There are lots of work to be done in the fields right now, soybean harvest is under way, wheat seeding is also taking place, and corn is ready for harvest. Soybeans take priority because if they are not harvested when they are ready the pods that the seeds grow in will become brittle and the seeds will fall out on the ground causing a large field loss. Wheat also needs to be seeded in a timely manner so will produce adequate vegetation before it goes enters winter dormancy. Corn is a crop that can withstand more adverse weather with minimal field loss and quality deductions and we commonly wait to harvest it after wheat seeding is completed. In addition to this our grain sorghum will be ready to harvest after a killing frost and the late seeded sunflowers will be ready for harvest after the grain sorghum is harvested. The later sunflowers were seeded in feilds after wheat was harvested from them.

The early seeded sunflowers were harvested in the last part of September / early October and much of it is already seeded to wheat and the rest will be seeded to wheat when the land dries to allow proper seeding.

This is a photo of our air seeder, also known as a grain drill. The primary purpose of this tool is to seed wheat, but it can also be used to seed soybeans and grain sorghum. The photo at the top was taken looking through the tractor window while seeding wheat into residue from the previous wheat crop.

The tractor is in the front, pulling and powering the drill. We seed in 30 foot wide swaths placing seed and fertilizer in 0.50 inch rows 7.5 inches apart. The piece in the center does the seeding by cutting a slot into the soil, dropping seed and fertilizer in the slot, and closing the slot by pressing soil into the slot. Following the drill is an air cart that carries fertilizer in the front tank and seed in the rear tank. Seed and fertilizer is metered out and air carries it through tubes to the drill where the product is seeded into the soil. Only a portion of the fertilizer is applied now, with much of it being phosphuros with some nitrogen and zinc and sulfur if soil test recommend them. The rest of the fertilizer will be added in the spring as the crop starts regrowing and requiring it.

Introduction

2008-10-13T22:08:00.000-05:00

I live and farm in north central Kansas with my father and grandfather. I have been married for 15 years to a very understanding wife and we have 3 young children ages 3,4, and 5.

I am using this post as a brief introduction and my blog will be an online journal. I have been wanting to keep an online journal of sorts and with positive reports of the wheat display in New York City has prompted me to follow through with it. I want to keep this as informative to the general public as possible without a lot of technical jargon.

Besides posts as journals I will also have at least one that is a glossary of words and phrases. Their will also be posts about the specific crops and differences in them, such as field corn, sweet corn, and popcorn.

I will try to answer questions the best that I can, or direct the question to a person that can explain it better than I can. I'm constantly learning more and wanting to learn more and some times an outsider asking why might be the catalyst to a change.