A year like no other to be sure! While COVID has effected grain markets in agriculture, thankfully it has not had much impact on the daily operations of the farm. The weather however, has not missed the opportunity to throw a crazy year at us!
A nice dry start let us get all of our beans planted in April, a first for us! A large 5” rain at the end of April then shut us down part way through corn planting. Things dried out and we were able to plant the rest of the corn in the first half of May.
A late hard freeze on May 10th hit the emerged beans planted in the first 3 days very hard. We immediately began replanting those beans after finishing corn, adding in half to a full rate of seed again according to how hard the freeze hit. We knew that planting beans at the beginning of April was a calculated risk that we were willing to take. With seed companies supporting the decision with free replant seed and crop insurance offering early replant coverage, the risk was relatively small. The picture shows the reward offered by the risk of early planted beans. The bean on the right survived the freeze and currently holds significantly more pods and branches than its replanted neighbor to the left.
Bean replant was followed by another 5” rain which inevitably caused some spots that needed corn replanted. Fast forward through a very dry June and July, we are now setting just fine on moisture after storms brought up to 9” of rain one afternoon to the area! Some hail and high winds have also left their marks in spots. The wind and rain caused us to hire fungicide flown on some of the corn because we could not get through it all with our Hagie sprayer due to tangled and wet conditions. We were able to still get through our later May planted corn with our own sprayer. Josh was also able to provide some custom application of fungicide after things dried off. The video shows what spraying tall corn looks like with the Hagie. Its really a unique feeling slipping through 10′ tall corn!
Also pictured is the Landoll vertical tillage tool that we purchased last fall to cut up heavy bean straw residue in the fall. But more importantly, we added a cover crop seeder which blows cereal rye seed into the soil as it lightly tills the top 1”. We plant the rye in the fall in any draws or gullies that are prone to soil erosion during heavy rains. The rye starts growing in late fall but explodes with new growth in early spring. We skip tillage in areas with rye to allow it to stand and hold the soil in place. As long as it is sprayed to kill it in a timely fashion, the rye seems to have minimal effect on the crop in those areas while having a major effect on reducing soil erosion in the gullies and draws during the huge rain events of we had this year. We are planning to do this again this fall in any erosive areas and expand our use of such “farmable waterways.”
We got most of the crew in a picture as we started the processes of freezing sweet corn this year. Four generations working together to put up 150 pints is definitely something we enjoyed and were thankful to be able to do together!
I’m not sure what happened to the post I wrote last summer but I certainly plan to be a little more regular once again in my posting!
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