Filling ponds!

Not much going on this week on the farm.  We took some time to enjoy our families over the long weekend.  However, I am happy to report that it was also a RAINY weekend.  We are not quite sure how much rain since the gauge froze up, but we believe it was around FOUR inches!  Great for the wheat and the ponds!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!  We are having a slow week on the farm, just catching up on odds and ends jobs/paperwork.  We are expecting cool and rainy weather for the next few days so are looking forward to relaxing and enjoying our families over Thanksgiving.  We are thankful for too many things to list, but we are especially thankful for the opportunity to be part of the family farm.

Stop farming??

I recently read an article called "Stop Farming Unprofitable Acres."  It caught my eye because Quentin and I have been discussing this very thing lately.  The idea is to flag areas in your fields where you are consistently losing money.  With new technology, it is easier to see where these areas are.  Of course, some you can see with your own eyes.  I snapped this picture from the combine as we did some outside rounds by a tree line.  Where the trees came close to the field, there were essentially no beans for the first 8-10 rows.  As soon as there was a break in the trees or they were further away, we had beans.

After watching some of these areas for a few years, Quentin talked to our local USDA-NRCS agent about buffer strips.  The idea is that if you have areas in your field where you are losing money year after year, it is a good idea to put a strip of grass in between the trees (or other hazard) and your field.  Yes, you end up with less acres, but your overall profitability should go up since you are reducing the acres where your net profit is negative.  Also, the strips would be easy to take out in the future if things change (e.g. a tree line is taken out).  Right now it is just food for thought, but Quentin may be discussing this with you in the future to see if it makes sense in some areas of your fields.

Strip-till operation

Quentin bought a strip-till fertilizer applicator last year. It has been a good addition to the farm.  He is able to put dry fertilizer and anhydrous in rows right where the crops can use them.  This should make the fertilizer more available to the plants when they are young.  Also, the shanks can help break up any hard pans in the row without having to plow up the whole field.  He's been spending his days getting it set up and might even do some fertilizer application yet this fall if things dry out.

Rainy days

We have been blessed with a couple rainy days here.  We received about 1.75" total.  I guess the men won't be doing any fall field work for a few days, but I don't think they mind!

Working terraces

 Fall is a good time to rebuild those terraces.  Paul invested in a new scraper this fall and has been giving it a good workout.

 

Seeing green

The wheat is trying its best to come up.  We are seeing lots of green in the field now.  Much of it did not make it up until the last rain, but it's coming on now.  Hopefully, it will put some good growth on before it turns cold for the winter.

 

Busy?

Farmer to wife: What are you doing today?

Wife: Raising your children. Why?

(Wrong answer.  The correct answer would have been "I'm busy.  Very, very busy.")  Just kidding!  For those of you who don't know me well, I was an agronomy major in college so I always enjoy being involved with the farm work.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we had a few fields grid sampled this year.  However, we wanted to get an idea of the soil fertility on some of our other fields, too, so Quentin and I went out yesterday to get a few samples on the rest of our fields going to corn next year.  It's not as extensive as grid sampling, but it should give us a pretty good idea of what is happening in a particular field.

For those of you who might not be familiar with soil sampling, it is WORK!  We will be sending in only 2-3 samples per field, but to get one soil sample, 25 probes are taken from all over the sample area.  Each probe is taken to a depth of 6 inches.  Mix all the soil together from the 25 probes and you have a sample.

 



One probe down, 400+ to go.

We based our sampling areas off the yield maps to get an idea of "good" and "poor" areas of the field.  This will allow us to compare the fertility to help pinpoint why some areas do better than others.  It is amazing what you see when you get out there.  Without even looking at the map, I could usually tell whether we were in a good or poor area based on the probe.  Many of the poorer areas had a very shallow topsoil, and it was nearly impossible to get the probe down to the 6 inch depth before hitting a hard pan.  The poor areas also tended to be drier with less soil structure.  The good areas were relatively easy to probe and had good moisture.  Sometimes they were darker soils, which probably indicates they have more organic matter (a very good thing).  We will be interested to see what the results say when we get them back.

Soil testing

One project Quentin is working on this fall is soil testing.  He started small with some fields of Paul's and Kenneth's, but hopes to expand to include all the fields in the next few years.  One thing he found is the fields are getting pretty low in pH.  That means a lime application to help nutrient availability.  Hopefully we can get some on before the ground freezes.

A light shower again yesterday.  Only 0.15", but it helps to keep the ground softened up.  We'll take what we can get!

Break?

Slow week on the farm.  You would think the guys are taking a much needed break after harvest, BUT they have just shifted their focus for a few days.  We are getting ready to move in to our new church building, and we are spending all our free time getting things ready.  Very exciting for us!