Fall Farm Updates

Things are changing rapidly now that fall is in the air!  The cool temps were a welcome relief from the heat and humidity of summer.  We had about an inch of rain in the past couple of weeks and so we continue to have adequate moisture as the corn fills out and the beans put on more pods.  We got close to freezing one night but didn’t see any frost on the crops.  We could use a few more weeks without frost.

The corn is continuing to mature and looks great.  We are almost ready to start

chopping silage – with the rain the plants are not showing much sign of slowing down.  We did apply a second treatment of fungicide to some of our acres, trying to keep the plants healthier longer.  The last treatment of fungicide was over 4 weeks ago and the disease pressure has not let up.  We attended a field day in Iowa where disease pressure is even stronger, so we hope to learn from them how Southern Rust moves in and how fast and what is working for them. With corn needing a few weeks to mature yet, we decided that it might be worth protecting the yield potential there.

Soybeans are at various stages of turning color, some need about 2 weeks yet.  A little bit of white mold is showing up – a combination of a lot of vegetation and humid weather.  The yield potential out there looks great as well.

The sunflowers are continuing to dry down, we are not sure really how fast that process will go.  There looks to be a good number of seeds in the heads so we are hoping for a good result from this experiment.

With the small grain harvest complete and the bales picked up, we started seeding cover crops in those fields.  This is where we plant a mix of turnips, radish, vetch, flax, clover and sun hemp for nice diversity.  The timing of the rain was good for this as well.  Last year we didn’t get much to germinate with it being so dry.  We have also inter-seeded cover crop into standing corn and soybeans to hopefully get them a little bit longer season to get established. Once the silage chopping is finished, we will seed our hybrid rye and triticale grown for seed harvested next August.  This is the time of year when we are often both harvesting and seeding in the same field at the same time – keeping everything straight becomes a challenge.

The cattle that were grazing on the cover crops and pastures were taken off and put in the feedlot.  We got in one pen of yearlings and are expecting calves to start to arrive in a few weeks.  We are not exactly sure where the top of the cattle market is yet as prices stay high.  Those little calves are pretty valuable right now! 

All in all, things are looking great and we are looking forward to harvest with anticipation and gratitude.