"The most disappointing record crop we ever had..."

This quote gets at the tension we feel as we wrapped up harvest last week - overall, we are very pleased but not wowed with the corn yields.  We are definitely celebrating and grateful for a great year and yet recognizing the gap between outcome and potential.  I think it is possible to be both content and never satisfied - we can aways look back and see what we could have done different, what new things can we try next year, how we can grow and push ourselves to be better.   

We have a couple of theories about why the yield wasn’t quite where it could have been.  For one, we did not have super emergence on some fields.  We do not know why, as conditions were great.  We did also have more disease pressure this year than we have in previous years, and even though we did apply a fungicide, it might not have been at the right time and/or we could have benefited from a second application.  I recently read about how nighttime low temps above 70 degrees during grain fill can have a 1% per day yield loss.  I went back and looked at weather data from July and August and we had 18 nights where the lows were above 70 degrees so on a field with 300 bu/A potential that calculates to a 54 bu/A loss. Those things combined could add up to significant effects on yield. 

Right behind the combines we are raking corn stalks and making bales to haul home for bedding for the cattle.  We are also planting a few fields yet with cereal rye as a cover crop and strip tilling the seedbed for next year.  We are applying a bit of fertilizer at a variable rate right in the strip.  Most of our crop nutrition comes from manure but we do supplement with the strip till rig. 

Strips made into cover crop mix of rye, radishes, turnips, flax, vetch clover and peas. The seedbed is ready for next spring.

Cattle are coming in mostly healthy and with good, dry weather to get settled in.  It is always nice to see the yards filling up with calves.  Prices remain high so there is always a bit of mental math gymnastics to see if we can come up with a way to lock in a profit or at least the potential for profit.  Although somedays, it takes a bit of imagination and a lot of courage to pull the trigger. 

The next few weeks we will be spending some time in the office going over the results of our field trials and hopefully have some good data to support decisions for next year.  We also might try and make it home for supper at a normal hour, leave work early or take a day off.  I always call this “the re-entry period”.  It’s quite a transition from going all out for 2 1/2 months consumed with nothing but harvest to actually having time to think about other things.  It takes a while for some to relearn how to have a life outside the combine, tractor or truck.