Jaded June – Planting Season Woes

Month of April Recap

Since we were busy getting everything ready for planting season, we weren’t able to give an update on our month of April. So to recap, we finally started to plant our fields in late April and finished by mid-May. Our crew was working a lot of overtime, planting 1,300 acres of corn and 1,200 acres of soybeans. Most of the planting was done in wet conditions, but now that it’s been hot and dry, these seeds are struggling to emerge. While waiting for the crop to break through the ground, our crew fertilized and sprayed about 400 acres of wheat and rye plants that we planted in the fall. We sprayed our first pass of herbicide on all our beans and corn.

Month of May Recap

During the month of May, we prayed for the rain to come and just when it seemed like the wait would never end, the skies finally graced us with a day or two of droplets. Not enough to quench the thirst of our parched seeds though. Nonetheless, we keep trucking through it and continued planting, as well as servicing our equipment. We’re also in the process of building a bigger dryer for our corn which will allow us to dry our harvest down to 15%, after which we’ll store it in the grain bin. This is a great addition to our current bin set-up and will help us with our harvest loads in the fall.

Trials of Tribulations

Despite our efforts to get the fields planted early, some of the fields are looking sparse. A couple weeks back, Tyler tried to use the rotary hoe to break up the hard, dry ground, it unfortunately didn’t work. We were thinking of replanting approximately 150 acres of soybeans and 150 acres of corn but now expect that the plant population will be sufficient enough to continue without us going in again. We can tell that some of our soybeans are on the brink of bursting from the ground, but yet still in need of more moisture so we’re still praying for more rain.

To exacerbate this spring’s lack of cooperation, much of our winter wheat was affected by the early floods and the subsequent dry spell — which there’s not much that we can do about fixing that. In good news, our team has already replanted the soybean fields out at Lake Redstone which were eaten by insects. Those little creatures may be small, but they certainly can eat a lot!

Looking Towards the Future

In the midst of the after-woes of planting season, we’re also preparing the equipment to side dress the corn, but the plants need to have at least three leaves (V3) before they’re mature enough for this step. So, while we’re doing everything we can to keep up with the challenges that come with farming, we’ve got a lot of work to do yet. Farming is a tough business, but we’re committed to doing what it takes to keep our operation running smoothly. Even in the face of setbacks like these, we remain optimistic and ready to tackle whatever challenges come our way and are looking forward to the month of June!

Written by Aysha Holtz