The Farmer's Daughter USA

Hi, I'm Amanda! My family farms corn and soybeans in Southwest Michigan. I'm also a practicing attorney.

Farming Fridays!

Another Injury

I know I’ve said it before, but farms are a dangerous place to work. If you’ve followed along this year, my dad has been particularly susceptible to getting injured, having sustained at least two very serious cuts on his hands this year. He also got sick while burning brush in one of our fields.
But another person in our family got injured recently, and this time it might be a whole lot more serious than almost slicing your finger off (though, it probably comes close)…

As I have mentioned, mom’s job in the field during harvest (aside from supplying everyone with lunch) is to drive the grain wagon around with this tractor. She’s either helping my brother “unload on the go” or dumping the wagon’s contents into the semi-truck. She also follows our large equipment on the road, helps the guys switch fields, and serves as a traffic cop.

Unfortunately, last weekend mom took a bit of a tumble while attempting to exit her tractor at night in the dark.

Now, I promised her I wouldn’t take any photographs of her injuries, but that doesn’t mean I can’t tell you about them!

As she was climbing down the steps of the tractor, and holding some items destined for the trash can, she missed the last two steps on the tractor’s ladder and fell. We aren’t exactly sure how she was hurt, but she managed to smack the back of her head on the tractor tire and injure her knee.

A trip to the Emergency Room that night revealed no broken bones in her knee, but she’s still unable to put any weight on it. If it isn’t better by this weekend, she’ll likely have to see an orthopedic specialist and may (hopefully won’t) require surgery on her knee. Thankfully, she didn’t lose consciousness upon hitting her head and there was no sign of a concussion. However, she’ll have you know the back of her head is still tender.

Mom has also been informed that the proper way to take trash out of the cab is to throw it on the ground, climb down the ladder, and pick it up off the ground. I don’t think she’ll make that mistake again!

In other news, we officially put a wrap on Harvest 2014 this week! Considering all of the injuries this season, I think we’ll all be a little relieved to leave 2014 behind. 

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Harvest Wash Out

If you remember previously, I showed you back in the spring and summer one area of the soybean field that got completely washed out during some of those heavy spring rains we had. I figured it’d be nice to finish out and show you one of those wash outs at harvest time too. Just like there were no bean plants there in the summer, there were no soybeans there to harvest in the fall. And that hurts.
I recognize there is a saying about farmers being optimists because they plant in the spring and wait until harvest to get anything back out of it. In this case, we planted but didn’t get anything out of it in the fall. A reminder, perhaps, that things don’t always go the way we plan them. 

Also, as I posted last weekend on my social media accounts, we had someone think it would be funny to drive through one of our corn fields and knock down the corn. We never found out who it was (and likely won’t), but this obviously ticks us off.

It really isn’t cute. It really isn’t funny. It’s actually pretty disrespectful. Leave other people’s crops and fields (all of which are private property) alone!

We still have about 700 acres of corn yet to harvest! Obviously, it’s getting late in the season and the weather is starting to change into cold and snow!

We woke up Friday morning to a very unwelcome sight! It continued to snow throughout the day, though there was not much accumulation. Dad left at 7am to take a load of corn to the granary. He got stuck on the highway and the trip took him an extra three and a half hours! Thankful that he made it home without any problems! I know that many people experienced a whole heck of a lot more snow than we had, but this was actually a record for November in parts of northern Indiana.

The fields were already pretty wet, so I’m sure that this snow is not going to help when we are able to get back to harvesting. Now, she’s going to kill me for showing everyone, but my mom managed to get the truck stuck in one of our corn fields. We use the truck, among other things, to pull the trailer that the corn head sits on when it isn’t attached to the combine. Mom pulled in so we could hook up and this happened while she was on the way out.

Oops. 

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So It Begins

As I posted on my Facebook page last night, we started harvest 2014! (See, following me on Facebook does have its advantages…)

In reality, the beans were too wet and we’re probably going to stop right now and let them dry out some more. So, what does that mean?

As you can see from the photo, the soybean plants dry out and turn brown in the fall. The soybeans themselves also dry out. Typically, we will determine the time to harvest the soybeans based on the moisture rates of the actual beans. Moisture levels should be right around 13 to 15% of the bean. This helps with storage, because the soybeans can spoil if they’re sitting around wet. Picking beans that are too wet can also cause damage to the beans and hurt the bottom line.

If we pick the soybeans and they aren’t dried, we have to artificially dry them, which can be done in the grain bins. If wet beans are sold to the granary, they may dock the price of the beans so they can dry them.

Why pick them before they’re completely dried out? Sometimes the fields are wet, or planting was late. Harvesting the soybeans earlier can also be beneficial because it reduces field losses, harvest losses, and market weight losses. If they get too dry in the field, the pods can break open and the soybeans will fall to the ground where the combine can’t reach them.

You can learn more about soybean drying and storage at the Michigan State University Extension or Iowa State University’s Extensions.

Harvest 2014

Bringing things fully around, after Dr. Oz had a ridiculous show about the new Enlist herbicide, the guys at Farm Basics shot this video which discusses some of the new traits in soybeans, why we’re interested in them, and how they work. Of course, that fits in nicely with Farming Fridays! and the focus on soybeans.

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Sudden Death Syndrome

Our soybeans are doing well, especially now that they have had a bit of rain. They are all a bit short this year, but still growing and creating those soybeans. This week I wanted to focus on one of the major problems facing many bean farmers. It is called Sudden Death Syndrome. Living up to its name, SDS can take over an entire field of healthy and good-looking soybean plants as if it came out of nowhere. 
According to Iowa State University, SDS has had a tremendous impact on soybeans since it first starting showing up in fields. “Sudden death syndrome (SDS) is now among the top four yield robbing diseases in soybeans. From 1999 to 2004, average losses in the U.S. were estimated at $190 million a year, and the disease is spreading and intensifying.” (Iowa State University)  

SDS is actually a fungus called Fusarium virguliforme. It usually infects a plant early in the spring at the roots, but the symptoms don’t start to show until mid-summer. It starts out with a few of the upper leaves on the plant turning yellow and, eventually, brown. As the disease spreads across the field, more and more plants will break out in it. Perhaps the worst feature about SDS is that it can survive in the soil over winter. That means that it stays in the field and can eventually infect the entire field. The fungus loves cool, moist conditions, especially during planting time. It seems to also spread a bit more easily when the ground is impacted.
There is not a lot farmers can do once it gets into their fields. Some SDS-resistant soybeans have been bred, but they are not completely resistant and only mildly successful. Spraying fungicides seems to also be ineffective against it. The best practices to stop the spread are to plant later in the spring, rotate crops, and regularly till the soil. In other words, our soybean farmers have to get creative in preventing this disease!
Thankfully, we have not been personally hit with SDS, but you don’t have to drive too far out of our area to find farmers that have it in their fields. Farmers across the Midwest have seen SDS, particularly in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, and Tennessee. (Purdue Extension) It has also spread into Canada. 
If you would like to learn more, Pioneer (a seed company) has an awesome piece describing the disease, the consequences, and attempts to stop it. The links within this article to the Iowa and Purdue extensions are also very helpful.
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Wash Out  & Shout Out to Detroit!

TGIF! A couple weeks ago, I shared with you photographs of one of our soybean fields where the rain had accumulated and covered the soybeans that were just coming out of the ground. I was back there yesterday evening and I was able to bring you the results of that wash out.

As you can obviously see, that entire area of the field was completely killed off. Soybeans are not underwater plants! Unfortunately, there was really nothing that could be done to save the plants and by the time the water drained it was way past time for planting. Perhaps the silver lining is getting to prove that weather does make a difference!
This week I would like to turn our attention to something that is happening in a land far, far away – Detroit! Okay, not that far away, but certainly the opposite in many ways from our rural communities. As we all know, the city has had some ups and, unfortunately right now, lots of downs. 
But there are some people trying to do something about it and it has agriculture written all over it!
Hantz Farms hosts an annual tree planting day in the spring. The idea is that they buy land that the city of Detroit currently owns, usually from a foreclosure process, clean it up, and plant the lots into hardwood trees. This year they planted about 15,000 trees in one day!

“We’re thrilled to be putting trees in the ground and advancing our vision to make a more beautiful and healthy Detroit,” said Hantz Woodlands President Mike Score. “We’re also excited to see groups from all over metro Detroit rolling up their sleeves and helping to put as many trees in the ground as possible.

“This project was always about figuring out a way to provide a new vision for what’s possible in Detroit’s neighborhoods,” Score said. “And we’ve been tremendously motivated and gratified by the number of people who want to work with us to help realize that vision.”

It is certainly very nice to see plots of land that have just been sitting vacant and dirty get cleaned up and turned into nice green spaces for the neighborhoods! Definitely a step in the right direction!

You can learn more about the project in this video, or by visiting the organization’s website here.

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Mother Nature’s Wrath

Last week, I wrote about all of the rain we had been getting and the back of the farm was not “waterfront” property. Little did I know it was going to get worse this week. Of course, many parts of the country are now bracing for Hurricane Arthur, but the line of storms we had go through Michigan was pretty bad.
There were tornadoes that touched down in several areas nearby, which is quite unusual for us. However, the straight winds, which reported reached speeds of 60-70 mph also caused significant damage. In the picture above, you can see how the corn is laid down. We’re a bit perplexed with how the corn is laying in different directions, but it was laid down nonetheless. Thankfully, most of it is already recovering and standing back up. We’ll have to wait until later in the season so see whether this will impact our yields.

My brother also snapped this picture, which is part of a wash out. There was of course significant rainfall and at this location in the field, the water washed away the dirt from around the corn’s roots.
There are also a lot of people in the area without power. Thankfully, for the first time ever, we were spared from that fun. And we were blessed enough to dodge most of the really bad storms. 

You can also check out photographs at Ferry Farms. It is incredible and awe-inspiring, if also depressing, to see mother nature can throw around our steel and roofs and all that hard work so quickly and easily. MLive also did a nice job of capturing some of the damage, including what was done to crops. The photographs of the growing corn laying down on its side makes me feel so blessed that we didn’t experience that type of wind here!

This week has just been another reminder of what little control we actually have when it comes to the weather. We can buy the best seeds, choose high quality fertilizer, and invest in new technologies, but at the end of the day it may not matter if the weather decides to lash out.

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Ready, Set, GROW!

Yes, we’re still planting soybeans. We have about 150 acres left. If the rain holds off, we should be done by this weekend. 
However, I wanted to take an opportunity to explain a little bit about how the soybean planter works.

Wide shot of the entire soybean planter. 

The yellow tank right behind the tractor is the tank that holds the fertilizer. The yellow tanks with the “John Deere” logo are the seed holding tanks. They are fed with air pressure from the bottom of the tanks down the black hoses to the row units. 
The yellow box in the middle of the picture is where the black seed hose hooks (not depicted) and the seed enters the metering units. These drop the seeds one at a time into the furrows and determine the spacing between each seed. 

This is the depth adjustment for the seeds. You can see the two rows of holes which correspond to different depths. To change the depth that the seed is planted, you adjust the t-handle to the appropriate depths.
That white thing in the middle of the photo is a seed firmer. It slides over the top of the seed in the furrow (where the seed is dropped), pushing it to the bottom of the furrow so that there is good seed to soil contact. If there are air gaps in the furrow, it can prevent germination.

The black tires are the gauge wheels, which determine the depth of the furrow, which are connected to the t-handles depicted above. The metal wheels in the back close the furrow after the seed has been dropped. The notched blade to the right of the photo is the no-till coulters, which cuts open and slightly loosens the soil ahead of the furrow-opening blades, which are wedged between the two depth wheels.
This picture is depicting the drive wheel (the yellow wheel) of the fertilizer pump (the red thing). It feeds fertilizer to each row in furrow.
Once the soybeans are in the ground, wait and week and this is (hopefully) what you end up with!

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Preparing the Soil 

Our farm officially joined the rest of the country in #Plant14 this week. We put corn in the ground first, so right now the corn planter is running. (If you’d like to read more about planting corn, check out Farming Fridays! from last year when I chronicled our corn crop!)
At the beginning of the week, I got to get out in the fields and ride with my dad while he spread potash! Now, I’m told that most farmers (probably about half in our area) hire chemical companies to spread their potash, but our guys have decided to do it themselves. 
And you may be surprised because we use this new toy: 
Potash Spreader Truck

 Let me tell you, it was extremely bumpy driving over fields where the soil had been worked up or where ruts remained from harvest. It almost reminded me of being in Ukraine…

Potash pellets on the back of the spreader truck.

Anyway, as we drive down the fields, we were spreading potash. Potash is the fertilizer form of potassium (K). When crops are harvested in the fall, the potassium is removed from the field along with the crop. Therefore, to keep our soils healthy and ready to support a new crop, we spread potash.

The cool thing is that potash is actually a natural substance found in large supply across the planet. The potash is a lot like salt pellets:

Over 350 million years ago, the huge Devonian Sea was slowly drying up in the area of Central Canada and northern U.S., leaving behind concentrated salts and minerals. This process continues today in places such as the Great Salt Lake and the Dead Sea.

The back of the truck that “throws” the
potash across the field.

These ancient marine salts are now recovered and used in a variety of useful ways, with the majority being used as potassium fertilizer. Potassium is a natural plant food because fertilizers such as potassium chloride, potassium sulfate, and potassium nitrate are widely found in nature. Fortunately, there are huge reserves of potash in the earth that can meet our need for this nutrient for many centuries to come. This fertilizer is clearly not an artificial or manufactured chemical, since it comes directly from the earth and is simply recycled through very long geological processes.

(Source: Agri-Brief: What Is Potash?)

Potash is a nutrient in the soil that helps the plants grow stronger. If the soil is lacking in potassium the plants have lower yields and are of a poorer quality. They also tend to utilize water less efficiently and are more susceptible to pests and diseases.

 The great thing is that potash has no detrimental effects to the environment or human beings. In fact, potassium is a nutrient that is important for our human bodies as well!

Dad usually picks up the potash from our local chemical dealer. The potash is put into our semi-trailer and brought home where it then gets transferred (in smaller quantities) to the spreader truck. In the video here, you can see that my dad fills up the bobcat (a favorite toy here on the farm) and then dumps it into the spreader truck. Once the truck is full it’s out to the fields!

For those of you that are Farming Fridays! overachievers, I suggest watching this video put out by RealAgriculture.com regarding soybean planting. Lots of information there on dealing with early/late planting, seed depth, and changing varieties.

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Reminder: Watch Out for Slow Moving Vehicles

On my home from work this week, I got a nice little reminder that we need to be watchful for slow moving vehicles during this time of the year. As I was cruising along – windows down (ok, fine, cracked) and music up – I came around a curve and was met with a tractor. Everything was perfectly ok because I was still driving at a safe speed. It reminded me however that if even I forget to keep a watch out for farm equipment on the road, lots of people are probably going to forget too.
So this is a good time to remind folks: watch for slow moving vehicles, especially tractors, on the road! 

According to Michigan Farm Bureau: “It can take 300 feet of breaking distance—that’s a football field—for a car traveling 55 mph to avoid colliding with farm equipment traveling 15 mph. That means only about five seconds to close the gap.”

And since spring hasn’t even started and it’s already April, there is going to be a mad rush for farmers to get into the fields quickly.

One school in Fremont, Michigan was seeing a lot of tractors on the roads this week, but not for the reason you might expect! Once a year, the students are allowed to drive their tractors to school. And it’s become quite a big deal.

Take a look:

(Source: FOX 17)

The school has made the day an annual event. From the story:

“The kids really love this day,” said Patty Craven Bitson in a post on FOX 17′s Facebook page. They hold lunch in the lot, have hay-throwing contests, and take their tractors to the elementary school to show the kids, said Bitson.

I’m sure that not only is the day exciting for the kids, it is also quite educational for the younger students.

By the way, for everyone that has been so thoughtful and asked — my dad and brother are doing just fine and both are getting better!

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My feature Farming Fridays! will return next week! 
Doesn’t it seem like we were just finishing up harvest and ending last year? 
Last year, we followed my family’s corn crop. This year, we’ll take a look at the soybeans. You can view all of the Farming Fridays! features from last year by clicking on the tab at the top of the page or by clicking here.
See you next week!

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Blizzard 2014
2014 is certainly off to a chilly and frigid start! Here in Southwest Michigan, we also experienced a great deal of snow and blizzard-like conditions. Although I wasn’t able to go outside and take too many photos (after all, the wind chill was -37degrees), I did want to share a little problem we had here on the farm. 
One of the greenhouses we have on the farm was used primarily for flower baskets. For various reasons, flowers cannot be kept in the same greenhouses as fruits and vegetables. Nonetheless, we have used this greenhouse for storing some small equipment during the winter months. This particular greenhouse was supposed to be designed to withstand heavy amounts of snow, but after it collapsed a few years ago we realized that wasn’t the case. Dad reinforced the frame, but on Tuesday we noticed the snow was getting too heavy on it. 
The braces were actually getting ready to give and the poles supporting the roof were bowing. Dad got the tractor with the snow blower out and made a path around the bottom. Then, my dad, my brother, and I set to work removing the snow from the roof. As you can tell from the photo, the drifts on the greenhouse were probably around 4-5 foot deep.

We had to slowly use long rods with little flat pieces of plastic on the end to break up the snow and pull it down. It took a while and it was really really cold, but we managed to clear it off! 
Thankfully, the greenhouse didn’t collapse and land on top of the equipment stored inside! 
Otherwise, I didn’t have to travel for 2 days while the storm was hammering down on us, so I quite enjoyed watching it from inside the house. I do, however, have an extreme amount of respect for the farmers that have animals to care for — they don’t get to take snow days! 
So, how did you survive the snow and cold?
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Comments

  1. Rance Adams says

    Great work. Excellent content and information. I hope you can get this to people who aren't as knowledgeable about production agriculture. I appreciate your desire, knowledge,and dedication in producing this. I can tell this took a lot of planning and work. Wonderful job, keep up the good work. Best wishes.

Farming Fridays!

Done With Harvest? 

I can’t believe I’m about to say it – but today is (probably) our last day of harvest!!That’s right, folks. An entire season is about to get wrapped up today. 
The guys and mom stayed out late last night to keep going and I got to ride with them. Check out these cool night videos I managed to capture: 
Out of the back of the combine cab is a window that shows you how full the combine’s holding bin is — here you can see the corn filling up the container on the combine, including where it falls into it. Of course, the window gets a little dirty. 😉

Here we are unloading the corn from that holding bin on the combine right into the grain cart. Needless to say, this takes a little skill and technique (not to mention luck) to get it right!

Unfortunately, the videos can’t do the whole thing justice and I hope you’ll find an opportunity to ride in the combine at some point in person.

And I just have to mention, my Spartans are going to the B1G Championship Football game this weekend. As an avid football fan, I’ll of course be there – so look for me on TV. GO GREEN!!
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Harvesting Setbacks

First and foremost, happy birthday to my brother today! 
And happy November to everyone else — can you believe it’s already this late in the season?!
We’re definitely back to harvesting this week. I got to ride with dad to the granary on Sunday. Right now, we’re trying to get soybeans picked, so there isn’t a whole lot going on with the corn. However, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been an exciting week. 
We certainly had our share of break downs and minor problems, but we also had some larger glitches. 
Parked on the road? 
On Tuesday night our semi-truck got stuck…across the road. Unfortunately, in this area we have a lot of smaller fields with tight driveways and small entrances. That can make it hard to get our big equipment in and out of the fields. The semi-truck usually stays on the edge of the field. In this instance though, one side of the trailer’s tires were over the ditch and not touching the ground. We had to use the tractor to pull the semi-truck and get it evened out.

You don’t want to see that crack on your soybean head…
Then, Wednesday afternoon we had an even bigger problem — our soybean head cracked in two. The photo above is a picture of the auger. This sits on the head and pulls the soybean plants and pods into the actual combine. You can imagine that it isn’t supposed to be cracked like that. It definitely brought us to a stand still. Thankfully, our equipment dealer was able to bring us another head to use within 20 minutes (shout out to them for being super awesome!). 
The rain started again on Wednesday evening, so harvest has been put on hold again. Tomorrow, as the rain continues, we have to haul the cracked soybean head halfway across the state to get fixed. 
While it was all a bit frustrating (obviously), it’s also a great demonstration that farming requires a certain sense of ingenuity and adaptation. Farmers have to be able to come up with solutions on the spot. We might not have the right tools, we might not be anywhere near the shop, and it might be a completely unique problems. But that’s part of the job — figuring out how to fix problems on the fly. 
No, really — slow down and pay attention!
And just a friendly reminder: if you’re driving down country roads this time of year, slow down and pay attention. Our equipment has to be on those roads to get to one field to another and I know that’s true for all farmers too. There have been a couple close calls with the combine this past week because someone was speeding down the road, ignored the truck with flashing lights on it, and came suddenly upon the combine. Please, pay attention. 

Finally, as (almost) everyone in Michigan is aware, this weekend is the big Michigan-Michigan State football game. It’s definitely a fun rivalry to be part of and I’m so excited to be going to the game. Go Green!

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Harvest 2013

After months of waiting, it’s finally here: harvest.

Not quite, but we’ll get to that in a second.

First things first! Last weekend we (finally) brought home our new combine. There’s nothing like watching it drive-in the first time and, lucky for all of you, I managed to capture that magical moment. 

Here’s a better look:

Very exciting for us to upgrade to our 12 row corn head now. That means that we will be able to pick 12 rows instead of the 6 we were picking before. Harvest will go faster….but we’ll also have a harder time getting into some of our fields. 
So, how do we know when the corn is actually ready to pick? By the amount of moisture in it. 
We want the percentage of moisture in the kernels to be about 19%-20%. To measure that amount, we’ll go into the fields and take samples — meaning we pick various random ears and pick them. We then shell them by hand: 
Shelling the corn by hand.
Once the corn is shelled, we have this nifty little reader that allows us to figure out exactly the moisture in the corn. Right now, most of ours is sitting at about 25%. That means we need let it dry down some more in the field before picking it. Once we pick it, if we need to get more of the moisture out, we’ll have to run the dryers in the grain bins and that can get pretty pricey pretty quickly. 
This little guy measures the moisture in the corn.
We were able to pick a little bit, but quickly realized that it’s still too wet. The guys are also trying to figure out how to use the new combine and get any kinks worked out. But we’re going to have to wait a little longer until the corn has dried down before we can continue picking.
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Corn Umbrellas -The Latest Field Fashion

Lots happening this week, but the corn is doing something which is actually pretty awesome!
Pollination is over. Growing is over. The stalk is starting to prepare for winter and the next season. Essentially, the kernels, which are really seeds, need to lose a lot of the moisture they have inside so they don’t rot over the winter. 
As you can see, the stalks are starting to turn brown, as well as the ears. 

The husks around the ear has actually dried out and opened up, forming an upside down umbrella.

As the corn continues to dry out, the ear will fall down. You can see the one above is already leaning away from the stalk. It will eventually hang all the way upside down. The husk then forms an umbrella over it so the kernels are protected from any rain. This helps it dry out by preventing the rain from collecting inside the husk and sitting around the ear. 
Later, it will become really important how dry the corn is. We actually have a way of measuring the moisture still in the kernels. When we go to sell it, the moisture will have to be under a certain amount or the crop will actually get docked (read: we get paid less) because there is too much moisture. 
If you’re familiar with “field” corn, you’ll recognize that this is when the kernels start hardening. Sweet corn, for example, has soft kernels that you can bite into and chew. The kernels on field corn are soft (though will seem “tough” compared to sweet corn) to begin with, but during this process of drying will become hard. Again, this helps preserve it over the winter months. 
Take a look next time you pass a corn field and you’ll be able to see the ears hanging down with the husk “umbrellas” over them. 
I’m headed to Ukraine tomorrow! I’m very excited (even though, of course, I’ll miss interacting with my readers!). I encourage you to follow me on Facebook (click here) where I’ll still be sharing some of my favorite old articles while I’m out of the country. 
Of course, prayers for safe travel are always appreciated! 
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Country Girl

If you follow my twitter feed, you’ll know I had to take a trip into Chicago this week. If there was a question before, there definitely isn’t one now: I’m totally a country girl. I couldn’t wait to get back home and back to sanity. How can people live like that? And you can’t seriously tell me that is good for the environment (uh…what environment?).
Back on the farm though, the corn is looking really good. Notice that the silk, which was a yellow color last week, has now turned brown. This means the pollination process is over. The only thing that will effect the yields of the corn at this point is how fast the kernels are growing, which again is influenced by hormones within the plant. From what I understand, the shorter the time between pollination starting and the silk turning brown, the higher the yields. I guess we’ll just have to wait and find out!
See how the silk is turning brown? The ears have grown a lot too.

The little red flag I’ve used to mark the height of the corn looks like
a shrimp now, but the corn isn’t adding much, if any,
height at this point.
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Knee High By The Fourth of July?

I’m sure you’ve heard the old adage: corn is supposed to be knee high by the fourth of July. 
Well, ours certainly is: 
Ok, maybe not all of it is quite that tall!!!
I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable Independence Day! 
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This got a little crazy this week, so no new stuff (plus, we’re in the middle of planting soybeans anyway). 
BUT, that just means this is the perfect opportunity for you to head over to the Farming Fridays Diary! and catch up on what’s been happening this season on the farm! 

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Spring Has Sprung (Finally)

I’m fairly confident Michigan is the prettiest place to be in the spring! 
This is seriously in our front yard. Be jealous.
We even have kittens!! 
But enough of that. The farm is finally starting to get busy too! 
We aren’t planting yet, because the soil is still too wet and cold. We want the temperature of the soil to be between 50-55 degrees. You don’t want the seed to sit in cold, wet soil or it’ll start to rot. That totally defeats the purpose. Right now the soil is probably just about getting to the right temperature. 
However, we aren’t just sitting around waiting. We are disc-ripping some fields right now. Our fields have been no-till for quite a while, so we have to work up the compacted layers. We’ve had corn on some of the fields in consecutive years, so it is important take care of the soil. 
The picture above is of the disc-ripper. At that time we were clearing a field that had been planted in grass. To show how effective the disc-ripper is, the grass behind the tractor is what the whole field looked like before we ran over it with the tractor. Afterward, it looks like the dirt there. 
Mom even tried her hand at spreading potash today (though she says her career will be short lived)! Potash is potassium that we put on the field. The corn uses it to create the ears, so we have to put more back into the field. For every bushel of corn produced, you remove .27 pounds of potassium from the field. We get the potassium from mines, just like you would mine coal. That means it isn’t manufactured or anything; it’s found right in the ground. We apply it with just a fertilizer spreader and tractor. 
By the way, if you want to get caught up on what’s happening on the farm, be sure to check out the Farming Fridays Diary! Click below and find the same icon on the right side bar. 

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Farming Fridays!

Spring Hasn’t Shown Up Yet

Yesterday was pretty much the first day we had over 50 degrees so far. The soil is absolutely no where near being ready to plant the seeds that I talked about last week. 
But that doesn’t mean we aren’t doing anything! 
My dad and brother decided to pull out the new tractor and disk to give it a whirl. They told me turning up the darker dirt would help make the soil warm up faster, but I’m pretty sure they just wanted to try it out! Of course, the field was used last year for soybeans, and the disk also helps break up the old roots. We leave them over the winter and spring as ground cover.
As you can see from the clump of dirt, the soil is still a little too wet to use the disk. But that didn’t stop them….
The guys have also been in the shop fixing up the planter before we start planting (I’ll get into that a bit more next week). And, my brother has been clearing some trees on a couple new pieces of ground we have. This picture is from last summer when he was doing clearing a new field that had particularly grown up. 
Things are just in the preliminary stages for the season, but as soon as it warms up, things are going to take off. 
By the way, take a look at those fields! Aren’t they so pretty?! 
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Farming Fridays!

Announcing: 
I want to announce a new feature that I’m going to have every week on the blog now: Farming Fridays!
The goal of my blog is to promote conventional agriculture and educate people about modern farming. Of course, I spend a lot of time refuting bad science, bad claims, and bad rumors. But, I figured it’s time to start letting people into our world too. 
And, this way people will know I’m actually the farmer’s daughter! 
Every week, starting next week, I’m going to feature what we’re doing on the farm in regards to just one commodity. Readers that follow the blog will get to see where the whole process starts (well before planting!) until we take the check to the bank (er…if we take a check to the bank…). 
This year I’ve decided to feature field corn. A large part of our operation is corn and it’s actually cool to see it grow every week and change. I’m sure as I start documenting everything we’re doing I’ll even learn some new things!
I have no idea what this season will be like, but hopefully my readers will enjoy following me on the journey! 
I will also have a tab on the page where you can follow all of the Farming Fridays posts without searching through the whole blog. Look for that and I will point it out when it’s up! 
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