Frosty morning

As usual, its a bit chilly this morning, a few snow flake fell yesterday again and the 4" soil temps are back down to 45 f.

I was able to fix some tile yesterday, but that was a very ugly process in the feet of mud that I call my field.

Have a good weekend.

One creek goes down, the other goes up

It is normal for this creek to get out of its banks, and will have to rise another 3 feet before it backs up into any of my fields.

4" soil temps holding steady in the 47-48 range, 30% chance of snow (getting really old) here tomorrow, and I am still trying to decide where I want to go fishing....after reading fishing reports, even the fish aren't very active with this colder weather.

Rain !?!?!

Received a little under 2 inches last night. Rained for 9 hours straight. Have still not started planting and will be delayed at least another week now. Soil is still cold and saturated to the point you can squeeze liquid out of a handful....not good.

This is a picture of the creek behind my house. It is fed 100% from tile and surface water, so when it swells like this....it means the soil profile is full.

On the plus side......night crawlers were active this morning, and I was able to grab over 50 and store them for fishing.....I wonder when I will find time to do that? hmmmmm oh ya now!



I recorded a video yesterday, but don't really want to upload it based on its depressing how nice it was yesterday compared to today.

2.75 Inches accumulated

Topped out there and then switched to rain before I could get a pic started melting pretty fast.

Thunder Snow!!!

It didn't look too bad this morning, I even hauled a load of corn to the local ethanol plant, but when I got home......all hell broke loose.

Here are a couple pics,





And a video of the actual thunder snow will be uploaded to Ag Reports Network later today. Kyle Wendland (NE Iowa)

The start of another crop year......wont start anytime soon.

This time last year I was 1/4 done with corn, though that was very unusual, I think the fact that this year we are over a week away from planting is beginning to get worrisome. I have never had fond memories of planting corn in May. (2008 was my worst corn yield ever)

Saturday morning I woke up this wonderful (not) sight. Around and inch of snow was accumulated, and though it melted quickly, it did not do the soil temps any favors.


For 4" soil temps in Iowa I use this website.....



or http://extension.agron.iastate.edu/NPKnowledge/soiltemphistory.html if the link doesn't work
Soil temps need to be above 50 degrees and have a good forecast before planting corn. I still have bad memories of the May 10th frost last year.....and do not want to relive that.

This week I will be hauling corn and maybe picking some rock if it dries out again....but that looks doubtful.

Windy day

This old wet holding bin hadn't been moved for 3 years and never bothered with all the storms and wind, until yesterday.

Harvest time

Everything is ready to roll. Hope to do 40-50 acres today to get a good feel for moisture and yield in a few different fields. Top image is my dryer setup, bottom is my fields north of my house (DK 49-35RR).

Fields of Gold...again

This picture is from the field south of my house. It is Agrigold 6309 SmartStax. The plant health looks great with just a few blemishes on the leaves. Four ears averaged 19.5 kernals around, 32.5 kernals long, and roughly 31,000 plants per acre. Doing the calculations would put me close to 210 bu/acre. I would be very happy with a yield like that as that would be the best yield ever on this farm by about ten bushels.

Beautiful Beans

Stopped to check on my beans yesterday. I was very impressed how they have been handling the excess moisture and now the heat. The rows were not quite shaded, but that is normal with this variety (NK S21-N6). The plants were already setting quite a few pods...(6-12 each)...which also surprised me.

Fields of Gold

Here are a couple of pics from this am. One shows the field south of my house. Fully tasseled and pretty much completely pollinated. The other pic shows an ear from that field. Looking at the ear it looks like pollination went great, about 38 kernels long and 18 rows around....final stand in this field was around 31,750. It is important that the roots find plenty of nitrogen and water during the filling stage or else the plant will cannibalize the stalk and abort kernel, which can hurt yield severely.

I should also mention that in the field picture, the corn close to the house is a different hybrid than the corn further away.....that is the reason for the color change (tassels).

Nice videos on Ag Reports Network

There are a few nice videos on the website from the past week.

http://www.agreportsnetwork.com/cms/north-america

Click on each farmers tack to view individual videos, or click the yellow box on the left-hand side to open the "Latest Video Report"

I have a busy day of shingling planned, and will have a new video tomorrow.

Talk about a down pour!

This is my driveway, has approximately 160 acres drains under it....most the time. The two 24" culverts could not keep up this morning.

SmartStax may be the real deal

On the left is a root ball from Agrigold 6309 Smart Stack variety, on the right is a root ball from Dekalb 52-59 VT3. Although overall root mass seems similar, what was surprising for me is the finer root hairs. The finer root hairs to me means better root growth, which means better nutrient uptake, which means better yields come fall. I have high hopes for my Smart Stacks corn.

And the thunder rolls

Video quality doesn't do this clip justice....it was one heck of a light show last night. Sound quality is good and pretty cool, neat to listen to. A little wind damage to the corn, but nothing major for my area. Ended up with 1.6 inches of rain.

Finished up side-dressing yesterday

Corn is looking great....and now with the rest of the nitrogen on, it will really take off. Now I need to focus on spraying. As the corn is getting tall the weeds are really getting tall. Who would have guesses we would go from three weeks of dryness, to one week of rain. We are expected to get rain again tonight (1/2 to 3/4 of an inch). But from now on I will not turn down rain, because as the crop growth rate picks up the need for water and nutrients also picks up.

Nothing beats a great wife that is a great chef!

Not trying to be cheesy, my wife made a great meal for supper tonight. For starters fresh ciabatte bread with fresh sliced tomato and fresh mozzarella cheese. Main course was crab alfredo topped with fresh tomato. Yeah, it was great.

Video of corn last Friday

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid59581367001

Good dog

Corn looking nice. I am still working on getting my side-dressing done.....between rains that is. I had some spots that were knee high by the fourth of June, but now a week later I would say the majority of my corn is knee high.

New video coming later today.



Here is a picture of my rainy day project. I am making up a 20 foot boom for spraying fencelines, end rows, ditches, and lawns. The new tank is 100 gallon vs. my old sprayer was only 25 gallon. Hopefully I will be able to get more done this way.

Side dressing Nitrogen

Corn is getting to tall to pick rock anymore, so here is a picture of the final pile for the spring.


Next I need to focus on getting the rest of my nitrogen on. To do this I am sidedressing 28%. I have to do this on 370 of my 570 acres. The rest got fall applied anhydrous (it wasn't working very well last fall due to the massive amount of trash, so I gave up after 200 acres). Sidedressing is a great way to give a corn plant a boost of nitrogen right when the plant is growing the most, and also the split application helps reduce leeching of nitrogen.