Winter Time

  Wow I didn't realize it's been so long since I wrote a post, but apparently I haven't written anything since harvest.  I really thought I would get better at doing this now that things had settled down a bit, but I was wrong.  Needless to say even though it's winter and there has been lots of cold weather, and snow life here on the farm hasn't slowed down all that much.

 Winter is our slow season, but we are still busy trying to wrap up last year, and prepping for spring.  I've been spending a lot of time behind the wheel of the pickup this winter.  I decided that since I wasn't working full time this winter that I would put my truck and snow plow to work, and boy has it worked.  I think since Christmas I've spent at least 1 day every week in the truck plowing snow.  So just like everyone else I'm sick of winter, and ready for warm spring days, green grass and the smell of freshly worked dirt.

I'm really tired of this view.



It looks pretty cool all lit up and night.

 

    We've had some other interesting things going on around here since my last post as well.  We found out late this fall that we are expecting our second child this summer.  I was so excited when I got told the news.  It seems like just yesterday we were bringing Madie home from the hospital, and now we get to do it all over again.

We put this on the back of our Christmas Cards. 
It's hard to read here but it says our newest edition expected around June 5th.
The pumpkins each have the year we were born on them
it's hard to see the 11 on Madie's and the 14 on the littlest one.

  Since we found out that kid number one was a girl before she was born we opted to do the same thing for baby number 2.  We kept the secret until we got a good picture of Madie with her balloon.

Can you guess what the sex is.
 

  Since baby number 2 is due on June 5th it's going to be crazy spring around here.  I say that because there have been times when we haven't met our target of having the crops planted by June 1st, so we will see how well we can all handle the frantic pace that I'm sure will come when the weather breaks.

  Even with all the snow and other things that have been going on work for the farm is still pretty steady right now.  We are working on some projects to upgrade our planter to apply fertilizer while we plant to help get our corn off to the best start possible, and of course all the normal things like taking delivery of seed for ourselves and my seed customers.  I've found out that shed space really is at a premium around here, besides what I have stored for our farm I have a few hundred units for my customers in the barn.  I'm hoping that the weather will break soon so that I can get deliveries made, and free up some space in the shop.

  I'm hoping that I can write a few more posts before we get busy in the field.  It's farm show time again so I'll try and get some good pictures of interesting things we see at the national farm machinery show, and Sarah and I will be attending the Commodity Classic show for the first time ever at the end of the month so I'm hoping that will make for some interesting writing material. 

 I hope that everyone that reads this will continue to survive this brutal cold winter, and remember when you get snowed in your house, or can't go to work or school that the work doesn't stop for those of us on the farm. 


                                         

 

Harvest Time, and Other Ramblings

Ok so once again I'm not holding up my end of the bargin and writing something once a month.  I was all ready to sit down and wrtie a post in september, but my favorite part of farming started before I got the chance.  We were able to get started with harvest work on the 23rd of september this year, which is about a week earlier than normal.  So needless to say things around the farm here have been pretty hectic.  This year's harvest run started out with lots of problems.  Living on a farm comes with some special challenges, and this year it seems like all of those special challenges have happend to us.  We had actually started preparing equipment several weeks earlier, but I guess we didn't prepare well enough.  We started the combine and found out a few of the features weren't working, nothing that would keep us from harvesting, just things like the gps yield monitor and a few other electroinic things.  This is where having our special challenges comes in, see we have rodents around our place all the time, and since they are around they like to chew on wires which causes our problems.  It took us about a week but we got most of the problems fixed.

Here's a view from the top of the grain truck we were cutting soybeans which is what you see piled in the truck.


Now for my other ramblings, I'm sorry if I make any readers mad here but I'm going to get back on my soapbox.  I have heard so many things lately about how our food isn't safe to eat, that all of our meat has antibiotics in it etc.  Chipotle had  a commercial that basically depicted the farmer as a lazy drug pushing clown, and farms as nothing but big factories pumping out cows, chickens etc like cars off an assembly line.  Well people I'm here to tell you those things couldn't be farther from the truth.  I'm going to say the same thing everyone has always said don't believe every thing you see on TV or read on the Internet (this blog excluded I'm telling the truth).  I see people posting things on facebook that come from some ag organizations trying to combat all the negative things out there, and then others who have no idea what they are talking about making comments because they read something on the Internet.  The best thing I can tell you is to educate yourself about where things are coming from.  If you are concerned about your milk or eggs having antibiotics in them used in production do some research.  Every state should have a board of animal health, or you can go to the USDA and find out what the regulations are.  Even the animal associations will have good information on how food is produced.  I'm talking about organizations like the American dairy association, national pork producers, national cattleman's beef association, even farm bureau has good information, not just for the producer, but the consumer as well.  I know I say this in every post, but you could even ask a farmer.  Leave your question as a comment here, and I will get you hooked up with information, or even a farmer that deals with what your asking about all the time.  I only raise corn and soybeans, but our family milked cows here on our farm for 60 years, so we know a thing or two about milk production.  If I can't answer a question I know other producers who could, or I can use my long list of ag industry contacts to get the info you want.  So please please please don't be afraid to educate yourself, like I've heard before there are no stupid questions.  I'm always willing to answer any question because I love agriculture, and I really like talking about what we do to feed the world. 

Like always let me know if you have questions, and I'll do what I can to get them answered.  Hopefully I'll get another post up before we get done with harvest.  We will be diving full force in to corn harvest today, so I'll get more pictures.  Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy.

Brad

Summer Time

Boy I thought I would be doing a much better job of keeping everyone updated on what's happening here on the farm, but needless to say this spring and summer have been kinda crazy for us.  We started the spring off about 3 weeks behind our normal schedule, which sounds like a long time, but we were still able to complete all of our planting before June 1 which is our target. 

We started out by applying our nitrogen in the form of anhydrous ammonia.  We use this as our nitrogen source because it's the cheapest form of nitrogen, which is an important nutrient for our corn crop.  We spent about 4 days applying nitrogen to our ground that would be planted in corn this year.  Once the nitrogen was applied we had our custom applicator come in and apply our other major crop nutrients phosphorus and potassium.  These are applied as small pellets that are spread over the field, and then when till them in to make them available for the crop.  We also had the custom guys spray our fields for weeds, because we had all the rain early the weeds were growing like crazy and we had to get them killed so they weren't competing with the crop.

Once we got all that stuff done the real fun started.  We first made a tillage pass with our vertical tillage tool, which is something that tills the soil to help to warm it up and make a good bed to plant the seeds in.  Once the tillage is done the planter comes along and places the seeds in rows and covers them with dirt so they can grow.  Once the seeds are planted we apply chemicals to take care of weeds which can rob the crop of nutrients, and water. 

The crop is in the ground, and we turn our attention to summer work, things like mowing roadside ditches, pastures, and barn lots on our farms.  Besides the mowing we spend time walking our fields looking for weed escapes, any disease problems or other things that will cause our crop problems.  It's this time of year that we start to market our crop to try and get the best price.

Besides all of our work this spring in summer, I have managed to squeeze in some time for fun as well.  We were able to take a week long vacation right after the 4th of July which was much needed, and a good way to recharge the batteries.  On the work front there have been a lot of changes lately.  I gave up my full time position with the seed company in favor of becoming an independent rep for them.  Long term it will be a much better situation, but in the short term it's going to take some adjustments.  We will survive though because that's what farm families do. 

I'm sorry I don't have any pictures in this post.  I had some really good ones on my phone, but a recent mishap with my IPhone and a lake have made those pictures history.  I hope that as we move on now I will have more time to keep all my readers updated on what's going on here at the farm, as well as being a much more active advocate for agriculture.  As always if you have any questions about our operation, or just agriculture in general don't hesitate to let me know. 
Thanks for reading.
-Brad_

Spring is coming

Well I realize that it has been a really long time since I posted something on here.  I know I said I was going to try and put up a new post once a month, but quite honestly it's been a pretty quiet winter here in our part of the world.  We made it through our first Christmas as a family of 3 which was way more fun than I thought it might be.  Little Madie finally got the hang of opening presents after about a week of doing it everyday.  We have lots of family gatherings so we stretch holidays out.  We also had Madie's first birthday party shortly after Christmas, but that was about all the got accomplished over the winter.

I guess I can't say that's all the got accomplished here on our farm over the winter, we have been keeping busy with some odds and ends projects.  I have been staying busy doing my least favorite job here on the farm, and that's all the book work that comes with managing the business side of things.  Yes that's right folks its not just till, plant and harvest we are running a business here so there's lots of time spent in front of the computer screen in the winter.  We had to get all the income and expenses to the accountant for tax purposes, then there is going over stuff trying to figure net profit per acre as well as expenses per acre.  I know exciting stuff right well for some it's probably not, but for me I like to look at these things and see where we can fine tune our operation. 

Winter in our world also means meeting season and our favorite farm shows.  Here are a few pictures from our annual trip to Louisville Ky for the National Farm Machinery show.

  As you can see we are pretty partial to red around this place.  These were the best pictures I could get with my IPhone that day.  The show in Louisville is the biggest indoor farm show with over 27 acres under 1 roof.  We do a lot of walking and see everything from our seed suppliers to equipment that we would have never thought of.

I hope to have another post very soon with some pictures from around our farmstead so you can get a visual for what our place looks like.  I'm hoping that mother nature will co-operate with some sunny weather so the pictures will turn out.

Just like with my last post here's a short list of some of the things we will be working on.
Servicing equipment(changing oil, lubricating and inspections)
Finalizing planting plans so we know which variety to plant in which field
Meeting with our fertilizer dealer to get our fertilizer and herbicide programs nailed down
Meeting with the banker to make sure we have a good budget in place for this year.

Just like normal if you have any questions please don't be afraid to ask, and I will do my best to answer them.  I can be reached at roberts_farms@hotmail.com.  Please feel free to share my blog with your friends, and family that might have some interest in hearing about the workings of one Indiana family farm, oh and today 3/19 is National Ag Day so make sure you remember all of us involved in American agriculture.
Thanks for reading
Brad

The Harvest Run

Well I realize it's been a long while since my list post, and I know I said I was going to try and update this once a month.  I'm sorry, but things were very busy this fall around our place.  Harvest seemed to drag on forever this year, which is one reason that it's been so long since my last post.  In addition to doing our normal harvest work I have also been busy with my full time job selling seed.

I said in an earlier post that I would try and include pictures from time to time showing some of our equipment, and give you a visual of what we have going on around the farm.  So here are some pictures from our harvest run this year.  There aren't quite as many as I had hoped, and they probably aren't the best of quality, but I did what I could with my trusty IPhone so here they are.

                                       Dad making dust cutting our first field of beans

                                              Getting the first field opened up

                                                 The view from the drivers seat

We use the combine to harvest our crops.  This machine has heads that attach to the front for the different crops we grow.  Our bean head in these pictures harvests 30 feet at a time.  The material is carried into the combine where the grain is separated from the plant.  The grain is the carried into a holding tank at the top of the machine which we then unload in to the trucks, or grain cart.

                                                 Our grain hauling fleet

                                                       Tractor and Grain Cart

We use the trucks to haul our grain to the local elevator which buys our grain and then re-sells it to a variety of processors like ethanol plants for fuel, companies that make soybean and corn oil as well as animal feed etc.  The grain cart sometimes serves as another truck giving us a place to dump the combine while the truck are gone to town, but most of the time we drive the tractor and cart across the field and unload the combine as we are harvesting.  I'm sorry I don't have a picture of that, but since I'm usually the one driving I can't take any pictures of that operation.  Maybe next year I will be better at snapping pictures while driving.

                                                     Opening up a field of corn

You can't see it very well in this picture, but here we are on to corn harvest.  While we are harvesting corn we pick 6 rows at a time, which is roughly 15 feet wide.  Our corn rows are spaced 30 inches apart which is a pretty standard spacing for most farms.  The satellite dish looking thing on top of the combine is the grain tank which is where the harvested grain is stored until we unload.

                                                       Training the next generation

                                             I really like riding in the combine with my daddy

As you can see we even managed to get the next generation of the Roberts family involved with this years harvest.  She was more interested in the spinner knob on the steering wheel in the tractor than what was going on.  She really liked riding the the combine because it was easy for her to fall asleep.  She only managed to stay awake for a whole 15 minutes the first time. 

This years harvest was not as good as normal because of the drought.  Our corn struggled to average 100 bushels per acre.  In a normal year we would have almost twice that much.  Our soybeans on the other hand were quite good because of the late summer rain we got.  We averaged 50 bushels per acre which is a little better than our average of 45.  The price was good which helped to off set some of the sting from low yields. 

Since we finished harvest we've been busy doing some other fall jobs.  We had lime applied to some fields that needed it, and we've been doing some tillage work to help break down the residue before next years crop.  I've also been busy pulling soil samples to send to the lab to test for soil fertility so that we can plan for how much fertilizer we need to apply next spring.
I have also been really busy with my full time job.  Fall in the seed business is the peak of the selling season.  I have been calling on customers, and confirming the orders that were placed back in the summer, and scheduling delivery of next years seed to my customers.  Yes that really happens I told you in an earlier post that we barely get one crop in the ground before we start planning for the next year, well we hardly get finished with harvest before the seed we need for next spring starts coming in.

I hope that throughout the winter I can do a better job of updating the blog and keeping everyone informed about whats happening in our little corner of the world.  I've decided to finish up all my posts from now on with a little list of the things that we will be working on over the next month or so.  Here's what we've got working for now:
Working with landlords to re-new rental agreements for next year
Finishing up what tillage work we can while the weather allows
Taking delivery of seed
Planning next springs fertility and herbicide programs
Getting equipment put away for the winter

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact me and I will do my best to answer them.  Thanks so much for reading.

Rising food prices

So I decided that even though right now is our slow time here on the farm, I should probably keep up my posts.  I just couldn't decide what to post about this time, and then it came to me today while I was mowing the yard.  I need to post about some of the things that are getting tossed around on the news about food prices going up.  Now just keep in mind that I'm not going to tell you anything that anyone reading this doesn't already know, but I'm going to lay it all out from my little corner of the world. 

It seems that every time I turn on the news lately there is more and more being said about how much grocery prices are going to rise, and I know it's all because us farmers had a bad growing season and we are going to have to use our crop insurance etc.  Well trust me none of us in agriculture like having years like this.  Our industry has actually been a bright spot in the last few years, we've had good yields (how we measure our output), and great prices.  That's meant alot of growth for the farm economy which means lots of jobs for lots of people.  So this year we've had a bad year, and yes food prices are going to rise, but from everything I read the projections are a rise of 3 to 4%.  I realize that a 3-4% increase hurts everyone, but it hurts us as farmers much more.  You see a bad crop for us means that we have to pay those higher grocery prices with less income.  So while your thinking that man this is horrible how much things are going up just imagine paying more while having your pay cut significantly.  I know your saying, but Brad you said in your last post that you had another job besides farming, and I do, but there are lots of farmers that don't.  So I know that it sucks having to spend more to feed your families just remember that we still have the cheapest most reliable food supply in the world, and there are lots of people like me working very hard to keep it that way.

OK that's enough of me on my soapbox.  A friend emailed me after my last post to point something out to me.  I said that we were usually very busy roughly 4 months out of the year.  Well I should clarify that doesn't mean that we only work those 4 months.  We have things going on all year, like right now we are starting to prep equipment for harvest, cleaning up the farmstead, mowing side ditches, scouting fields for insect and disease problems, and most importantly planning for next year.  I know your thinking man you haven't even finished this year, and your already thinking about next year.  Well the truth is we are always planning, right now I am evaluating corn hybrids to decide what we will be planting next spring.  I spend lots of time thinking about how we can improve our operation.  I always like to tell people how far we have come here on the farm.  When I took over in 2004 our average corn yield was roughly 140 bushels per acre, and in 2011 we had an average of 185 bushels per acre.  I know that doesn't sound like much, but I asked my grandpa what his yields used to be when he started, and he told me that the first crop he remembers raising way back in 1952 yielded about 80 bushels per acre.  So we've been able to raise over twice the crop using less inputs than he did.  I got this next bit of info from a facebook page that I follow called agriculture impressions.  Today's farmers can raise twice as much food as our parents did using less land, water, energy and emissions.  Just something to think about the next time someone says something about how we harm the environment in production agriculture.

Thanks for reading this long winded post, I hope that maybe I have enlightened you some how.  I'm always ready to answer any questions, and welcome any suggestions you might have for topics you'd like to know about for my future posts.  I'll try and include some pictures of our equipment and how we use it in my next post. 

Welcome to our world

The title for this first ever blog post says it all.  I'm starting this blog as a way for me to share the story of American agriculture with the world.  My idea is to just tell the story of how and why we do things the way we do here on our farm.  I am by no means calling myself the expert here, and I don't want anyone to think that what we do here is the same on every farm in the country.  This is just a fun thing for me to do, as I love talking about agriculture and farm life with anyone who is interested in listening.  Please feel free to comment about my posts, and ask all the questions you want if I don't have an answer I will certainly find one.  I just want this blog to be a way for anyone that reads it to understand a little better about where the food you eat comes from, and the people like me who are producing it.

Now that I've told you why I'm writing this blog how about a little about me, my family and our little piece of the world.  My name is Brad, and I am a 4th generation farmer.  I run the family farm with my dad John, and my wife Sarah.  We are strictly a corn and soybean farm, which includes approximately 900 acres.  We farm in Hamilton county Indiana, just north of Indianapolis, which comes with a whole set of challenges.  In addition to the farming operation I also sell seed to other farmers across the east central part of Indiana.

I'm planning to post a new blog at least once a month as the year goes on, and eventually I'll start to include some pictures of what's going on here at the farm.  Our business is a little bit seasonal, we are busy in the spring (April and May) with planting, and the again in the fall (September - November) with harvest.  The rest of the year can be kind of slow, but we seem to always have some kind of project going on.

I hope that you enjoy this blog, and learning about farm life, and our family.  Please come back and like I said feel free to comment and ask questions.