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_
