May 4 2007

May 4, 2007

I am feeling really good today. We have only got a 1/2 inch of rain. The corn is all planted in the plots. One bulk area is left that we want to put a corn variety and fertilizer trial in. The flax is done. The spring wheat is coming up nicely. Some of the low ground is a little slow, high ground looks great. The winter wheat has had it's first top dressing of nitrogen. As I mentioned last time, the CaseIH MX 305 with RTK GPS guidance is wonderful!

Soil moisture is plentiful. We had several very good drying days and things shaped up nicely. We started planting corn Wednesday and finished the plots and 2 bulk areas Thursday. The forcast on Monday was holding the rain off till the weekend but then it decided to show up Friday. If I had wanted to plant the 3rd bulk area to straight corn we could have finished that as well, but we are anxious to try some different things on "corn on corn". We plan a small variety trial and a comparison of Avail, and in-furrow fertilizer. I did not want to get 1/2 the test in and face a potential week or two delay to finish, so reluctantly I held off.

It was really fun planting this year compared to last. The planter never plugged once. We did have a little issue with mud sticking to the outside of the gauge wheels when going through a wet spot, but no problems with mud getting on the inside stopping them from turning. This year the openers were not new, and shinned up fast. I also adjusted the gauge wheels a little tighter against the openers. Adjusting the residue managers is still needed. Of course we were going from one plot to another and different crops. I believe there are hydraulically controlled adjusters available so you would not have to make the adjustments manually. The thumbnail picture on planting corn is a bulk area the we strip tilled every other pass. The Sunco residue manager do a nice job on clearing a path even when going through corn rows. Since we are planting with GPS guidance, we are not going "down the middle" of the old rows, but just letting the guidance do the steering. This is of course causing the planter to line up with the old rows occasionally. I feel it is a necessary evil for this year, so we can plant between the rows from now on with precision.

We planted the Flax with the Concorde this year. Joe Breker, on of our board members has been using a Concorde to plant flax so I thought we could give it a try. The machine we have has 10 inch spacings, and does not go through standing corn stalks well. I used our Bush Hog rotary mower to chop the stalks up and things went fine, as long as the mower did not leave any bunches.

Next - weed control, fungicide and soybean planting.

Have a good week.

Kelly Cooper- farm manager