update_Nov_27

November 27,2006

The fall of 2006 is coming to an end. We won't be able to come up with any excuses for not getting our work done this fall! September did give us a little precipitation but since then, not much. As you can see in the pictures at the right our sloughs are drying up.

The strip till went very well this year. I think this is the first year we were able to use the coulters. Our heavy clay loam soil when wet is not a good combination with a coulter. It just gets thicker and thicker on the blade and then it stops turning. Our thanks to Walt Albus for letting us use his machine. No surprise, but we found you can not go across corn rows. Next year, when we have the corn planted with RTK guidance, that will not be an issue. I did try a couple of plots of corn stalks, and if you can stay between the rows, no problem. Walt tells me it is important that the corn head does not detach the corn stalk from the roots. This allows the corn to "flow" through the machine. Seeing is believing on that one.

The corn yeilds did not stray to much from my initial impressions that I wrote about last month. A little shy of 180 for the best plot, and low 100's for the worst. With all the nice weather, I have not spent much time in the office, so I will get the numbers crunched shortly. It did take a while to get the corn dried down. It was planted late, between the 18th-30th of May. From talking with the neighbors it seemed their corn dried down faster, but the yields were pretty much the same. Yield monitors mapped water holding capacity and drainage. Those two qualities made a guy a lot of money this year, especially if you didn't sell to early! But we won't get into marketing. Looking back, the biggest challenge for me this year was getting the corn in the ground, but that hit everybody, esp no-tillers. I think every one locally was surprised with the corn and bean yields. Most farmers would have been happy to sell 100 bu corn and 25 bu beans the 1st of August.

One thing I would like to comment about is spraying foxtail barley real late in the season. We had a nice stretch of warm weather the week of November 8. I sprayed the soybean plots with glyphosate on the 8th, 9th and 10th. The 8th had a high of 70, the 9th it was 40, and the 10th was in the 40s also. I had a little issue with wind and bordering winter wheat plots, which held be back from getting it all done at once. These are plots mostly going into spring wheat next year. If you have challenges with foxtail barley, you know what I am talking about. Stay tuned.

I want to thank the Hanson Brothers and Bill Smith for letting me use their trucks for harvest. Also, Dennis Fliehs for the use of his service tank to gas up the CCSP combine. Joe Breker, for combining the soybeans with his flex head, and Marty Visto for doing an excellent preventative maintenance check on the CCSP combine. Just one bearing went the whole year!

have a good week.

Kelly Cooper- farm manager