As harvest and field work have finally wrapped up, it's safe to say that 2019 has been one of toughest years to farm. Just like everyone else, it was wet early, but then we had extreme drought through July and August. Some yields were surprisingly good, but others were predictably bad due to drought. One lesson from this year that I will take going forward is that the terms "wet" and "dry" are even more subjective than I originally thought. While the marketing challenges of our 2019 crop…

This past week, we got to experience what I like to call "first winter." Snow, wind, rain and ice made it a pretty miserable week outside. Fortunately, we were able to finish harvest before it hit, but we also have about the last 10% of fieldwork left to do. We tried to work some ground by the end of the week, but it didn't work that well. Apparently, the second round of this year’s MFP payment is on its way. Let's hope that it's not much longer that we need to be getting these.

Despite the cold weather this past week, harvest wrapped up and fall tillage is close to wrapping up. It was a feeling of relief to top off the last bin and park the combine. On our farm, we've been disking bean ground that will be in corn next year in hopes to manage residue and warm the soil up in the spring. We also disk rip about half of our stalk ground going to beans, and no-till the other half ahead of beans. One of the only jobs that may not get done is spraying burn-down on the …

A year ago, I was thinking that late October weather couldn't possibly get worse for field conditions. It turned out I was wrong. Who can decide which was worse: the rain, wind or snow?  We have the last 15% of our corn still left, but most of it isn't standing well. I am interested to see what the moisture content is on what's left with it being June corn, because from what I hear, some of the June corn is still very wet. However, we hope to finish it this week then begin fall tillage. 

In the past 10 years, I don't remember getting as much damaging wind during October as we have had the last two years. The winds have really put stalk quality to the test lately. We were fortunate to have great progress in corn this past week and will hopefully complete the last of our corn this week. We received about 2 inches of rain on Saturday followed with some gusty winds on Saturday night. With soybean harvest completed the previous week, we have been able to get some dry fertiliz…

This year’s harvest season is coming up on week four in a few days. This past week we finished harvesting soybeans and will be switching back to do our last half of corn after the rain. This year’s soybean crop was disappointing, which was relatively predictable. Between the very late planting, extreme drought, finished off with extended dicamba damage (pun), they didn’t stand much of a chance. The silver lining has been that harvest weather has been great so far, and progress continues.

Harvest continues along this week. Yield and moisture have continued to vary regionally dependent on soil type, planting date and where the drought hit the hardest. Soybeans have not been close to the yields we've been accustomed to the past few years. The weather has been great this past week, and an inch rain was welcomed. We are currently almost half done with our corn acres and a quarter on the soybean acres, and look to continue on soybeans this week.

Two weeks into corn harvest and we are reminded how stressful, unpredictable, tiresome, but truly great this season of the year is. Corn moisture has varied from 16 to 22%, and the stalk quality continues to be an issue. This week we will be switching to harvest soybeans, but I have not been hearing promising yields locally. The field conditions and weather have made things go very smoothly so far, and this week that trend looks to continue.