We're loving the nice weather. Last week we finished combining oats and baling the straw. Overall, our small grain harvest was good. The oats were on our poorer ground, but it still yielded about 52 bu. per acre. The rains have been spotty. We had 0.2 inches at our house last week but a mile and a half away they had two inches.
Sweet corn has been the focus for us this past week. We are busy with that every day. Sales have been really good so far. We could use some moisture. We've been missing a lot of the rains. Yesterday we got a half of a tenth of an inch. We hope to start harvesting oats this week.
The big highlight for us is that the sweet corn is ready. That will be our life for the next month or so. We sold some over the weekend and we're busy picking it every day now. We got a little straw baled last week and some guys are doing second cutting hay. Things are generally looking good.
We started harvesting rye last week and baled a little rye straw. That's probably going to be the big thing this week. The alfalfa is starting to bloom but the second cutting looks a little short so there may not be much tonnage. The sweet corn should be starting later this week. We could use some rain, but it isn't a problem yet. Last week's heat stressed the cattle a bit.
I think the heat is kind of the headline. On the Fourth of July we harvested wheat. We got all of that combined and we had some relay crop soybean growing underneath that and so far it looks really good. Our sweet corn is silking and maybe in about two weeks it will be ready to harvest. (Monday), I’m hooking on the hay mower so this week’s going to be pretty busy for baling hay.
We will probably harvest some wheat this week. There is also good re-growth on the alfalfa after the first cutting. I also hope to get some spraying done yet. The crops look pretty good, although there could be a problem with wet spots that don't come back in some fields because we had a lot of rain the last few weeks.
We have had about five inches of rain in the past week. They tended to be spotty, so totals vary quite a bit. We did get done with the first cutting of hay last week before the rains hit and we spread some manure.
We are butchering a couple of pigs this morning. That is a new experience for us. The last three weeks have been spent baling hay. We've been going gung-ho on that. The wheat is maturing quickly and the rye and oats are coming along. The corn and soybeans look good right now, especially after we got about two inches of rain last week.
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Crow farms near Marshalltown in Marshall County. Crow has a diverse farm operation that includes corn and soybeans, a cow-calf operation and a small cattle feedlot.