Here are some photos that I snapped with my phone throughout the year in 2015. I'm clearly not a professional photographer, so apologies for the lack of quality on some of them. Definitely was not planning on putting them on a blog when they were taken. Enjoy!
Sidedress & Scouting
May 22: Sidedressing corn on the wide open prairie that is the Havre Farm, mile long rows in this area. We are sidedressing anhydrous ammonia to provide the nitrogen the crop needs. We use anhydrous ammonia because it is the cheapest, least processed, and most stable form of nitrogen fertilizer as it is not very susceptible to leaching beyond the root zone or into drainage tile. By applying the ammonia into a standing crop we greatly reduce the chance that the nitrogen will end up in the nearby creeks & streams and increase the chances that our corn plants will utilize it as planned.
May 22: Another view of the sidedressing process. We inject the ammonia into the soil using a mole knife every 60 inches (every other row gap), covering 40 feet with each pass. We like the 60 inch spacing vs 30 inch spacing as it disturbs less soil with the mole knife (tillage), and the ammonia is (as far as I know) toxic to all lifeforms in the soil.
May 23: The young corn on the east side of the Home Farm is out of the ground, soaking up the sun.
May 23: Another view of the young corn on the east side of the Home Farm.
May 23: The 3 Amigos. Check out the earthworm burrows. Think how excited those guys are going to be to have something other than corn stover and soybean stubble to eat this spring when they get to chow on cereal rye!
May 26: It is amazing what a few days and a nice rain will do to help get everything greened up!
May 26: No-Till Corn on Corn.
May 26: No-Till Corn on Corn.
May 26: No-Till Corn on Corn.
May 28: Twin row soybeans no-tilled into standing corn stalks.
May 28: Automatic row shut off or "swath control" is very nice in odd shaped fields like this one. This corn was planted April 16.
May 28: Filling in the gaps in the sweetcorn patch by hand. Not sure who is having more fun here, Grandpa or Abby.
June 2: Things are looking awful good along the "Big Slough" on the Havre Farm.
June 4: The corn on the east side of the Home Farm is getting rev'd up!
June 4: P1197 looking good so far on the west side of the Home Farm.
June 6: You could say Dad is fairly dedicated to getting the perfect No-Till Corn on Corn shot for his Twitter.
June 7: The twin row soybeans are up and running. Eye spy a pesky waterhemp though. Mother Nature is really hitting us farmers over the head with these herbicide resistant amaranth/pigweeds...what is she trying to tell us? WE NEED MORE DIVERSITY!
June 9: Corn on the east side of the Home Farm...rapid growth stage - engaged.
June 12: It is amazing how much the corn grows in just a few days during the rapid growth stage.
June 15: More twin row soybeans.
June 21: Uh oh, wind storm came through and did some damage to the P1197. Fortunately it was just root lodged and not snapped off...straightened itself out in a few days and ended up being some of our best corn!
June 27: Looking good, but starting to see the wet spots in the hills of the Home Farm.
July 6: The "flag leafs" are coming out on the home farm. This is the final leaf to come out of the whorl just before the tassel emerges.
July 13: Pollination time on the east side of the Home Farm. No need to buy a drone when you can climb 100+ feet into the sky on a grain leg! Good exercise too!
July 13: Panoramic view of the east side of the Home Farm. The light colored wet spots on the hills are starting to get a bit bigger.
July 13: Looking Northwest over the Home Farm from the top of the grain leg.
July 31: Things are getting pretty far along...pollination is done and over with, now it is time to crank out the ears!
August 20: Starting to see more light spots develop throughout the field. You can see the streaks running on an angle in the middle of the photo...we must have missed a sliver with the manure application the previous fall.
August 20: West side of the Home Farm. There is a definitely a big difference in color between the two corn hybrids in this photo.
August 24: This is a photo of one of our soybean fields, taken from an airplane. The dark strips were treated with iLeVo (seed treatment to control SCN & SDS) whereas the light strips were not.
September 1: The corn is starting to dry down, and the wet/yellow spots have really grown.
September 4: The good ol' Case IH 2388 doesn't look to bad immediately after a bath.
September 7: Anticipation is growing, the Home Farm is getting closer everyday!
September 20: Harvest begins! Unfortunately I lost most of my photos of the harvest season as my phone decided it had seen enough of this life...so I had to search the social medias in order to track these down. My sister, Bethany, is a much better photographer than me.
September 24: Meals on wheels! Thank goodness we have some awesome support back home to keep us going! PC- Bethany
September 25: My brother-in-law Ike getting in on the action! Can't forget his sidekick "Chip" (Bethany) was along for the ride too. PC- Bethany
September 25: Harvest season: the only time it is not weird to tell someone to "go dump your load" multiple times a day. PC- Bethany
September 25: Its a tough job, but somebody has to do it. PC- Bethany
September 25: Sometimes you simply need to look at things from a different angle to find their beauty. PC- Bethany
September 26: This corn is on fire! (Que Alicia Keys voice)
September 26: Fill em up!
October 10: Finally getting to take a bite out of the Home Farm!
October 20: Wyatt decided he wasn't going to let everyone else have all the fun! Just in the nick of time, too...this was the final day of harvest. Whew.
November 2: No time to rest after harvest...that manure ain't gonna pump itself!
December 7: Out with the old... Sent the 2388 down the road to Tennessee where she was going to get back to business helping finish up soybean harvest.
December 7: In with the new: Lexion 585R. Looks like Michael has some homework to do in figuring out how this thing works...
Thanks for reading!
-Michael
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