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| Fall Harvest 2005 - Fairfax, Iowa | |
| 2005-10-29 As of noon today, we're done with harvest 2005. We had a great fall and very few break downs. The combines got blown off this afternoon and will be put to bed in the next few days. However, there is still plenty of field work yet to do this fall. The weather is still pretty warm for this time of the year and we've only had a couple nights where it got below freezing. 2005-10-23             2005-10-16 We finished up the last 20 acres of soybeans earlier today and both combines are now on corn. We have some corn between 15 and 16% moisture, so it is going into bins or directly to town. We did have one minor break down today on the newer combine. We somehow broke the ready-rod spring tensioner that engages the belt that drives the header. We had to weld up the ready-rod to get it strong enough to not break again. FYI, ready-rod is good for pulling, but you cannot push on it too hard or it will bend and eventually break. It's just a poor design. 2005-10-15               2005-10-13 Yesterday morning it was so humid and overcast, we didn't think the soybeans would ever get dry enough. We switched both combines back to corn and started filling a drying bin here at my place. The corn is between 16 to 18% moisture coming out of the field, depending on hybrid. 2005-10-12         2005-10-11 We've been running on soybeans the past three days and aside from the heavy dew every morning, things are going smoothly.             2005-10-2 Yesterday we switched our other combine over to soybeans and we've been running "the team" steady since then. The field we were on tonight is on average 60 bu/ac at 10% moisture, but many of the stems are still green. It is taking a lot of horsepower to get across the field because of that. It isn't too noticable when they hit the rotor, but when the stems get back to the straw chopper, you know it. The forecast shows two more good days on soybeans before some rain moves in, with nearly record high temps tomorrow. 2005-9-28 After the rain last weekend, we finally got back into the soybeans yesterday afternoon. Guess what, it rained again today. The forecast calls for possible frost tonight, which would be great. Then we should have a good run on soybeans this weekend and well into next week.     2005-9-24 It finally rained here this morning, so we won't get much done today. The corn had been running 180-190 bu/ac on average, at around 21% moisture. Most of the fields are standing very well, but we do have some hybrids that have many stalks broke over. 2005-9-21 I was over in Chicago on the 17th, nothing had been cut anywhere along the trip there. There were some fields of corn near the O'Hare airport that just plain look like crap. I was over into Moline, IL today, and saw several soybean fields already cut in that area. Very little corn looks to be out already though. Around here, yields look to be pretty darn good, given the season we had. There are some sandy spots that produced absolutly nothing, but the averages still look good. We have one combine running full out on corn, with the other one on soybeans. There is still a lot of green stems and pods in the soybeans, so we haven't been too serious about them yet.      
2005-9-14 So I found out that the guys started in on the soybeans today too. Man it still seams too early. 2005-9-13 We have been surprised by the good yields so far. We had been expecting about 140 bu/ac based on the size of the ears. A yield check today was 176 bu/ac with the yeild monitors on the combines showing up to about 210 bu/ac wet yield in places. We hope that the late varieties of corn do this well too.                     2005-9-13 Today marked the start of harvest 2005 here in Iowa. The first field we tried was about 28% moisture so we decided to try a different field. We moved to another field that was much greener, but only about 24-25% moisture.         2005-9-10 We have a lot of red, sitting in this shed, waiting for the corn to dry. It was about 90 degrees out today and will remain that way for the next few days. We got a small sample of corn from our first field and shelled it by hand just to get enough to see where the moisture is at on it. What we got was just under 25%. We are going to take the weekend slow and bite into it on Monday. Today we went though the sickles on both grain platforms so they'll be ready when the soybeans get ripe. I have yet to see anyone around here with a combine going. It still seems very early for the season, but that is what dry weather will do. About 30 miles west of here are a couple soybean fields that will probably be cut this week sometime. It will probably be 7-10 days before soybeans will go in our area.      2005-9-3 What crops we have this year are maturing very fast. We are expecting to start in on corn in about a week. The temperature forcast for this week is hot and mostly dry, so thing will continue to mature fast. Some of the early corn is already starting to drop ears from corn borer damage. The early soybeans are dropping their leaves as you can see in the pictures. The late soybeans are still mostly green, but turning yellow very fast. It will probably be 2 weeks before any of the soybeans will go. It seems that once they look fit, you ususally have to wait another week.         |
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