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| Fall Harvest 2006 - Fairfax, Iowa | |||
| 2007-1-8 Another beautiful sunset. Still no snow here though.  2006-11-25 Today was the last day for doing field work because the anhydrous is now finished. The knives on the anhydrous bar will sheer off if you hit a rock. That's how we found the nice rock below. There was no way this rock was coming out by hand.             2006-11-21 This is November, the season when the "great white buffalo" can be seen all across the lands. Yeah, that's a new phrase for anhydrous ammonia tanks. The term originates from the methamphetamine makers, since they get to hunt and slay these creatures when spotted out in the wild. Seen here is a 9220 Deere being operated by our local co-op. In a normal day, this machine will cover about 300 acres. We use anhydrous as a source of nitrogen for next year’s corn crop.       2006-11-14 The demo MX275 is going to the next stop since we can't find a use for it. It's either too big or too small for what we need. It's a runt compared to the 9180 on tillage, and it is just a *little* overkill for pulling wagons in the fall. Both combines also got put into hibernation today. We fold the snoots up on the corn heads to save a little space in the shed.         2006-11-9        2006-11-8 Today is the day we've been waiting for all year. We finished combining corn today, which means all the crops are out of the fields. The weather today was the nicest we've seen in a couple weeks. There is still plenty of fall tillage to do yet, plus we need to clean the combines up and put them to sleep for another 10 months.     2006-11-7         2006-11-6                2006-11-5 We brought grain back to the dryer for a while, then loaded the trucks and put them in line for tomorrow morning at ADM.        2006-11-4 This is a MX275 that we are testing out as a demo. It was brand new when it came to us, even had paint on the draw bar yet. We put it on a stalk shredder for a while, which is overkill. It will go on a disk yet though. It's a very nice rig.                   2006-11-2             2006-10-31 This bridge is narrow for a 8 row corn head, but it does fit.           2006-10-30         2006-10-29 I took one machine back up north to top off a drying bin and finish a field. As of right now, we pretty much need to dry everything else left standing, since it is running about 18 to 19% moisture.                     2006-10-28 Tonight, the sky was stunning.                 2006-10-26 Rain again today. The fields are going to be a mess when we get back out there. One combine had a "sore foot". The bearing cover fell off somehow and got a little dirt into the bearing. We pulled the wheel today, cleaned it up, repacked the bearing, and put on a new bearing cover.    2006-10-25         2006-10-24 We've been hauling grain straight from the field to ADM for delivery. Even with the pencil shrink and dock for being a bit too wet, it is still cheaper than the cost of drying and handleing. However, ADM had something broken today on their rail dump (which they also dump trucks at) so it took longer to get the trucks through the line. We still managed to keep the combine moving pretty much all day though.       2006-10-23 What did I accomplish today? Hmm. Oh yeah, thats right, more corn.       2006-10-22 I cut about 25 acres, and the other machine would have done about the same. We didn't get started too early, but hey, for a Sunday afternoon, it isn't too bad.         2006-10-21 Rain today. We finished up corn over by Norway last night, which is good since we won't have to drive back over there. Both combines got looked over in the shop today. It was a maintenance day. 2006-10-20             2006-10-19         2006-10-18 We cut maybe 1000 bushels of corn yesterday, and another 1000 today. We seem to get rained out shortly after we get started. Tom (with the "Harvest in Europe" pages) is in town, so we toured Kinze Manufacturing, a local ethanol plant, and talked about differences in agriculture between the US and Europe. 2006-10-15 Ah, we finished off the soybeans today. Both combines have the corn heads on them again. The flex heads got cleaned off and put in the shed for the year. Rain is in the forecast, so we are glad to have the soybeans done. There are still a lot of acres of soybeans still out there though, in this area. 2006-10-14 Back to soybeans today with both combines. We want to get them done before the next storm system moves in. We blew the rotor belt of the older machine today, and the crop wasn't even tough. The belt was just old and cracked, and pretty much gave up like an old rubber band. Tonight we had to quit shortly after dark. We simply couldn't see where we were going because of very thick dust and no wind. I couldn't see the end of the header several times, and had a very hard time finding where the edge of the uncut soybeans were at.    2006-10-13 We ground out about 50 acres of corn today. Still working on the down corn, but we should be past the bad stuff now. Eveything we did today had to be done one direction only, which really makes it inefficient. On the plus side, the corn is all around 17% moisture, so it doesn't have to be dried down much. For those of you who aren't familiar with corn, we want it at 15% or less moisture to store it without spoilage.         2006-10-10 Today we put both machine back into corn. I took one to work on our worst down corn, which proved to be an all-day headache. Cutting with just 7 rows of the 8 row corn head, no reel or cones on the header. I averaged about 4 acres per hour. Of course the light rain wasn't helping, and it eventually got tough enough that I couldn't make the thing feed right, nor did the rotor like all that trash anymore. There is just a lot of material going through the machine.             2006-10-9 More beans today. We again caught up to the green beans, which we are now referring to as "christmas beans" since they are green so late in the season. Many other farmers around here have also quit cutting soybeans just because they are too dry. Ours are 8-9 % moisture, and the local elevator has seen some samples at 7 %. Obviously the sickle shatter is rediculous. Now that I think about it, we haven't seen rain in probably 3 weeks. (FYI, there is now a piece of soybean dust inside my camera. It shows up as the curvy line in all the pictures.)          
2006-10-8                    
2006-10-7                     2006-10-6                             2006-10-5 We've been busy grinding down field after field of soybeans. We've had unusually warm weather with high humidity. This is causing the dew to set in early at night, often within an hour of sunset. We haven't had a good frost yet either, so the green stems and weeds thresh hard. I don't think we broke anything major today, just 4 sickle sections and a guard. However, we did replace the hydraulic cylinder that engages the feeder reverser on one combine because it slowly seeps oil while the engine it running. We took both semis into Cargill last night to deliver some soybeans. By this morning, all three of their staging lots were full and there were trucks backed up onto Interstate in line waiting to unload. The DOT and local cops were all over it. Apparently everybody and their brother is cutting soybeans this week.                             2006-10-3 We had a bearing go out late this evening on one combine. Back to the dealer first thing tomorrow morning for more parts. Otherwise, we had a great day. We found a field of soybeans that didn't have green stems, and they really cut nice.                 2006-10-2                 2006-10-1 One machine lost the bearing for the engine fan. It ground up the shroud for a while before it stopped spinning, which caused the belt to start smoking. Good thing we could smell that, since it was shooting sparks all over inside the engine compartment. Fortunately, each of our combines has a water fire extinguisher, which we needed to put out the smoldering fires. Crap, that was close.                 2006-9-30 The corn machine ran most of the day today, except a little bit when it ruptured a fuel line and we had to go get a replacment.                                 2006-9-29 We finally finished up the floor today. That took long enough. The grain drier stopped on us yesterday. Today we discovered a fuse that blew, which was because of a faulty solenoid for the LP gas on the middle burner. We borrowed a solenoid off the bottom burner and we are cooking again. This is a 3-fan system. We use the top two for heat to dry the corn, then the bottom fan for cooling the corn back down.  2006-9-28 The floor system snaps together quite nicely, but the auger sumps require some time. A couple of the guys got the other combine out and set up for corn. This looks to be drier than we expected, since it is running about 20% moisture.     2006-9-27 We started on the floor today. This allows air to get into the corn to cool it. There will be a large fan mounted on the side of the bin to force air under the floor. I finished up the last of the ripe soybeans as of right now. We're looking at green stems and green pods on the next of our soybeans.         2006-9-26 We installed the grain spreader and the cyclone for the air system. All the roof bolts got tightened. After we lifted the bin and put the second ring on, we took the stairs out. The pattern is to lift the bin with hydraulic bin jacks, bolt the next ring on, tighten all the bolts with impact wrenches, set the bin back down, unhook the bin jacks, hook the bin jacks one ring lower, then lift again. We put all the rings on the bin today. I figure this is the modern day equivalent of a barn raising party. In the old days, all the pieces for a barn were cut while on the ground, probably over several weeks or months. Then they would bring in all the family, friends, and neighbors, and they would put the entire barn together in one day. The sound of 4 electric impact wrenches going inside the bin is deafening. Hearing protection is required. We actually let the combine sit most of the day, since this bin project is so labor intensive.                 2006-9-25 We put the first (top) ring together this morning. This gives us something to hold the roof together as the pieces get bolted on. The bin crew (2 guys) and their equipment showed up around noon today. We got all the roof pieces on and the outside support rings put in. One guy kept the combine going in soybeans since it was a good day for that too.               2006-9-24 Well, today marks the start of Harvest 2006. We only cut about 30 acres of soybeans this afternoon with just one machine. One machine on soybeans will be sufficient for now since we don't have many acres ready to go. The other machine will go into corn in a couple days, once we have the new grain bin up.             2006-9-21 This is the first machine I've seen running around the area. I don't know what they yield was, but word is that the moisture was high. They were blending with old crop soybeans and delivering it right to Cargil. The weather this evening has haulted everthing. Most of Iowa is getting rain right now, and it's in the forcast until next week.   2006-9-18 The steel for the new grain bin is here. It will go up later this week some time.         2006-9-17 I was out playing with my camera last night trying to figure out the night shots. The three green pictures were taken with a 3 second exposure and no flash. The only light source was a yard light. The last picture was with the flash and shows how little green there is on this corn. This isn't the earlies planted corn, so it still has a ways to go before being cut.     2006-9-13 Here are pics from a few of our soybean fields. As green as some of this stuff is, it's going to be a late season.                 2006-9-11 Nobody in our area has even tried corn, and we don't plan to touch it for another two weeks. Yesterday and today were both rainy and overcast, so we aren't gaining anything on moisture. Our earliest soybeans are still probably 3 weeks off. All the leaves on them have turned yellow, but only about half of the leaves have fallen off so far. We have other soybean fields that are completely green yet. Those are going to take a while to mature. 2006-9-2 The corn is rapidly loosing its green color, as it should this time of year. Some of our soybeans are showing yellow leaves, while other varieties are completely green yet. The small patches of SDS (Sudden Death Syndrome) in the soybeans are very obvious. All the patches are small, but they seem very random. The past month has been very humid, with heavy dew every morning, and that moisture has to be helping to drive the SDS as well as the white mold we've found on some soybeans. On the other hand, the extra moisture is helping to fill out the pods better, so I really can't complain. 2006-8-29 Loaded 2 trucks with soybeans this morning. Had to clean out two grain bins, and start on a third. The grain vac works really well for cleaning out a bin. Much less dust inside compared to using a conventional sweep auger. This afternoon we went down to the Farm Progress Show in Amana, IA. It is only about a 15 mile drive for us. There was a lot of mud. My pictures and editorial can be seen here.           2006-8-27 The lift is at my house to pick apples, trim all the trees, fix up the house, etc. I also took some pictures of the place.            
2006-8-26         2006-8-25 The cement work is done. Now we have to wait for the steel to arrive, which will be a couple weeks.   2006-8-22 This size of a bin requires a pretty good foundation and plenty of rebar to hold the cement together.     2006-8-19 We're going to build another grain bin for corn. Capacity will be 42,000 bushels.   2006-8-16 This isn't our corn, but we do have a 100 acre field that looks about like this. These pictures were taken about 25 miles West of us, along Highway 30. Most of the corn fields within a couple miles of that area show severe wind damage. This stuff is usually a pain to combine too.     2006-8-12 We aren't really sure what we're going to have for yields this season. In corn, we've got some fields that have ears with only 14 or 16 rows of kernels on each ear, while other fields have up to 22 rows per ear. Some ears have aborted two or three inches at the tip, while others have filled out quite well. We could see average yields anywhere from 140 to 200+ BPA. To add to the fun, a storm earlier this week laid down some of our corn. It isn't completely flat, but we have neighbors with fields that are. As for soybeans, they are putting on pods and starting to fill them out. We have seen just a little of the white mold. We have a couple small spots where "sudden death syndrome" is showing up. One neighbor has a field with a very large section that is all brown from sudden death. It appears that this will be more of an issue in future years. The insect situation this year is drastically better than previous years. We only have Japanese beetles in a few places, far from the complete coverage we've seen in past years. |
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