Harvest has arrived! We began corn harvest on August 20th, and things have moved along over the past week. Yields have been all across the board… soil type, planting date, corn hybrid variety, crop practices and rainfall have all been key components to yield.
This summer marked our first experience with storing dry fertilizer on-farm… quite an adventure! DAP and Potash were hauled from Pekin, Colfax and St. Louis. The product was unloaded into our storage shed with a conveyor, and 3,500 lb. concrete retaining barriers were set in the doorway of each bay. The spring/summer seasons have produced very little rainfall, but we were actually “rained out” unloading one day…
had .3″ over an hour! The fertilizer hopper that we built in our shop is now complete, painted and resting outside the dry shed…. product will be dumped into the hopper, which will unload into a conveyor. The fertilizer will remain in the shed until the crop has been removed, the product will be spread in the fields.
The bulk fuel project has progressed nicely. The plumbing and electrical are now complete, and the inspector with the State Fire Marshall’s Office has approved the site. Soon we will take delivery of our first semi load!
In the coming weeks, we will begin hauling liquid fertilizer (28% solution and starter fert) into the storage tanks we have on-farm. The product will be stored through the winter, then applied in the spring. Hauling our product from the manufacturer is a new adventure for us too! Another farm activity underway is hauling limestone to field sites. We haul lime from Cerro Gordo, Nokomis and Tuscola, IL, and stockpile in advance of harvesting. Following the crop’s removal, the lime is spread in the fields.
