Wow, you guys are way ahead of farmers around here, still a lot of beans in the field and I haven't seen anyone combining corn yet. I assume you don't have a dryer?
We have been getting a lot of work done and are getting it done on schedule.
Edible beans are typically harvested a little before soybeans if the weather cooperates.
We have a fairly short growing season here. We typically grow shorter day varieties of soybeans and corn.
Our night time temperatures are in the 30’s now and stuff doesn’t grow or mature very fast with lows in the 30’s and highs in the 40’s. We also tend to have a lot of cloudy days in the fall.
We personally don’t grow very much corn or soybeans anymore. When we farmed more acres and raised cattle we planted about ten times as much corn as we do now. We did have a old KanSun drier that was from the 70’s actually two of them. They were very slow and not very efficient. We didn’t dry much corn anyway. We feed almost all of it to cattle.
We are hoping to get the corn we have harvested before sugar beets begin our permanent piles. We were informed that the start date is set for October 20 a week from yesterday. Our corn has been quite stressed due to the dry conditions. It tends to cannibalize it’s stalk to put everything it can into its grain. This causes it to have weak stalks and not stand good. We don’t want to wait three weeks and go through several wind events before we harvest it. Drying charges are expensive but crop loses are to. It’s always a catch 22. With crop prices we have now, crop loses add up really fast.
It’s been drizzling, almost snowing, windy and cold for the past three days. We did get a inch or more now on most of our farms. At this point I it’s not going to help any of our crops much and I kinda hope it stops for a few weeks.
We are working in the shop at getting ready for beets. We were informed that our drivers would not be allowed to exit our trucks after we were stationed at the piler. Our trucks have the controls to raise and lower the box inside the cab so that part isn’t a problem. Someone does have to push a button or the side of the trailer frame to open the tailgate though. We and most everyone else have been using this tailgate system for over thirty years. The new requirements won’t allow our trucks to unload at the piling grounds .
We had to modify all our trucks and trailers so we can open tailgate without leaving truck cab. Of course everyone is in the same boat and we are all trying to find supplies to do this at the same time. Fortunately we did have most of the parts we needed in our shop for spare parts. We did some creative thinking and modified other parts. It looked pretty hopeless for awhile but I think we are going to have all of our trucks and trailers able to meet the requirements. I personally feel our old system was safer, but it’s a OSHA requirement and they obviously don’t see things like I do.
Looks like several more days of the same weather. A little harder to keep that smile now, but we are still smiling. Still blessed to be here
Bjrogg
