Life on the Farm

[bjrogg]

Nice to hear from you Mike. I’m still optimistic that our beets are going to have good sugar. Haven’t got a result posted on website but my crop advisor said she saw a 18.87% and I’d be happy with that for a start.

We started digging early yesterday morning. There was actually a light white frost. Then the sun came out nice. That should help with the sugar content. We went late last night and finished the field. We are shut down again now because of warm weather. Probably at least until Saturday. Then it’s supposed to get colder. Probably cold enough we could get shut down for frozen beets.

Started in the dark and finished in the dark. That time of year

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Still rain showers just about every day. Can’t seem to get a sunny day, let alone string several together.

We have done a lot of shop work. Finished up and tested out the new apron chain in  our litter spreader. Had to make a few changes but think it’s ready. Hopefully it runs trouble free for a long time now.

We are caught right up on tillage and planting cover crops. I took a little crop tour today and looked at some of our cover crop radishes. I think we hit the planting window perfect with them. If you plant them too early they just go to seed. If too late you don’t get much growth and organic matter from them.

Still just a little too warm to pile beets.

A cold front is coming tonight. They will decide tomorrow morning if we can harvest again. Next week looks much colder. Most likely will shut down for frozen beets. This fall has been an unforgiving one so far. If you had the opportunity to do something, you’d better do it right then. Our family farm has been fortunate. We still have a lot of work to do but we have been checking things off the list.

Here’s a couple radishes. Together with the rye they sure green up the field.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

We started digging beets again Saturday afternoon. Temperature dropped enough to cool the beets down for piles.

Got sugar results from first field. Average is about 18.4% sugar. Not bad but hoping for better.

Started in beets by my house. Really good beets. 45 tons per acre and got the first two sugar samples back at 19.82 and 19.54. That’s getting impressive.

Rained again last night. I have been looking at fields for the past couple hours but I don’t think we can dig this morning. Maybe this afternoon Maybe

Bjrogg

[GlisGlis]

Do you shoot the beets before digging them? 

[bjrogg]

Do you shoot the beets before digging them? 

No. But last night we finished the strip we were working in just before dark. We didn’t want to open another strip. I just parked my tractor. Got out and took my Simply Orange bow for a little walk till I found a spot to stand and see if anything was interested in giving me a shot. Sometimes we get shut down suddenly because of temperature and I just do my service work and then spend the rest of the daylight hunting.

Tomorrow morning we can’t start early because of cold temperatures. Supposed to get inch of snow.

It rained last night and we didn’t dig today. We probably could have but it would have gone poor at best. I could have dug them, but the logistics of loading them onto trucks without totally destroying my lane and preventing us from getting the ones further back the lane right before a wet inch of snow. We decided not to.

It’s nice to see my quiver there while I’m digging too.

Bjrogg

[chamookman]

Don't see any Rain/Snow in the forcast for the next few Days here, Hope things go well for You! Good Luck  Bob.

[bjrogg]

Temp was 28 f when I got up at 3:00am went back to bed. Got up at 6:00 and it’s 27 degrees. I’m doubting we will be able to dig until noon here if at all today.

My brother lives a little further away from the lake and his temperature is 25 F degrees.

They are calling for lake effect rain and snow for next couple days right along the shore.

Well I was wrong about digging. I just got a heads up text from our field representative. She said our temperature was good enough to dig and we would be getting a phone blast telling us our zone can start digging at 7:00 am. Closer to the lake keeps our temperatures more moderate. It doesn’t warm up or cool down quite as fast as inland. It also gives us lake effect showers and snow.

Bjrogg

[chamookman]

Well Dang - ended up with about a inch of fresh Snow overnite. Guess Winter is here. Rut is going HARD  now  !  Bob

[bjrogg]

Well Dang - ended up with about a inch of fresh Snow overnite. Guess Winter is here. Rut is going HARD  now  !  Bob

It started here shortly before the sun went down. Then it turned into a pretty good snow squall. We had less than two rounds to do and it was snowing so hard we decided to quit before we finished the field. No more than told the trucks to just go home after they dumped them beets and it stopped.

Decided to stay at it till we finished the field. Finished about 10:30 pm.

We had a huge day. I dug 56 acres. I’ve dug more acres than that before but these are 45+ ton beets.

I load 150 carts and the carts loaded 75 big trucks. We got over 2,500 tons of beets hauled to the piles.

Just got text from field rep. She said we can dig at 7:00am. I’m thinking we are going to wait until daylight. Look things over. Need to move to a different field

Bjrogg

[Pat B]

Looks likes things are coming along for you guys, Brian.
 We had our first hard freeze last night, 25 deg.A couple of weeks late for here.  Should have 2 more, tonight and tomorrow then back to warmer weather. What we need is rain. We are in a severe drought and have been for 2 months now. For Oct we've had 46" and that is about 1/2 of our normal rain. With all the leaves almost down and the dry conditions fire is a real concern and also it's been windy here.

[YosemiteBen]

Hey Pat! I know what you mean! weather patterns are off! 70 degrees at 4000' in Yosemite today!

[Pat B]

Hey, Ben. You guys have had a few rocky years lately. I thought your heavy snow last your would help break your decades long drought. I guess Mother Nature has other ideas for us all. 
 Hope all is well with you and yours otherwise. 

[bjrogg]

Hope you get some rain Pat. Funny we keep getting rain, but really still just small amounts. Just enough to make things challenging.

We actually had two sunny days in a row now after our snowstorm the other night. We finished the field by my house two days ago and moved to my Grandparents farm yesterday morning. It was a little tricky finding a safe spot to load trucks at first but the sunshine really helped.

We were required to leave “set aside acres” this year as this was a really big crop and beets are a perishable crop. First they told us 15%. Then they said some areas had poor yields and they estimated that the average yield to be lower than they had estimated. They said we had to leave 7.5% of our acres set aside. Two days ago they told us that we could harvest all of our acres. I hope they can get them processed. That would be fantastic. We are going to need a good winter to store our beets and the factories are going to have to have records breaking slice. Just a few more miracles to count on.

If they are wrong and we have to pay to dispose of the beets rotting on our piles it gets very expensive. We have a lot of money into harvesting and piling these beets. We generally have to pay half of what we get for delivering beets, to get people to haul them away and dispose of them by spreading them back in their fields.

The sugar content has improved. The field by my house was 19.5% and that’s pretty good. Hopefully the 125 year old factories can kick butt. Things are running better than they have for the past few years since COVID. Still lots of time for trouble though. The last beets processed won’t be until the beginning of April if they keep that long.

All in all the release of the set aside acres is a good thing. Hopefully it works out for everyone.

Bjrogg

[BrianS]

Bjrogg,
Thank you for taking the time to keep up with this ongoing post. I find the pictures and explanations fascinating. Very interesting.
Take care, Brian

[bjrogg]

Bjrogg,
Thank you for taking the time to keep up with this ongoing post. I find the pictures and explanations fascinating. Very interesting.
Take care, Brian

Thanks Brian.

I’m hoping this is the last early morning digging picture for the season. We are in our last field and we should be able to finish it today.

This is the last field of beets I planted this spring. If you remember, our tillage tractor quit with just this 20 acres to plant yet. I decided to plant the field directly into the rye cover crop without tilling it.

The rye was probably 7” tall when I planted the beets. It was probably 26” tall when I sprayed it and you couldn’t see the beets.

They look fantastic now.

Bjrogg