Kurt Wyler

For the past two weeks we’ve had cold, wet weather, but it’s sunny now. During the weekend we had good weather. We had sun and wind and it really helped dry out the soil and we got a chance to do some fertilizer and tillage work.

I was finally able to get the wheat topdressed. We wanted to do it, but we didn’t have the chance to go on the pitch. There isn’t much wheat in this area, but the wheat there looks pretty good. It turned green again, we really only wanted 28%. Last fall we planted the wheat we wanted and ended up producing a little more. We were questioning giving up this late wheat for a cover crop but I think with the prices we’re going to go ahead and leave it because it looks good enough that I think we can get a crop out of it decent. We have a few places where it has drowned over the winter, but overall I would say the wheat is doing very well.

Cows really like the cooler weather. So far we haven’t had too much heat. We usually don’t see any problems with them until we have hot, humid weather and for the past two years this has been September and October.

We make a lot of hay and we were able to spread urea on all of our grass hay here. There were definitely wetlands. We hope that in 2-3 weeks we can harvest orchard hay before it leaves. It has greened up a lot in recent weeks.

Looks like it’s going to rain this afternoon. Maybe an inch. We still have some ground work to do and hope to finish that this week. We also hope to start this bean burn.

Nathan Birkemeier

The last two days have been really enjoyable. Some guys were able to till the soil a bit and put in some anhydrous. Today is a bit humid and not much will happen for about a week. The conditions were getting closer for us to get into the fields, but there were spots that were still a bit wet and today they are wetter. Whenever it’s almost ready, it’s raining, so we’ll keep waiting.

We could use 4 or 5 days of good weather before we can think about getting started. First on the list is the floor we tore up last year. We want to run a cultivator through it, level it up, and start putting corn in the ground. We’re trying to get all the corn first and then move on to soybeans. We operate a 1790 John Deere planter, so we can do both with one planter and only have one piece of equipment to maintain. We focus on the corn and put the beans after that. We try to wait for the soil to reach the ideal temperature and we don’t necessarily watch the timing as closely. We really look at what the conditions are like on the pitch and get out as soon as possible.

We use precision units on our seeder. We also use a different closing wheel configuration at the rear to close the row to ensure we get good seed-to-soil contact. We’re really looking to plant and not rain for 3-5 days so we can really get this corn off to a good start. We look at many different maturities from 107 to 113 days. A few years ago it was wet in the spring and the corn came out late and it still ended very well with some rain from August to September.

Ryan Hiser

Things have really dried up in the area. There are guys who were able to go out and take anhydrous. We were able to do some dirt work in the leveled driveways and we cleared some brush. Apart from that we couldn’t do much and now we are waiting for the next rain. It’s supposed to rain today then cool off. Then we’re supposed to revert to a rainy pattern for the next week. Hopefully we can get into the fields soon after.

We don’t expect to plow much this year because of fuel prices. We’re going to hit some of that chiseled ground to level it.

We need to get rid of the 28% mark and make sure everything is cleaned up. The sprayer is ready to go and we will be picking up the seeds this week. We will also be transporting grain this week. Our biggest goal is to plant corn first and get most of that acreage to corn before moving to beans. We can start the beans with the drill. If the conditions are right, we can run both at the same time.

There are enough hands here to get things done, but it looks like we’re going to have to do it all at once because the spring has been so cold and wet.

Joe Everett

We had a little rain overnight and they are asking for another tenth. We went to the fields on Saturday and worked some land. In fact, we had some in the ground on Sunday. We planted about 150 acres of corn and beans each. This wind and heat really prepared the ground for planting and it went well.

On some of our other lands, we still have some way to go. The soil we planted on is consistently tiled and that makes a big difference.

This is about the normal time for us to start planting. It looks like we won’t have good weather next week based on how much rain we will have. We had a few things to work on, but that’s how it is every year. It’s always nice to start understanding these things. The weather will get cooler and it will take longer to dry with this rain.

There are only a few others planting, but we saw a lot of people coming out to start and work the soil. This weekend was really the first time to go out and do something. It’s almost May and sometimes you don’t get those windows working. You just don’t know how it will turn out. Some people may think we are crazy planting this weekend. Who knows, this may be the best crop we plant all year.