My 2015 crop is done!!! Hgh and low points

Well I finished my 2015 crop yesterday. Well this year's yields where average to great depending on the crop. The cooler summer seemed to help the hay and soybean crop an hurt the corn crop.

My alfalfa yield figures to be right at 10 ton to the acre this year. That is about the best I can remember. We where very lucky in that we got our first cutting off in a timely manner over one four day window this spring. IF you missed that window you waited another 2-3 weeks for a chance to make hay. We fertilize in the late summer and early fall an right after the first cutting. Boron and sulfur are usually needed on our hay ground. We chop the entire first cutting just to shorten the harvest window.

My soybeans where planted the first week of May into perfect ground conditions. That was reflected in an almost perfect stand. I had final stands in the 165K range. The average was 73.6 bushels per acre. LOL ( had to add that .6) The majority was sold on cash contracts. The average price I received was $10.20. I was lucky and hit a few up markets with the contracts.

The corn crop was at best average. The cool weather hurt some and the late dry spell in August really hurt some of the lighter ground. That really pulled the starch out of the stalks. The standablity of the corn was not good. The high winds Monday of this week really played havoc on some fields. Then you add in the Goss wilt and leaf blight and you have a lot of down pressure on yields. This year Arial fungicide application PAID. On one field that two power lines block application on half of the field. The yield difference was 35 bushels per acre!!!! Same fertility and hybrid and the ground is uniform in structure. Now the numbers. We chopped the worst corn the check strips measured 145 BPA. We ground the next level as earledge. The check strips and calculated yield put that at around 160 BPA. The best was harvested as shelled corn. It was darn good at 17 % moisture and 225 BPA. A break down of acres would be close to 25% chopped, 50% earledge, and 25% shelled. As close as I can estimate/figure the final total average yield would be in the 175-180 BPA. This is not bad but sure is different than the 200 BPA yields of the last several years. Planted the last week of April in perfect soil conditions with final plant populations right at 34K per acre. I plant 35-36K in 36 inch rows. I plant 36 inch rows as I do not want to switch chopper heads and the JD 6620 Side hill works great with 4 row wide. A 6 row narrow would really push the combine in 200 BPA plus corn. My son's plant in 30 inch rows and there is very little yield drag on my soils 3-5 BPA at the most.

My sons should finish their soybeans today. They look to be in the mid 70s too. They still have some custom acres to do. They are maybe 25% done on corn. It is too early to see much on those yields. Some great fields and some not so great ones. They are going to switch one combine just to corn to take advantage of this warm dry weather for drying. With 60-70 degree days and the corn under 20% the dryer's capacity is greatly increased, actually about 30-40% better.

So there are some numbers to look at. I wish you all a safe harvest season!!!!!

P.S. Baling corn stalks in high gear right now. The count on all bales (ours and custom) is right around 9500 so far. Looks to be a 20K year as dry as they are. Added a third baler so we are knocking out right at 900-1000 a day now. The dry corn stalks are harder to bale as they are so fluffy that the pickup has a harder time picking them up. Everyone is wanting bedding bales.

Side note my 15 year old Grand DAUGHTER is taking a rotation running one of the round balers this fall. She knocked out 395 bales yesterday. She is even switching the mesh rolls herself. We give the driver 50 cents per bale in pay. Her target is to make her horse hobby money for the entire year. I had to laugh at her giving her Dad/my son heck for doing a "POOR" job raking "HER" windrows last weekend. LOL I pity her future husband. He will have to walk a fine line. LOL

The crops locally are suffering from a record wet June and a cool summer. We have had more poor crop years than good in the last 5 years. With today's prices I can not endure this indefinitely. I wish I had faith in the local elevators to lock in a large portion of a crop ahead but too many times over the years these guys have used that to play dockage games when they fail to hedge their own bets.

NY986: Just make sure your delivering a good clean product and then there will be little dockage. If there is you can demand a USDA grain inspection of your sample. It costs around $100 but the elevator is held accountable if their grade is much different. I also am not dealing with the smaller local elevators. I can about 100% of the time make the hauling plus going directly to the river terminals. Those would be: ADM, Bungee, Harvest States, Cargill, and River Gulf. I know we are lucky to be within 100 miles of several outlets other than local elevators. The local elevators are selling to the river terminals too so they have to beat you down either on price or dockage. Price is the correct way to do it. Then you can both make the decisions on what and where to trade/sell. The ones that use dockage are unethical in my opinion.

That's impressive, your grandaughter running the baler. I have hooked up, cleaned, greased, serviced, help change the mesh rolls of an '08 vintage JD 583 sileage special baler, pulled and left the 7420 and baler in the field lined up with the first windrow, but with the monitors and all the other new and intimidating things about this set up, never learned to operate it, wish I did, just to know how it works, but I never had a chance to try it and sure as heck would not have unless I knew what the heck I was doing. These can't be difficult to learn or are they ?

This one sure made nice dense bales, I've chased ones rolling on hills stopped 2, one on foot before it hit someones pick up truck at the bottom of the field, another with a fork/spear tine by cutting it off with the tractor/loader, before it got rolling too fast and hauled countless truckloads of these bales, funny how one part of the operation escaped me, well at least I knew how to run the 315 NH at least LOL !

I see what appears to be a major thread running through the summary. I would call it preparation. You had your equipment not only ready to go when the time was right, but also ready to keep going dependably so that you were not held up by breakdowns during the windows.

Billy I would be hard pressed to list the HOURs maybe weeks she has rode in the tractor baling with her father and me over her life. She is running the "new" JD 568 baler. She is the only one of us that has read the entire manual. She is showing us how to operate the monitor. LOL

We have the baler on a JD 4450 MFWD with a 15 speed Power shift. We do not need that large of tractor on a baler but since it is her first year we wanted to make sure that she did not have to worry on any side hills. The baler is not going to push that tractor around on a hill.

She's already had a lot of experience observing, kind of funny how many of us did similar things and learned about the same way.

When all of our ground was in crops, as a kid I would often times watch when the farmer, a long time friend, was working and many a time rode in the JD tractor when he had the IH baler going, doing small squares. Many years later, I see a kid riding in the cab, doing the same thing on his place, just like I did. It was also impressive years later when he got that new baler, 2 years after the 7420 arrived, how advanced things became and that he adapted right to it. I've cleaned the windows,glass and cab on that tractor, moved it to fields where it was needed down the road, and was bewildered by all the computerized equipment inside it, far cry from the monitor for the 7000 series planter LOL !

On the dockage it is not just me but a broad cross section of area farmers. On the positive side we have gained outlets in the past few years so as you noted the more competition there is the less games and reasonable dockage if the sample calls for it. Having several strong outlets within 100 miles has never happened nor is likely to happen here. Historically, it means being strong on yields to offset the highs and lows of the elevators. Rented ground that is economical for both tenant and landlord has faded into memory so I am squeezed for profit on my small operation. I can't afford to pay top dollar rent on ground that could let me down on yield more than once over a five year period. I need to be more aggressive in hay acres but to borrow money especially when dairy and beef are down is too risky.

JD Seller, I really enjoy reading your posts. Just would like to know how many acres you farm and your sons. how many sons and number of beef cows? thanks Kenny from SC

We've been done chopping our corn for about 2 weeks now, and got some winter rye in the ground last week. Probably too late to try for some winter wheat, so we're planning to rent a large box spreader next weekend and haul out what we've got piled up. Then hook onto the plow and get it all turned under, hopefully before the end of the month. All in all, it went well and piled up better than we thought it would.

Had a field we were hoping to have for shelled corn, but the cobs were so small that we just chopped it and got it done. Filled a 9x200 bag, then a small chunk of 9x50 or so, and still needed more so we stretched a 8x75 bag over the bagger and put another 7 loads into the small upright.

Dad is still green chopping some of the 4th crop as it's a little shorter and we've got no room to put it.

The hay was pretty good. Baled all of 1st crop and more or less filled the barn. Put up around 3500 small squares, and around 50 large squares. Still had about 1000 small squares from last year in the mow. Chopped second and filled a 9x150' bag. 3rd crop we made into round bales with a borrowed 4x4 round baler because weather and time didn't cooperate. Had to do some work on the baler to make it work better, but both sides of the deal were happy in the end.

Pretty good year all things considered. Plenty of time to get fall tillage done now so for once, I shouldn't be plowing in the cold and snow with rock hard frozen ground to deal with.

Donovan from Wisconsin