Johnson Family Farms

Winter Update...

2012-01-21T21:30:00.006-06:00

I apologize for not updating our blog in a couple weeks. We have been busy taking care of first of the year invoices and working on a few machinery trades. Otherwise, we have continued to take care of odd jobs around the shop. Most of our corn that was to be delivered from our bins was hauled in December and we have had little to move this month. The weather here has been extremely variable; one day it is 60 degrees and the next it is 20. It has snowed only once so far and a few days later a 50 degree lightning and thunderstorm melted all the snow.

My true reason for not posting in a while is that my mother was recently diagnosed with an inoperable glioblastoma multiforme tumor in her brain. It was quite a shock to us all as one might imagine. We have been working through things with the doctors at Memorial Hospital and they have all been wonderful. They quickly put mom on a radiation and chemotherapy regiment and she has been responding well to the treatments. Mom has an army of friends throughout the Ag industry and it has been truly moving to see everyone respond to mom's recent diagnosis with offers to help. Thank you to all who have reached out to us.

Kermit Long from the Prentice Machine shop installing warranty updates to our 20 row strip-till applicator

Christmas...

2011-12-21T06:58:00.000-06:00

Mid December...

2011-12-08T20:00:00.009-06:00

Now that the tillage and fertilizer activities have concluded, you would think life around the farm would be a little slower. But in reality we have been very busy. Our main activity has been hauling corn to both the Illinois River terminals located in Beardstown as well as the rail terminal in Waverly. Annually we sell a large amount of corn in the month of December. We do this to help cash flow, but most importantly we move grain during December because rarely is the Illinois River froze. As we get into January and February the river can sometimes freeze and carry large chunks of ice down from the north. This creates havoc for the barge freight and often even though you can deliver it to the terminal, they have no way to move it down the river because barges can not be moved.

We have also been busy cleaning up the remainder of fall machinery and catching up on year end book work. December also seems to be the "meeting" season as we have been attending numerous marketing seminars and also the pre end of the year appointments with the accountants. Earlier in the week we attended 1st Farm Credit Service's annual Outlook seminar in Peoria and listen to both Dr. David Kohl from Virginia Tech and Dr. Steve Johnson from Iowa State. Their presentations were very thought provoking, but unfortunately both centered around the financial ciaos in Europe and other events throughout the world that are currently affecting our commodity market. We also learned about new crop insurance changes as well as a few new crop insurance products for 2012.

No snow has been seen in our area yet, but they are forecasting an inch for this evening. The soils are still dry in our immediate area with no tiles running. We would welcome rain to help recharge the soils as we go into winter. By "re-charging" the soils with water during the late fall and winter months it helps to ensure a good start to the next year's growing season.

Loading corn into the semi from the grain bin on the Lathom farm

Filling in a ditch on the Atwood farm
It will soon have a tile installed where the original ditch was located

Thanksgiving Update...

2011-11-21T21:35:00.012-06:00

There has been a flurry of activity around the farm since my last post. Precision Drainage has wrapped up our tile project and has moved on to their next assignment. We have also started and finished all our anhydrous ammonia applications and our fields that are slated to be planted to corn in 2012 are ready for their winter slumber. We have also removed the final fence rows on our Greenfield farms with the help of our neighbor, JL Ford. Thanks to him for the use of his skid steer and all his attachments which made quick work of the rotten and buried fence rows. Harvest equipment continues to be cleaned up and put away along with more attention being focused on year end book work and planning for the 2012 season. This morning we were able to go up in a plane and take some aerial pictures of our recent tile project. The aerial shot really gives you the scope and size of the project versus my pictures on the ground. A few hours after we landed the chisel plow pulled in and began leveling the laterals and working under the corn stalks. Our plan is to chisel the laterals, but leave the mains to settle over the winter and then work them down in the spring.

As we prepare to celebrate the Thanksgiving Holiday we give thanks to all our employees, suppliers, and family for the support they have given us this year - we are truly blessed. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.

David chiseling over the new tile laterals

Aerial shot of our 150 acre tile project

Chris Urish from Elkhart Fertilizer putting anhydrous ammonia on our Elkhart farm

Operating our strip-till bar on the Railroad field southwest of Ashland

JL Ford loading the trailer as we removed the final fence rows at our Greenfield farms

Tile project...

2011-11-10T20:48:00.006-06:00

As I mentioned last week Precision Drainage arrived and began installing tile on a 300 acre project that we have been planning for many years. Due to the distance to the outlet and a few neighbors participating in the project we are using a 21 inch dual wall plastic main that runs a half mile then transitions to an 18 inch tile. As you can see from the pictures, the main tile is so big it almost appears they are laying sewer pipe in the middle of a corn field. The tile crew made good progress last week, but recent rains have slowed things. Today, they were able to get back to work laying the laterals and finishing up some of the sub-mains.

We have a few more acres remaining to chisel and hopefully we get a window to wrap that up this weekend. None of our anhydrous ammonia has been applied yet, but the forecast looks promising to get most of that accomplished. If not, we can always apply it in the spring, but we prefer fall applications. Rainy days continue to allow us to work on 2012 crop plans and clean up fall equipment. Last week I was invited to talk with Owen's preschool class about farming and agriculture. Owen helped me walk his classmates through the growing season and explain to them repeatedly that we did not have any pigs or cows on our farm. Owen let me bring in some of his farm toys which they all enjoyed and we even let them play with some actual corn kernels and soybean seeds. It never hurts to spread the message about what we do in agriculture...

The tile machine making a seven foot deep cut to lay the 18" main tile

Our outlet crossing underneath the county road

This is how big the main tile is compared to a five gallon bucket - HUGE!

Talking to Owen's preschool class about farming with Owen's help

Week ending October 29th...

2011-11-01T21:31:00.005-05:00

The hustle and bustle of fall activities continue to make the days fly by. While harvest is behind us, a few acres of tillage and all of the anhydrous ammonia remain. We plan to get started applying our anhydrous ammonia in our usual strip-till applications tomorrow. Equipment from harvest is being cleaned up and put away. Precision Drainage has recently arrived and is working on a 150 acre pattern tile project that we have been planning for many years. I will include pictures of that project in next week's update.

David chiseling on the Williamsville farm

Darin running the Turbo disk chopping stalks

The last day of harvest was a dreary and misty day

Bob harvesting on the Alderson farm north of Chapin

Harvest is over...!

2011-10-26T21:06:00.008-05:00

It has been a while since I last posted on our blog, but I am happy to report that as of this morning we completed our 2011 harvest season. We ended our harvest with some of the best yielding corn we experienced all year. The past few weeks held challenges of their own with a few breakdowns. The worst of all the repairs was a blown transmission in our John Deere 9870 combine. Fortunately for us, Chris Dowson was there to step in and help by lending us a combine while the repairs were being made - thanks to Chris! We also had the opportunity to demo the new John Deere S680 combine these last two days of harvest. These are the new models which were rolled out recently at the Farm Progress Show in late August. It was fun to watch everyone take a ride in it and see how it compared to our combine.

A few neighbors have started applying anhydrous ammonia and our plan is to start next week. We have a few fields remaining to be chiseled and the Younkers Brothers will address those this week. We plan to clean up fall machinery and get the anhydrous toolbars ready the remainder of this week.

Trying out the new John Deere combine

Owen driving the combine

Owen impatiently waiting on the grain cart to arrive

The Younkers Brothers changing out a broken belt

Week ending October 8th...

2011-10-12T21:49:00.003-05:00

Harvest continues to roll on. Last Tuesday, October 4th we began our 2011 soybean harvest and just one week later we pulled out of the last field and hooked back up to the corn head. Soybean yields were surprisingly good for the little precipitation we received in August. We are in the down hill stretch of our harvest as the grain bins are now full and everything remaining will be delivered to elevators. Once again, the tillage crew is caught up and we are waiting to spread lime on a few remaining fields. Go Cardinals!

Harvesting soybeans on the Grand Prairie farm

The last beans on the Lehmann Farm

Owen riding in the semi- he was more interested in the gum he found...

Ed Clemens running the Quadtrac and chisel plow

Week ending October 1st...

2011-10-04T06:08:00.004-05:00

Harvest continues to fly by. This past week we continued to focus on harvesting corn hoping that another week would let all our beans mature and be ready for harvest this week. We also harvested our plot. The highest yield was 250.4 bushels per acre with the plot average of 227.6 bpa. These yield results shocked us quite frankly. We have been harvesting good corn all season long, but our field results do not mirror our plot results. And the plot was treated exactly the same way as our usual corn following soybeans. Albeit where the plot was planted the drainage is better than average. Later in the week we moved up to our Williamsville farm because we discovered two hybrids that were falling down from recent high winds and stalk rots. Even though the corn is mangled, it is still some of the highest yielding corn we have been in so far. Our plan is to move back to the Ashland area soon and begin combining soybeans. We generally try to harvest all our beans in one week and then switch back to corn for the final push towards the finish line. Have a great week!

Special thanks to Brendan Bachman and Nathan Peak from Lincoln Land FS for helping us weigh our plot

Harvesting the 4 row entries in our plot

Opening up the Williamsville farm

Owen and Max playing in a tractor wheel

Week ending September 25th...

2011-09-26T06:35:00.007-05:00

Another good week of harvest is in the books. This past week we mainly concentrated on corn harvest, but towards the end of the week we switched over to soybeans. The beans are yielding surprisingly good for as little precipitation we received in August. Moisture's on them have been coming back from the elevator around 12% which is ideal. However, the beans are extremely green-stemmed which is slowing our harvest progress as they take more time to shake the morning dews and process through the combine.

Earlier in the week Lincoln Land FS began piling and spreading lime on a few farms. Soon thereafter our tillage crew went to work incorporating the lime and sizing the corn residue with the Case Turbo disk. Once we had enough acres worked ahead, we resumed chisel plowing.

A lot of the corn in our immediate area has been harvested (~80%). While only ~10% of the soybeans have been harvested. We have few fields of beans that are ready for harvest, so our plan is to switch back to corn. After scouting over the weekend, we are finding a few hybrids that are loosing their stalk integrity and need to be taken out immediately. This may cause us to be inefficient this week, but if we incur any more wind on these hybrids they may be on the ground which would be a worse problem.

Combining soybeans on the Grand Prairie farm

Working in lime with the Turbo Disk on the Gooden/Mae farm

Dumping corn at the bins at the shop

Lincoln Land FS spreading lime

Waiting in line to dump corn from our Chapin farms at Consolidated Grain & Barge in Naples

Week ending September 18th...

2011-09-19T07:54:00.002-05:00

Last week turned out to be a little slower as we started to harvest more of the 114-116 day corn planted in early April and found that it is still wetter than we would like to put into grain bins. The May planted corn is also wet. We have been sampling the remaining fields and picking and choosing where we harvest. Our hope is Mother Nature keeps drying this corn down in the field. We are not the only ones who are seeing this as the local elevators this weekend were like ghost towns which is wild for the middle of September. We also started the deep tillage of chisel plowing this week. With the new Case 870 chisel plow we can cover more acres in a day and it did not take us long to catch up to the fields that are waiting on lime to be spread before we chisel them. Recent rains have not totaled much and around our home area we are still dry. However, the larger amounts of rain have fallen on our southern farms, but too little too late as the corn down in Greenfield died prematurely due to lack of July/August rainfall and high temperatures.

Filling the bins at the Grand Prairie farm

Week ending September 10th...

2011-09-12T06:42:00.002-05:00

A good first week of harvest is now behind us. The April planted corn has been running from 16-25% depending on hybrid. Yields have been all over the board from 170 to 220 bushels per acre depending on field and hybrid as well. We even received a little rain that kept us out of the fields on Friday and Saturday. On Thursday, Owen had his first combine ride of the year with his Grandpa. He loves riding around in the combines or the tractors. Then he comes home and sets up his farm toys to mimic what Grandpa is doing in the field. We started tillage, but the ground is hard and dry.

For those of you who read this and don't farm, this is the season where we farmers are on the roads with our big equipment. Please remember to slow down when meeting us and remember we can't always see you behind us. Also, if it looks as though we are not getting off the road enough when we meet you it's because we are trying not to get a flat tire. Those cost almost as much as a new car to replace... Be safe!

Harvest begins...

2011-09-05T20:08:00.002-05:00

We started harvest today. The moisture is around 18-20% on our corn planted April 6th. Yields have been better than we anticipated so far, but the diplodia damage is stronger than we would like to see. We have only harvested a few truck loads as none of the elevators were open today due the Labor Day holiday. Tomorrow we will "dial in" the yield monitor and have an "on-the-fly" idea of what the corn is making.

Last week we took in the Farm Progress Show in Decatur. The boys climbed over numerous tractors and combines, but their favorite stop was the free snow cones GSI was handing out. The cold treat gave them a little extra "bounce" during the 100 degree temperatures. The show had massive crowds on Tuesday and Wednesday, but Thursday dropped off a little due to the high temperatures.

More updates as harvest progresses. Be safe this fall!

Harvest begins outside of Ashland today

The Johnson Boys test driving a new John Deere tractor at the Farm Progress Show

Week ending August 27th...

2011-08-28T21:21:00.004-05:00

Not much new to report. We continue to prepare the machines for the harvest season which will soon be upon us as well as wrap up mowing the last of the roadsides. Friday, David and Tom finished hauling the last of our 2010 corn crop from the bins and now our facilities are ready to receive the 2011 crop. We tested our earliest planted field of corn which was planted on April 6th. It hand-tested around 30%, but if you were to actually harvest it with a combine it would come out closer to 32-33% moisture. If the weather cooperates this should continue to dry the corn down to 20-21% by the Tuesday after Labor Day which we have slated to begin harvest. One of our neighbors took out a field of earlier maturity corn this week, which excited the neighborhood. We plan to visit the Farm Progress Show this week in nearby Decatur where John Deere is rolling out there brand new series of combines for 2012. Be safe.

Installing a new "feeder" belt on the MacDon head.

Bob mowing roadsides on the Atwood Farm.

A neighbor's freshly harvested corn field.

Week ending August 20th...

2011-08-21T21:38:00.003-05:00

What a week - I got to see the President of the United States of America speak at Wyffels Hybrids and on Saturday our little Max celebrated his first birthday.

Whether you are a fan of our current President or not, it was impressive to watch everything that happens when he arrives for a "town hall meeting." I was one of 300 people that had a ticket to listen to him speak and then take questions from the audience on Wednesday. One question posed him from a farmer in the audience was on new EPA regulations about noise and dust pollution. He suggested we as farmers shouldn't jump to conclusions about supposed new regulations, but rather wait and see what really comes out of Washington. He also encouraged all to contact the US Dept. of Agriculture if we had any concerns regarding these regulations. Another question asked of the President was about Ethanol and his thoughts on keeping the Ethanol industry viable. He touted his past and present support about corn based ethanol, but also informed the crowd that he would like more ethanol to come from cellulosic sources such as wood chips and switch grass. That response did not go over well with the corn friendly crowd. Either way it was a once in a lifetime experience that I will never forget.

Later in the week we hosted our families for Max's First birthday party. Everyone had a great time from the pinata and the "pin the tail on the steer" game to the giant inflatable bounce house that keep the kids busy and out of our house for the most part... Max didn't like everyone singing "Happy Birthday" to him, but calmed down once everyone left him alone to enjoy his own personal chocolate birthday cake. A good time was had by all.

As for the farm this past week more equipment preparation for harvest took place along with hauling the remaining corn from the grain bins. This week we will begin the last round of road bank mowing and continue work on the grain bins and augers. Some of our friends in the Southern part of the county have begun harvest. Yield reports have been as low as 100 bushels per acre all the way to 220 - and that's just in one pass through the field... Harvest for us will most likely begin after Labor Day.

Make it a great week!

Max enjoying his birthday cake.

The Johnson Boys - trouble...

President Obama at Wyffels Hybrids

Week ending August 13th...

2011-08-15T08:53:00.003-05:00

One of the signs that harvest is almost upon us the arrival of the State Fair. This week we took in the opening days and walked all over the fairgrounds. The boys especially enjoy the animals, since at our farm we have more dogs than livestock. One of the great things about our State Fair is Agriculture's presence amongst all the other exhibits. Besides the animals, local businesses and Commodity Associations have joined together to create an "Ag" area just inside the front gate of the fairgrounds. This area has the usual large farm equipment on display, but also contains a seudo "field trip" of the different aspects of agriculture in our state. Kids and parents have the unique opportunity to walk through small barns that contain themes of sheep, cattle, horses, grain bin safety, produce, soybeans, corn, and others. Each of these stops has story boards as to what the product looks like all the way through the value-chain to what consumers enjoy from the the product. It's a very nice way to promote our industry!

Around the farm this week we wrapped up assembly on the new chisel plow and brought the semi's into the shop for inspections, cleaning, and general maintenance. While temperatures have moderated, the rain has still missed the majority of our farms. We still anticipate corn yields to be "average," but soybeans yields are too early to establish, however they will need a rain soon in order to be average.

Owen's height relative to a corn plant's

Milking a cow

Digging for "soybean bucks"

FOR SALE...

2011-08-10T07:35:00.003-05:00

We are selling our 2006 Case IH strip-till bar and dry fertilizer cart. It is a 16-row 5310 model toolbar with an eight ton ADX dry fertilizer cart. It is equipped to place dry fertilizer and anhydrous ammonia all in one pass right in the row. The toolbar has mole knives, residue managers, rolling baskets and double Raven super-coolers. It has always been shedded and we have not used it the last two years due to purchasing a larger unit. We are selling it as one unit with the monitors and dry fertilizer plumbing selling with the unit. We asking $76,000 but would entertain any reasonable offers. Please contact Tom Johnson at (217) 652-1266 if you are interested. This unit is field ready and in excellent condition.

Week ending July 30th...

2011-07-31T20:49:00.004-05:00

Severe kernel tip-back due to high day & evening temperatures

Goss Wilt is taking over this field

It took two trailers to pick up all the parts & pieces of new chisel plow

Assembling the chisel plow

David mowing along the highway

Hot, humid, and dry weather is causing our corn crop to rapidly deteriorate. We have significant tip-back on ears from not only the hot weather during the day, but also the warmer than welcomed evening temperatures. We have quickly went from 230 bushels per acre potential to 170-180 by my kernel counts. And if the high heat doesn't break soon, we will continue to loose more bushels to the point this will be a very disappointing crop. This week we also discovered Goss Wilt. This is a disease that engulfs the corn plant killing it very quickly. It originates in the residue from the previous year's corn crop. Unfortunately, at this point there is nothing we can do for this field but watch and plan for next year. From what I have read, this will take 60-80 bushels per acre off our yield on this field. We plan to check the rest of our continuous corn fields this week to see if we have any more of these outbreaks.

Around the farm last week we began mowing roadsides again and continued working on shop projects. This past week our new chisel plow arrived at the dealership and David, Ron, & Darin began to assemble it. We also sprayed a few acres of soybeans this week with fungicide and insecticide.

Week ending July 23rd...

2011-07-24T21:57:00.002-05:00

Another hot and humid week. The crops in our immediate area seemed to fair the extreme heat and humidity this past week better than some areas of Illinois we are hearing about. That being said, we are still taking top-end bushels off of our corn crop. And in some areas of Illinois the damage to the corn crop is going to be irreversible even if they receive a rain. We were fortunate to receive a nice rain around the Ashland area today and I believe the northern farms also received a shower. Unfortunately, according to the radar it did not appear the south farms had any rain at all. And with another round of hot and humid weather starting tomorrow, we are growing concerned about our crop prospects around the Greenfield area.

The first picture below is from a friend of our's over in Eastern Illinois. While his entire corn crop does not look this way, this particular hybrid has been the most affected by the weather and will have significant yield loss.

A hybrid that really doesn't like hot and dry weather - Eastern Illinois

A HUGE yield saving rain around Ashland today!

Week ending July 16th...

2011-07-17T11:26:00.002-05:00

The past week consisted of hauling grain from the bins and scouting corn fields to be sprayed with fungicides. The weather seemed to dictate which jobs we accomplished based on the temperatures. We also spent time in the shop tearing down the corn head replacing parts so we can be ready to go this fall.

The upcoming week's forecast is for hot and extremely humid temperatures with little to no chances of rain. While we have been more fortunate than others with a few recent rain showers, we are concerned about how this weather will affect our final yields; more so the corn. The hot temperatures both during the day and at night (plus 70 degrees at night is not helpful) make the corn focus on maintenance of the corn plant (surviving) versus focusing on producing energy or sugars which create bigger/heavier kernels and larger yields. One of the main reasons we are spraying fungicide right now is to help the plant respire at night or give it "air-conditioning." A lot of the thought process behind spraying fungicide is to help slow the plant down so it doesn't have to work so hard during the high temperatures. Think of it as if you were running a marathon and someone threw you a cold and wet towel to put on the back of your neck. We normally like to spray fungicide when we see one-third brown silks. However, due to the coming weather we are pushing our fungicide applications up to once again try to give our corn plants air-conditioning.

Also, another important item worth mentioning is that the first-wave of sweet corn was ready this week. Sweet corn, similar to fireworks during 4th of July celebrations are another right of passage for those of us who farm or were raised on a farm. Eventually, we will all gather as a family to harvest hundreds of ears of sweetcorn and cook it and bag it so that we may enjoy it all year round.

Stay cool this week.

Applying fungicide on the Grand Prairie farm

The last pass of fungicide on the Whiznat farm

Week ending July 9th...

2011-07-10T14:30:00.003-05:00

This past week we were able to finish mowing all our remaining roadsides and begin hauling our July contracted corn. The demand for old crop corn in our area is so high that we have an "inverted" basis. That means that instead of bidding "below" the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, end users are bidding "above" the national offered price. Having an inverted basis isn't something that is uncommon for our area, but we were able to lock in plus 30 cents over our contracted price because our delivery location must have corn to fill barges.

We also finished putting up the remaining signs on our corn plot. This year our plot grew to 43 entries with a "check" hybrid between every company entry. A "check" means we put the exact same hybrid in between every company's entries. This allows us to make adjustments to soil types and possible wet holes which could cause entries to yield less. After harvesting, we then average the yields of the checks and then adjust the hybrids' yields next to the check hybrids.

We also started scouting our first planted corn fields for diseases and pests. So far we have not seen much disease due to our early fungicide applications. However, we do have significant infestations of Japanese beetles in certain areas. These beetles chew on both the silks and tassels. This can cause kernels to not pollinate, thus reducing yield significantly. Also, by them clipping the silks on the ear they open up the tips of the ears and allow other insects, birds, diseases, and rots such as diplodia to enter and cause yield damage as well. Thus, we called in Holzwarth Flying Service to come in and spray the infested fields.

This week we plan to haul corn and begin work on rebuilding the corn head. We also plan to attend the Wyffels Hybrids Corn Strategies seminar in Dixon, Illinois. Check it out at www.wyffels.com/cornstrategies.

Our 43 entry corn plot along Highway 123

Japanese beetles feeding on fresh corn silks

Week ending July 1st...

2011-07-03T12:00:00.005-05:00

The past week was great for the crops' development. Hot temperatures along with adequate moisture have both the corn and beans gaining height at a rapid pace. Earlier in the week our first planted corn began to tassel. As of the holiday weekend, their is a fair amount of corn that is tasseling in our area. The recent drier weather allowed us to wrap up spraying our final pass of herbicide applications on the soybeans. We also got the majority of all our road banks and ditches mowed and looking good for the 4th.

On Thursday of this past week we hosted our local McGillicuddy Corrigan Agronomic Focus Group. This group is comprised of farmers from central Illinois who have the desire to improve their cropping practices and share ideas with other farmers in order to achieve higher yields. The majority of this meeting focused on late season nitrogen management and fungicide applications.

Enjoy your 4th of July weekend!

Knee high by the 4th of July, no tassels by the 4th...!

Tassels showing on our April 6th planted corn outside of Ashland

MC Agronomics meeting held at our shop this past week

Spraying our last field of soybeans

Mowing roadsides at our Williamsville farm

Greensnap damage from recent winds on our farm Northwest of Jacksonville

Week ending June 18th...

2011-06-19T11:58:00.002-05:00

Not much to report this week other than the wet weather. We did manage to haul the last of our soybeans from the bins to Sunrise Ag at Havana. We also put away the planters and are now working on other shop projects.

We also took in the local Sangamon County Fair this week. Owen had a great time riding all the rides and playing in the local Farm Bureau's "Hayloft." Ok, I had fun playing in there too...

Featured below are also some pictures from Gary Martin who is friend of our's that farms about 10 miles south of us. For him, the real rains began Friday evening and did not stop until late Saturday afternoon. According to his rain gauge, he received 7.25" in total. The pictures speak a thousand words as to the damage and sheer power this much rain created. Thanks to Gary for allowing me to post these on our blog.

To all you dad's out there - Happy Father's Day!

Owen driving the combine simulator

Owen and I playing in the "cornbox"

The water washed the entire base of railroad out

A foot of oil and chip road completely washed away

Week ending June 11th...

2011-06-12T15:25:00.002-05:00

Early greensnap damage from winds that accompanied a recent rain storm. Estimated to be 3-4%. Corn was brittle from growing so fast due to recent high temp's and moist conditions.

Another application of nitrogen (Urea) on the corn at Ashland.

What the ground looks like after the urea has been spread. It will stay in this form until we get a rain to dissolve it into the soil.

Spraying post herbicides on soybeans near the Ashland reservoir.

Another great week of crop growing weather! The extreme hot temperatures were broke Friday evening with the welcome of a cold front and a few showers. Earlier in the week we noticed three to four percent greensnap in our Elkhart and Williamsville corn from last Saturday evening's storm. As I've mentioned the corn in our area is growing rapidly and any winds at all can cause damage, especially when it's brittle.

On Tuesday, we completed our last post herbicide applications on corn and later in the week we switched over to spraying soybeans. We are trying some "Warrant" herbicide on the beans this year which is supposed to give us residual control on waterhemp and small seeded broadleaves. We hope the Warrant combined with glyphosate will keep the fields clean until the beans can shade the row.

With all the rains and recent hot temperatures we have had recently, we decided to apply another 35# of nitrogen to certain fields. We are targeting poorly drained and corn on corn fields with this application. The form we are using is Urea (46-0-0). The urea is also treated with Agrotain which keeps it from breaking down for 10-14 days. Fortunately, after all applications we've had good rains to incorporate this additional nitrogen into the soil profile for the corn roots to access. Other areas we are targeting are our two National Corn Growers test plots, our 40,000 and 44,000 ppa population trials, and a few fields in areas that appear to have tremendous yield potential.

Week ending June 4th...

2011-06-05T21:43:00.003-05:00

Looking down the row at one of our 44,000 ppa strips

Early April planted corn - photo taken Monday, corn has grown so fast this week that the rows have now shaded the ground

Owen helping scout the corn

Bob mowing across the road from the shop

More rain and hot weather was the theme of the week. The crops are growing quickly due to the weather as corn is adding a leaf collar a day. The recent warmer weather is helping the crops get "caught up" from April and May's cooler temperatures. However, it also makes the corn brittle and susceptible to greensnap from winds because it is growing so fast. Combine the temperatures with damp field conditions and it makes for small windows to wrap up spraying the final round of herbicides on our corn. We are now down to the last 325 acres and hope to get that checked off our list prior to Thursday's forecasted rains.

Featured above is a picture of one of our 44,000 plants per acre check strips. This year we have multiple replications in different fields of the following planting populations; 35,700, 40,000 and 44,000 ppa. We are trying to test to see if their is a ceiling on plant populations in 30" rows and if we can overcome that barrier by pushing populations even higher. We plan to apply additional nitrogen to these experiments to help compensate for the additional plants the soil will be required to feed in these strips.

On the docket for this week: spraying the last 325 acres of corn, washing and putting away planting machinery, hauling beans from the bins to the IL river, mowing roadbanks, and top-dressing a few fields with urea.

Week ending May 28th...

2011-05-28T22:12:00.003-05:00

The majority of the week was spent indoors catching up on paperwork and jobs inside the shop. We received anywhere from 1.27" to 2.61" of rain and that was before today's rains which totaled another 1.1". The crops are growing, but warmer temperatures would be welcomed along with some drier soil conditions. We also discovered an outbreak of Black Cutworm in a few of our fields and we will be spraying baythroid as soon as the soil dries out enough to get the sprayer across.

On another note, three tracts of almost perfect, well-drained central Illinois soils sold for an average of $11,300 at auction this week. That's a new record and proves that the land market is still red hot. As we mention in our core competencies, our location and the soils around our immediate area prove to be in hot demand.

Since I didn't have any photos from the week I decided to post a few pictures of how Grandpa Mears used to plant. As you can see, he was an entrepreneur with an "all-in-one" planting rig. We now drive 45 miles south of our base of operations and plant these farms in a day and a half. I'm sure Grandpa just smiles and shakes his head in amazement from the heavens above.

Enjoy your Memorial Day and please remember to proudly display your American flag this weekend in remembrance of those who have given their lives to protect our freedom.

May 1967

Done...

2011-05-22T13:45:00.003-05:00

What a feeling...as of late afternoon on Friday we wrapped up planting soybeans. We also called it quits on replanting more corn barring any more wild weather. We also covered numerous acres of corn this week with our final post-herbicide applications. This year we are using mostly Bayer products; Capreno and Laudis - these two products allow us to have a planned, one-pass herbicide program. We are also adding Stratego fungicide to our Laudis herbicide in hopes of reducing the anthracnose disease development in our continuous corn. This is our first year of experimenting with this so we have many check-strips planned to see if our investment pays off.

We also made the decision to leave what remains of our Monday, April 18th corn planting over near Chapin. As you may recall, we were chased out of the fields that evening by heavy rains with an extended period of cold weather and more rain which did not help our plant populations. Our stands vary everywhere from 35,000 plants per acre to 22,000 ppa. After repeatedly walking these fields we felt their was just no good way to spot in more seeds without tearing up what we already had out there. Thus, we decided to leave it as is and hope for the best since it is nearing the end of May.

We also made time to get in our last planting of sweetcorn. We have numerous patches of sweetcorn and try to spread out the pollination to ensure that we have a plentiful supply all summer long. Sweetcorn is one of summer's great treats.

Spraying Capreno herbicide on the corn at Williamsville.

A beautiful field of corn as the sun comes up in the hazy distance.

Spotty emergence on our lighter soils in Chapin. The smaller plant will make it, but odds of a competitive yield are not good.

The seeds that did not emerge over at Chapin look like this. Periods of cold and damp weather confuse the plant as it tries to emerge. A thick crust of soil above was even more of a hindrance.

Week ending May 14th...

2011-05-14T15:26:00.003-05:00

What a week! We finished corn on Sunday evening and then focused the remainder of the week on spraying corn and planting soybeans. Every direction you looked this week field activity was occurring in our area. Rains rolled in late afternoon yesterday and halted tillage and spraying, but the bean planter continued as the rains missed that field. We are now over 60% completed with our 2011 soybean plantings. The recent warm weather has the crops growing fast and most of our last planted corn has already emerged. This past week we also decided to replant some of our corn over in the Chapin area. As you may recall, this corn had a beating 1.5" rain on it immediately after it was planted on April 18th. The quick rains created ponds and drowned out our corn seedlings. On Wednesday, we headed over to Chapin and ended up replanting 25 acres of ponded out holes or thins stands. We could end up replanting more, but we are waiting to see how many more of the seedlings emerge with today's rains.

Loading the bean planter

Planting some additional corn seeds in thin areas

Thin stands on lighter soils following heavy rains - this was even strip-till...!

Corn planting is done...

2011-05-09T21:51:00.002-05:00

Planting corn on the Elkhart farm with Elkhart Grain in the distance

A rear-view snapshot at our 45' Krause Landsman

Planting the Alexander @ Lincoln farm

33 days after we began planting corn on April 6th we finally finished yesterday evening. What normally is a marathon of planting and tillage, turned out to be just mere days of opportunity where the pace felt more like a sprint in order to get as much planted before the next rain. Our early planted corn looks good, but our corn planted April 18th near Chapin is by far the poorest stand we have. Lighter clays soils worked ahead of a 1.5" rain turned out to be a way to make "concrete" out of the top inch of the soil making it impossible to get even emergence of our seedlings. We are hoping that this week's forecasted showers and high temperatures will bring the remaining viable seedlings to the surface. In other lower areas where the water stood for extended periods of time we will have to spot in some additional corn due to the water causing the seedlings to rot.

As quickly as one planting season ends, another begins as we started planting soybeans today. More pictures and updates on soybean planting next week - weather permitting...

Planting corn and coveralls...

2011-05-04T07:20:00.003-05:00

Yesterday we were able to get back in the fields. We also planted our plot which included 44 hybrids from six different companies; Wyffels, Pioneer, DeKalb, Channel, AgriGold, and NK. Thank you to David Younkers and Brad Hobrock for helping get the plot planted. The weather was unusually cold for planting the plot as most of us had two coats on and some even wore coveralls to stay warm. Temperatures are forecasted to become warmer after this morning's frost and our plan is to continue to plant until either the next rain or we are finished.

BACK in the fields...

2011-05-01T21:26:00.005-05:00

We were fortunate enough to miss the heavy rains the past couple weeks which allowed us to get back in the fields on Friday. Earlier in the week we completed more jobs around the shop and continued to haul corn to the river terminals. Field activity resumed with spraying herbicides on previously planted corn fields. Saturday we began planting again around the Ashland area. Our time in the field was short-lived as rains set in on Sunday afternoon around 4 pm and put us out until the warmer temperatures and wind arrive. We have now eclipsed the half-way mark of our 2011 planting progress.

Loading corn into the hopper bottom trailer

Planting on the Stelte field - Saturday

Spanning the horizon from the seat of the planter tractor

Looking back at the planter from the tractor

Week ending April 23rd...

2011-04-22T21:21:00.003-05:00

Rain, rain, and more rain was the theme of the week. It has rained "inches" this week since Monday evening. We were able to sneak in one day of planting on Monday west of Jacksonville on our Chapin farms where they apparently missed the majority of last weekend's rains. We planted with both planters until the rains rolled in late in the evening and wrapped up field work for the week. Thanks to Mark Staake for allowing us to park our equipment at his farm while we are on this rain delay. With Monday's contribution, we are now ~45% planted. The first three days of our 2011 corn planting have accumulated enough Growing Degree Units (GDU's) to emerge despite the rain and recent cold weather. Our corn planted a week ago has a nice 1/4" sprout. We normally do not like to plant corn ahead of a cold rain, but with the forecast calling for weeks worth of rains we went ahead and planted every hour we could. It appears that the next time we will be able to get back in the fields to plant will be May...

Happy Easter from all of us at Johnson Family Farms!

David working ground at Chapin

Bob planting the first field at Chapin and David with the Quadtrac in the distance

Newly emerged corn on our first planted field of 2011

Week ending April 16th....

2011-04-17T21:38:00.002-05:00

Planting corn on highly erodible soils using the conservation practice of strip-till where the only tillage for this year's corn crop is from last fall's strip-till bar.

Finishing the field just ahead of a powerful thunderstorm

A sporadic week of corn planting. We dodged of lot of the heavier rains in the beginning of the week which allowed us to get back in the fields on Wednesday afternoon and plant through Thursday. Thursday evening a light shower kept us out until Friday afternoon. We were only able to get in 45 minutes of planting on Friday before the really strong thunderstorms rolled in and pounded us with rain. Most farms received anywhere from six tenths of an inch to right around an inch. These storms also brought with them cooler temperatures which will imped our soils ability to dry out so we can get back in the fields. Earlier in the week it was dry enough to begin spraying herbicides on a few of our fields. We originally intended to wait and spray the corn with a one-pass herbicide program, but the warmer temperatures of last week brought the weeds out; specifically henbit and chick-weed which if ignored will choke out any corn seedlings robbing them of water and nutrients. We also played around with our new ditcher. We have never owned one of these before, but because of last year's wet fields we decided to purchase one. Our goal was to create ditches on a few of our traditionally wet fields before the rains fell in hopes of getting the water off the field and into the nearby road ditch. It was quite a sight to see us throwing dirt 40-50' in the air while we ditched - I will have to get pictures of this as I forgot to bring along the camera that day.

We are not quite 45% completed with our 2011 corn planting and with the wetter and cooler forecast ahead I hope we don't have to go back and replant any of that which we already planted...

And so it begins...

2011-04-09T21:50:00.003-05:00

Planting along Rt. 125 on the Doolin Farm

On Wednesday morning we begin planting our 2011 corn crop. With the warmer temperatures and forecasted wet weather ahead we decided to get some corn in the ground. We were able to plant Wednesday through Friday and with two planters it did not take long to cover a lot of acres. While day one of our planting season did not set any acreage records, it did allow us to work the bugs out of the planters. Right or wrong, we focused our initial efforts on planting the fields that tend to be wet and can stay wet for extended periods of time. Recent tillage on those particular farms gave us some of the best seed bed conditions to plant into in recent years, so we decided to plant those wetter fields now versus gambling on whether they would stay dry and allow for timely planting later in the spring.

An unexpected 30% chance of rain halted all planters this morning as we received anywhere from 0.25 to 0.70" of precipitation. However, the sun reappeared this afternoon and 80 degree temperatures will allow planters to start again on Sunday before the next 60% chance of rain.

Week ending April 2nd...

2011-04-03T21:22:00.003-05:00

David leveling ground with the QuadTrac and Landsman

Winter seed production arriving from Wyffels

Trimming the treeline on the Chapin Farms

The tree trimming crew - (from left) Uncle Bob, Darin, David, & Dad in the tractor seat

Another trailer load of trees and tree roots from the Emerald Acres West 20

Another week closer to the kick-off of planting season. The soils have dried enough to allow us to begin working ground ahead of the planter. Originally, we thought we would not have to work our continuous corn ground because we leveled it last fall and hoped Old Man Winter would mellow it out. Unfortunately, the clods our deep tillage created last fall did not "melt" as good as we had hoped so on Monday this past week we began working the soil with our Krause Landsman. We also spread another 20# of nitrogen in the form of ammonium sulfate so it made sense to incorporate that into the soil profile as well. As the week progressed the soils dried out quickly and we are now hoping for a rain to recharge them. Later in the week we received another load of Wyffels seed corn which just five days ago was put on an airplane in Chile, South America and now is in our shed. Towards the end of the week we worked on trimming trees at the Chapin farm and then later in Greenfield as we picked up tree roots and worked on taking out the remaining fence. We hope to receive a rain tonight, but if not our planters may begin this week. I have not seen anyone planting around us, but we heard of a handful of farmers planting in Christian County.

Week ending March 26th...

2011-03-27T17:10:00.008-05:00

Bob leveling the newly installed tile lines on the Daubard Farm

Bob applying Anhydrous Ammonia on the Atwood Farm

A view at the plow on the tile machine as it's lowered into the start of a 4" lateral

The 6" main on the Emerald Acres West 20 - we had water running through it within an hour after it was installed

Russell Maul multi-tasking while digging starts for the laterals with the excavator

What a week for working on jobs prior to planting. On Monday Bob disked down the newly installed tile lines on the Daubard 80 and by Tuesday the 75 degree weather allowed the soils to dry enough to begin applying anhydrous ammonia. Precision Drainage completed all our jobs around the Ashland area and moved to Greenfield to begin work on another project for us. They pattern-tiled what we call "Emerald Acres West 20" on 50 foot centers and in the wet spots we narrowed them up to 25 feet centers. An hour after they had ran the main, it was one-third full and draining water out of the field.

A few farmers in the area worked ground with their field cultivators this past week, but with the mid 30's temperatures towards the end of the week it seems as though it will be a while before any planters start.

Week ending March 19th....

2011-03-20T18:06:00.003-05:00

Tile, tile, and more tile was the name of the game this week. Precision Drainage was able to resume work again on our Daubard farm on Monday. By Thursday they had it completed and were moving on to our Martin farm to install a couple short runs of tile. While Bob and Dad were working with Precision Drainage, David made quick work of getting the seed tender trailer and chemical spray trailer all re-assembled and ready for use. The weather towards the end of the week has been amazingly warm and the soils have dried nicely. Some field work did occur this past week, however it was northwest of us near Macomb where a few farmers were putting on anhydrous ammonia. We are trying to not get too excited as the forecast is calling for snow showers and temperatures in the low 40's late this upcoming week. Go ILLINI beat those Jayhawks!

Week ending March 12th...

2011-03-13T21:12:00.003-05:00

This past week we finished hauling soybeans, took delivery of much of our 2011 seed corn, and worked on shop projects. We also took advantage of the warmer weather on Saturday and trimmed trees and burnt brush-piles down on our Greene County farms.

Rainfall for the week was 0.21" at the Williamsville farm up to 0.56" at the Greenfield farms. While the soil is still saturated, the forecasted warmer and sunny days this week will do wonders to help dry the soil out. Maybe we will even get some more tile laid on the Daubard farm.... We'll see.

If you are in the market for a used pull-behind sprayer, we are selling our's. Check out more details at: http://www.tractorhouse.com/listingsdetail/detail.aspx?OHID=6169194.

Week ending March 5th...

2011-03-06T21:22:00.003-06:00

Hauling corn from the bin at the University of Illinois Farm

Loading the truck with soybeans from the Aggertt bins

Owen investigating the Ashland Volunteer Fire Department's truck

This past week we continued to haul grain from our bins to the river and rail terminals. The warmer weather was a welcomed change, but as the frost has left the ground it presents a new set of challenges trying to move 80,000 lbs of grain and trucks down soft gravel driveways. However, we did manage to work around the soft driveways and get a lot of grain hauled. Just as the sunshine was starting to dry out our soils, we received another 3/4's of an inch of rain on Friday evening. Our soils are now completely saturated and it sure doesn't feel like we will be having an early spring - but time will tell.

Today we attended the Ashland Volunteer Fire Department's annual pancake and sausage fundraiser. Owen had a blast running through their training course and climbing all over the fire engines outside.

This week we will wrap up hauling the remaining contracted soybeans, begin taking seed corn delivery and finalize crop insurance decisions for the 2011 crop.

Week ending February 26th...

2011-02-25T21:14:00.003-06:00

This week I had the opportunity to present to Owen's preschool class about farming and agriculture. It was quite interesting to present to a group of two and three year olds. We visited about corn and soybeans and how those grow throughout the year. We also discussed what foods the kids eat that contain bi-products of corn and soybeans. I also took in some of Owen's tractors, combines, and semi's which Owen gladly demonstrated; the combine dumping on the go, the grain cart into the semi, and he also planted a few acres of corn on the rug. At the end of our presentation we gave each child a grab bag that contained balloons, cow pencil erasers, and coloring books courtesy of the Illinois Beef Association. It was a great experience and I highly encourage those in agriculture to take advantage of every opportunity to speak to groups outside our industry; including preschoolers...

Week ending February 12th...

2011-02-12T13:07:00.003-06:00

Since we launched our website and blog we have had many people contact us about our business. The most recent and interesting was Ant Bowker from South Africa. Ant is a 36 year old, 4th generation, 4,000 acre corn and soybean farmer in Standerton, South Africa. South Africa is Africa's largest corn producing area and has a climate similar to ours, but they have dry winters instead of what we've had the last couple of months. Ant contacted us to see if we could visit from time to time and share ideas on corn production. In a sense, we have become modern-day "pen-pals." He has given me permission to show some of his farm's pictures and I intend to do that from time to time depending on what we have to share. I thought you all might like to see pictures of green crops this time of year since until today we have lived in an over-cast grey skyed world. The growing season in South Africa is exactly opposite as we have - i.e., when we are planting in early April they will be beginning harvest. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Week ending February 5th...

2011-02-05T18:37:00.003-06:00

David clearing the snow on dad's driveway.

Owen enjoying the fresh snow.

The majority of our week was spent inside staying out of the blizzard and extremely cold weather. We received approximately 11-14" of snow along with 40 mph winds which made for complete "white-out" conditions. It was the first time in a long time where the snow drifts actually rivaled those in the late 70's and early 80's at least in our general area.

We continue to perform general maintenance in the shop and haul corn to the river as the weather allows, but this week little was accomplished due to the weather. Despite the cold and snowy conditions, Owen was able to get outside and climb all over the snow drifts and take in a little sledding. I have learned that as long as he is having fun, he will never admit that he's cold...

Week ending January 22nd...

2011-01-22T11:57:00.002-06:00

This past week our friends from Precision Drainage tried to begin our tiling project on the Daubard 80. As the pictures show, the ground has a lot (~12" in the lower areas) of frost in it. Even though the tile plow is equipped with tracks, the frozen ground caused it to slip. They even tried pulling it with the help of the excavator and that did not work either. We will wait until the ground thaws out a bit before we try it again. Also this week Matt Aper from Cross Brothers Implement in Mount Pulaski came over and performed our annual combine inspection on the John Deere combine. Fortunately, he only noticed a couple items and both will be an easy fix. We like having the combine inspected by a certified JD service technican in the winter because it gives us ample time to allow for repairs and thus, the combine is field ready come harvest.

New fall video...

2011-01-13T18:13:00.002-06:00

I hope you enjoy our recently posted video. The video includes footage of our strip-till bar where we are applying anhydrous ammonia, phosphate and potassium all in one pass and in one compact band. Although this field has already been tilled by the chisel plow; with the RTK guidance system we will plant directly above the band of fertilizer we are creating here even though you can not see it. In our 2011 corn following the 2010 soybeans, we will only "till" an 8" strip with this applicator and then plant directly on top it this spring. I also included a few shots of the John Deere 9630 leveling ground behind the applicator. If the weather and soil conditions allow, we like to level the chiseled ground in the fall. If the winter weather cooperates and "mellows" the soil, we will perform zero spring tillage and plant right into this. We call this a "stale seedbed."

My apologies about the camera work - I'm still perfecting it.

2011-01-05T07:31:00.002-06:00

Precision Drainage arrives at the Daubard 80

Owen "listening" to one of his birthday gifts to see if he can figure out what it is

Not much new to report since my last post. We continue to haul corn from the bins to various destinations and fall machinery clean up is still occurring at the shop. Over the holidays, Precision Drainage arrived to begin one of our tiling projects on the Daubard 80. Although the tile and machinery are here, they are waiting for the ground to thaw before they start. The reason they are waiting is not because the tile plow can not pull through the frozen ground, but rather they are worried about back-filling the newly installed tile with frozen chunks of soil which may puncture a hole in the tile. We also celebrated the Christmas and New Year's holidays with a lot of football and family. Apparently the Johnson boys were good again this year as Santa found our house and dropped off a few presents and drank the milk and ate the cookies Owen and Max left for him. We also celebrated Owen's third birthday which compounded the holiday fun.

Wishing you a safe and profitable 2011 - Johnson Family Farms

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T11:34:00.000-06:00

Week ending December 18th...

2010-12-18T10:30:00.003-06:00

Kevin Becker from Altorfer and Darin Younkers replacing the left side fuel tank on the CAT tractor

Emptying bins at the Martin Farm

More of the same since my last post. We have been hauling corn to the Illinois River terminals as well as ADM at Curran. Machinery is also still being cleaned up and put away. This past week Kevin Becker from Altorfer Equipment spent a few days at the farm working on the CAT tractor. The main job was replacing the left-side fuel tank. Due to a faulty fuel cap lid that did not let the fuel tank "vent", CAT had a re-call on the lid. Unfortunately, the faulty lid did it's damage before we made time for the two-day job to replace the fuel tank. Since the lid did not vent air to the tank, the fuel pump was pulling diesel out of the tank and eventually just caved in the sides of tank causing the tank to leak due to cracks. Luckily, our leak was not very severe and we could wait until after all the fall tillage work to get the tractor in the shop and perform the replacement. Thanks to Kevin Becker from Altorfer and Darin Younkers for their work on this project. We have our corn plans and hybrids finalized for the 2011 crop and are almost finished wrapping up our 2011 soybean variety selections. End of year book work and accounting are keeping us busy when the weather will not let us out to haul corn.

Week ending December 4th...

2010-12-05T17:51:00.004-06:00

Dad wrapping up fall 2010 field operations; emptying the dry fertilizer cart

The Johnson Boys are ready for the Christmas Holiday

Making ginger bread houses with Owen; he lasted five minutes and NFL football won over his attention...

It is amazing to me how easy it is to create weekly posts when we are in the field, but when the field work is completed the task of keeping the blog up to date gets more challenging. Since my last post we have continued to clean up machinery and have started to haul corn to the terminals on the Illinois River at Beardstown. We have also been spending a considerable amount of time in the office working on 2011 crop plans, catching up on office work, and finalizing year end reports for landlords and accountants. Besides the peace of mind of having 100% of the fieldwork done, being able to be home more with our families is a wonderful blessing. Above are some of the pictures of our gingerbread project with Owen - he was interested for almost five minutes. We have also been working on wrapping on Christmas presents, but none of our previous pictures really displayed the fun of trying to wrap presents with an almost three-year old...

Week ending November 20th...

2010-11-21T07:42:00.002-06:00

Applying dry fertilizer and anhydrous ammonia in Greenfield

Darin leveling ground ahead of the toolbar

This past week we wrapped up all of our fall tillage and fertilizer applications. We could have been done a week ago, but we were waiting and hoping for rains to loosen the large clods created by the chisel plow this fall on our remaining acres. Unfortunately, no rain has fallen on our Greene County farms since we harvested back in September. While the ground is dry, we were still able to find moisture with the applicator knives and with enough loose soil we are confident our last anhydrous applications met all environmental standards. In the picture above you see the John Deere 9630 and Krause Landsman leveling ground ahead of the toolbar; we did this to try and create more loose soil and minimize the size of the clods. The large and hard clods kept pulling the dry fertilizer hoses off the toolbar causing us to have to stop periodically. The concern about a loose hose also kept us from operating much after dark. However, we are done and this week will be focused on washing the remainder of machinery and putting it away until spring. Uncle Bob, Ronnie Brown and the Younkers' Brothers have done a masterful job of cleaning up and painting the vast majority of the tractors and implements.

Thanksgiving is Thursday - please take a moment to reflect upon all the things you are thankful for. We are thankful for our freedom, our family and friends, our ability to be employed as stewards of the land and the ability to make a living from the fruits of the land and lastly, we are thankful for another growing season where no one was hurt - just to name a few.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Week ending November 6th...

2010-11-07T16:15:00.002-06:00

Bob making strips on the Whiznat farm

Dad applying Nh3, DAP, & Potash all in one pass with the strip-till bar on the Doolin field.

We began anhydrous ammonia applications last Friday. Since then we have covered all our acres that we plan to go to corn around the Ashland and Pleasant Plains areas. You may remember we just did these same operations a mere six months ago due to being delayed by Mother Nature last fall. We are experiencing some delays in product availability, but not near like earlier this spring. Our plan is to move to the northern farms this week in hopes that our south farms receive some rainfall later in the week as they are predicting. Anhydrous Ammonia needs moisture to bond to the soil; otherwise it volatilizes and escapes into the atmosphere through the dry soil particles.

Week ending October 31st...

2010-11-01T21:44:00.003-05:00

Bob chiseling on the Whiznat farm

Loading the trailer with trees

The last of the trees coming off the trailer

Another great week of field work. We wrapped up chisel plowing this past week and are working on the last 150 acres of in-line ripping with the BlueJet. Now that the cooler weather has lowered the soil temperatures and the rain helped loosen the soil we also have one of the toolbars running putting on nitrogen and dry fertilizer.

Last week we also had the opportunity to help the Aupperle family haul ~150 trees from the nursery to their farm. They helped us clean up after the tornado last summer and it was a great opportunity to help them and return the favor. It was quite an impressive operation. They already had the holes dug for all the trees and the skid-steer would take the trees off the trailers and place them right in the hole. One skid-steer unloaded and planted all the trees in one morning.

2010-10-25T19:19:00.002-05:00

Jeff Moss running the 9630 & BlueJet on the Williamsville Farm

Another good week of tillage. We encountered a few breakdowns this past week, which did not allow us to finish all our tillage like I had hoped. However, we only lack 200 acres of chiseling corn stalks and any additional in-line BlueJet ripping would be above and beyond what we anticipated completing. As I mentioned in previous posts the soils are pulling very hard this year due to all the rains the last few years and lack of good tillage last fall. The hard ground is rough on the tillage equipment as well as the tillage tractors. We have repeatedly had to replace ripper points and wear bars along with a few other items that needed the attention of a welder, but tilling the soil while it is dry is the best thing to get it back into condition for the 2011 crop. Dad also took advantage of the good weather and spent a few days trimming trees alongside fields and making surface drains on some of our poorly drained fields. A few anhydrous ammonia toolbars could be seen late last week in our area despite the dry soil conditions and warm weather. Thankfully a rain Saturday morning along with another Sunday evening gave the ground ample moisture for us to begin putting on anhydrous as soon as the soils dry.

Week ending October 17th...

2010-10-17T11:39:00.006-05:00

Harvesting soybeans on the Alderson Farm

Two combines in the night

Lincoln Land FS spreading lime on the Williamsville Farm

Tearing out fence rows in Greenfield

The fence row demolition crew - from left; Jim Black, Mark Twitchell, & JL Ford

What a week! We wrapped up our 2010 harvest on Friday afternoon. The harvest this year was completed in 45 days, but more importantly we are done 53 days earlier than last year. Corn yields were somewhat disappointing, but soybean yields were fantastic across the board.

We continue to work on tillage and spreading lime. We also are taking advantage of the great weather and working on projects that we planned to get completed last fall/winter. On Saturday I traveled to our Greene County farms and helped remove old fence rows with a few neighbors. What a great crew! A big thanks goes out to Mark Twitchell, JL Ford, and Jim Black for all their help yesterday. With two skid-steers we tore out just over 3/4 of a mile of fence rows and now each neighbor will gain another two rows of crops in place of dilapidated fence and weeds.

Week ending October 10th...

2010-10-10T22:06:00.003-05:00

Owen ready to go to the elevator in the semi.

Harvesting on the Elkhart farm.

Owen inspecting the corn to make sure it meets his standards.

Taking a cat nap in the combine.

The end of harvest is near - we hope to wrap up harvest this week. What a pleasant change from last year. While harvest may be coming to an end, our tillage operations still have plenty of acres to go. The ground is dry this fall and we are taking advantage of that by tilling our ground deeper than we have in the last two years. When the soils are dry they shatter better with each tillage pass, thus helping to remove compaction from previous years' crops. Unfortunately, going deeper does not always correlate to going faster so we are not able to cover the acres as quick as usual. Yields are still all over the board on corn, but soybean yields continue to impress. The USDA finally came to grips with this short crop on Friday's report. Look for volatile markets in the interim.

Week ending October 3rd, 2010...

2010-10-03T21:34:00.002-05:00

Harvesting soybeans on the Williamsville farm.

Another very good week of harvest at Johnson Family Farms. This week we mainly focused on soybeans, but a 20% chance of rain Friday evening that turned into two tenths of rain and clouds made us switch back to corn. To-date we have just under a third of our harvest left to complete. Our tillage operations progress nicely as we continue to chisel under corn stalks as well as run the MacFarlane Reel-till on a lot of acres sizing up corn residue. Diplodia was again an issue with our corn this year, so we are focusing on chopping up the residue and getting it buried early in hopes we've seen the last of the diplodia. The ten day forecast has no rain in sight, which should allow us to wrap up harvest in the upcoming weeks.

Week ending September 26th...

2010-09-26T23:03:00.002-05:00

Harvesting on the Emerald Acres Farm

Another good week of harvest progress. We began the week harvesting soybeans, but another 1.3" rain fell late Tuesday evening. Our Greene County farms missed the rains, so we moved south. In two days we knocked out all our acreage in Greenfield and Friday night were moving back to Ashland. Thank you to everyone who put in some late hours on Thursday evening trying to get as many acres harvested as possible before Friday's forecasted rains. Yields in Greene County were variable to say the least, but moistures were 14.5 to 16.2% which is a pleasant change from last year's harvest. Due to slow drying corn and soaked fields, we were not able to finish these farms last year until November 30th. This much earlier harvest will allow us to get lime applied and the stalks buried under in preparation for next year's crop.

Week ending September 19th...

2010-09-19T23:07:00.003-05:00

The sun sets as we harvest on the University of Illinois Hunter #3 farm.

A nice shot of Darren filling a semi headed to the bin.

We decided to try a MacDon draper header this year for soybeans - so far we really like it.

Uncle Bob chiseling on the Clearview Farm.

Harvest continues at a rapid pace here at Johnson Family Farms. We are making great progress as the weather continues to dry corn down in the field allowing us to put most of it directly into grain bins. Corn yields remain variable, but our over-all farm average is increasing the more we harvest. We had a brief window where we were able to harvest a couple hundred acres of early soybeans and the beans are yielding surprisingly well. Most reports we hear are that of good bean yields as well throughout the state. The tillage operations continue to chase the combines and trucks spreading lime and fertilizer. The forecast for this week is spotty, but we will continue to work on corn unless a window opens where the beans dry down and cut a little easier.

What a difference a year makes...last year we did not even start harvest until September 20th due to the cooler weather.

Week ending September 12th...

2010-09-12T16:42:00.002-05:00

Another good week of harvest. We were rained out Friday evening by another inch of rain. On top of the four plus inches we had last week we were not able to harvest any this weekend. Most of our corn is testing 15-20% and yields have varied drastically from 147 to 255 bpa. We also started tillage this past week and have a couple hundred acres of corn stalks already chiseled under. This week we plan to continue to harvest our earlier maturity corn and by Wednesday we are hoping a few of our bean fields will be ready to cut.

Week ending Sept. 6th

2010-09-06T21:44:00.003-05:00

A view from the grain cart operator's seat looking back at the combine as it unloads "on-the-go"

Our new grain bin is up.

After four inches of rain since last Wednesday & Thursday we were finally able to get back in the fields and resume harvesting corn. Moistures have dropped from 20-22% to 18-19%. This week we will continue to harvest corn as well as start our fall tillage. It will be interesting to see how hard or easy the implements pull this fall considering all the early rains followed by drier conditions.

Many of you may remember our grain bin fire from last fall. Over the course of the weekend Range Implement took down the old bin and put up our new GSI bin. We still have wiring and a few other odds and ends to finish up before we can put corn in it, but we are relieved it is up and just in time.

Harvest begins...

2010-08-31T21:44:00.005-05:00

Harvest began yesterday at Johnson Family Farms. This field was planted on April 15th to a 109 rm hybrid. It has been multiple year continuous corn. The moistures were less than we anticipated, especially considering how green the tops of the plants were. The yields were all over the board with the yield monitor hitting 270 bpa all the way down to 115 bpa. That being said, there is more poor-yielding corn than great corn. Compared to last year this field is yielding 25% less... We believe that the corn planted behind soybeans will be significantly better.

I've posted a video of our first day of harvest at the bottom of the blog.

Week ending August 28th...

2010-08-29T10:58:00.004-05:00

Owen is ready for harvest to begin...

Our friends at J&D Farms, Inc. delivering our new MacDon draper head.

Owen helping Daryl Bachman drive the Kenworth.

Owen giving the trailer & platform a thorough inspection.

Harvest will be here soon. We continue to mow roadsides and get equipment ready for harvest. A few neighbors have started combining with reported yields and moistures all over the board. A few of the early plots that have been harvested are yielding 10-15% less than last year. It appears that 200 bpa corn will be rare on corn following corn with corn planted on bean stubble yielding significantly more. Weather dependent, we plan to start harvest this week. Although we would not turn down one more nice rain to give the soybeans a strong finish.

New addition...

2010-08-23T07:21:00.003-05:00

Friday afternoon, Max Ryan Johnson was born to Elizabeth and I. He weighed eight pounds even and was twenty-one inches long. Max and his mommy are doing great. The picture above is of Max and his older brother Owen after we returned home from the hospital. Owen is already very helpful and always concerned about who is holding his little brother. Max still has his days and nights backwards, but we hope that will quickly change.

The crops are still progressing quickly and I anticipate some area farmers to begin harvesting end rows and a few early maturity fields this week.

Enjoy the cooler weather this week!

Week ending August 14th...

2010-08-15T17:37:00.002-05:00

Mowing filter strips down in Greenfield.

Taking 20' at time makes mowing a quick job.

Another good week at the farm. The crops were showing signs of moisture stress and just in time Mother Nature dropped anywhere from seven tenths to three inches of rain on our farms. That is a million dollar rain for the soybean crop in our area as the beans always yield better with an August State Fair rain. This past week we completed another round of mowing on all the farms. We also continue to work on harvest machinery and grain bins. We still would like to start harvest after Labor Day, but with the continued extreme hot and humid days we may have to begin prior to our initial target date due to the corn loosing it's moisture too fast. As of right now, it appears we will harvest a lot of corn before we cut any soybeans. The corn continues to turn from green to it's harvest gold color and most beans are still green. However, we are seeing spots of Sudden Death Syndrome in a few of our bean fields. I have heard that Iowa is seeing lots of SDS in their soybeans. Many of you remember our grain bin fire from last fall. We hope that Range Implement shows up this week and gets the old bin torn down and new bigger bin erected and ready to wire. This will be cutting it close, but Darold assures me that they can get the old one down and new one up in five days - time will tell...

Week ending August 7th...

2010-08-07T21:51:00.002-05:00

This ear was discovered by a friend while out scouting fields a couple weeks ago.

I've never seen anything like it - a true double-ear.

This might explain why our tile didn't work.

Turns out the power company sliced right through our old tile line last summer.

A view looking SW of the area the tile did not get drained this spring/summer.

The crops continue to progress along at a rapid pace with the hot & humid weather. We are busily trying to get summer projects wrapped up and get equipment ready for harvest. This past week we continued to mow road banks and work on various projects. Harvest appears to be right around the corner with many area farmers thinking they might try to harvest some corn before Labor Day weekend. The corn yield projections are starting to decline in our immediate area due to lower kernel counts and severe kernel abortion due to the hot weather. Yield estimates are anywhere from 185-210 bpa on the good fields.

Right on track...

2010-07-27T21:58:00.002-05:00

Two hours after my last post we received the start of what ended up being a 5.2" rain over the course of two days. Surprisingly, not very much ran off and most was absorbed by the dry soil. Since then, the weather has continued to be warm along with another beneficial rain. Our crops are progressing nicely with all this warm and abundant sunshine.

The picture above is an ear from our first planted corn (April 12th). Based on current GDU (growing degree units) this field of corn should black layer (32-35% moisture) around August 19th. If the hot weather continues it's trend, then this corn will be at or below 20% moisture around Labor Day. That means an early harvest, which is a welcomed surprise compared to last fall's harvest that drug on into December.

Week ending July 17th...

2010-07-18T08:24:00.002-05:00

Mowing around the soybeans at the Williamsville farm.

An aerial view of the west fields of our Chapin farm.

Drowned out spots on one of our fields around Ashland.

Looking south on the Williamsville soybeans.

Looking west at the Elkhart 160.

More mowing and grain hauling this week at the farm. It has now been three weeks since any significant rainfall on any of our farms and the crops are beginning to show it. To some it is funny how farmers can go from wanting the rain to stop to now asking for more. Since we received an abundance of rain early the roots of our corn and soybeans did not have to grow deep in the soil to access moisture. Now that the soils are quickly drying out, the roots are in dry soil and cannot grow down to the moisture; causing stress to the plants.

This past week we had the opportunity to go up in a plane and scout from above. The trip was very interesting. We saw plenty of drowned out spots in both corn and soybeans, a few acres or strips of greensnapped corn, and many acres of nitrogen deprived corn. A few of our fields have numerous drowned out spots. I posted pictures of these fields not so you would think we are poor farmers, but so that you understand what the crops in our general area look like. These are the most severe pictures, but for us this will not be a bumper crop. It seems as though the traders up in Chicago are starting to understand some of the troubles with the 2010 crops as the markets have jumped drastically this past week.

Hot & humid....

2010-07-11T14:49:00.003-05:00

Shucking sweet corn.

The next generation at Johnson Family Farms is ready for harvest to begin.

Sweet corn is ready.

Beautiful sunshine during corn pollination.

Not a whole lot to report this week. We continue to clean out our remaining grain bins and haul corn to the elevator. David and Bob also finished cleaning up the spring machinery and put it away in the sheds.

The majority of our corn has already pollinated and is taking advantage of this hot and humid weather. Our beans are getting bigger and most are shading the rows. The beans we planted last week are already up and taking off. Towards the end of this week we scouted every acre of corn looking for leaf diseases. We are seeing significant amounts of rust and a little Grey Leaf Spot. We have decided to spray fungicide on a few acres and continue to monitor the remainder. During our scouting we also discovered that the strong storms a few weeks ago green snapped a few of our hybrids with some having 50-70% damage. Those same hybrids planted just four days later had zero damage.

Just as our crops love this weather, so does our sweet corn. We have been enjoying this summer time treat for the majority of the week. Today we decided to freeze a bunch of this treat and save it for later. It is a lot of work to freeze 300-400 ears of sweet corn, but well worth it down the road.

Great week....and Happy 4th of July!

2010-07-04T06:53:00.004-05:00

A few of the drowned out spots on our Williamsville Farm still have water in them.

Helping our neighbor finish planting soybeans.

A view of our 2010 corn plot.
Thank you to the participating companies; Wyffels Hybrids, AgriGold, Monsanto, & Pioneer.

Last week was very busy at the farm with numerous activities going on all at the same time. Dad and Bob finished spraying beans for the first time; hoping it will be our last trip across the beans until harvest. We also signed our seed corn plot and David and Bob got all the roadbanks mowed and looking good for the holiday weekend. On Friday we headed back up towards Williamsville and helped a neighbor get his remaining 160 acres of beans planted. Saturday we spent the day filling in wet holes on our Williamsville farm; there were more bare acres than I expected as we went through another 45 bags of soybeans. Weather providing, we plan to haul more corn from our bins to the terminals along the Illinois River at Beardstown as well as put away the last of the spring machinery this upcoming week.

Happy 4th of July!

Enough water...

2010-06-26T14:22:00.004-05:00

Even our John Deere dealer has had enough water...

An example of what the wet holes or most of the end rows in our area look like.
This corn will yield nothing; and there is a lot of these holes in central & western Illinois.

Japanese beetles are back and they are hungry!

Most of the beetle pressure remains in the first 40' of our soybean fields,
but as corn begins to pollinate this week they will migrate into it and begin clipping silks.

Not much to report this week. It was too wet to spray or do any ditch bank mowing. We hauled a few loads of corn, but the Illinois River rose to flood stage and it became too dangerous to load barges on the quick current. The forecast looks promising for the next 7-10 days and we hope to wrap up spraying our soybeans.

Spring 2010 Video

2010-06-22T17:37:00.003-05:00

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

What a shame...

2010-06-20T18:59:00.005-05:00

Why would anyone mow down this beautiful corn and right along the highway...?

On Friday we made room for the new water line heading into Ashland.

GSI's first million bushel grain bin in Illinois - and it's located in Ashland. Home of RPA Farmers Coop (www.rpafarmers.com).

That's the equivalent of 5,000 acres of 200 bpa corn all in one bin...

Loading one of the trucks for another run to the elevator along the Illinois River.

This week was spent hauling corn to the Illinois River at Havana & Beardstown. Between rain showers we sprayed more of the soybeans to get rid of the weeds. We are also adding an insecticide around the borders as the Japanese beetles are chewing on the outside 40' of beans; not to mention the local rose bushes. Most of the equipment is washed up and put away with a few exceptions. A few corn fields are starting to tassel as of this weekend. This upcoming week we will continue spraying soybeans, hauling corn, and begin the 4th of July mowing of ditches and roadbanks. The hot and humid weather along with weekly rainfall continue to bring the crops along at a tremendous pace.

Happy Father's Day!

2010-06-11T21:26:00.004-05:00

Dad spraying corn on the Lathom farm.

A view of the new corn seedlings we planted in our drowned out spots.

Less than 24 hrs. after this picture was taken, it rained another 2.5" and the water drowned out our second planting in these holes.

Impressive picture of a corn plants sheer vigor. I have seen corn plants grow up through the center of a cob, but never through the middle of the previous year's stalk...

*Photo courtesy of Zach Ferguson.

This week we wrapped up the last of our corn herbicide spraying. We also finished side-dressing as we applied an additional 40 units of nitrogen to our water damaged fields to try and "perk up" the yellow corn as well as give the roots more oxygen by running the applicator knife deep in the soil.

We also finished our 2010 planting season on Monday when Dad finished planting the remaining acres at Williamsville. The soybeans that were planted there a few weeks ago are growing fast, unfortunately the volunteer corn from last year's tornado is also growing fast. When the weather permits, we will head to Williamsville to spray the soybeans in an attempt to eradicate the volunteer corn.

As the week wrapped up we began spraying what we hope to be the last pass of herbicides on the soybeans around Ashland and Pleasant Plains. Just as the crops are growing fast, so are the weeds.

Corn growing weather...

2010-06-05T17:33:00.005-05:00

Dad spotting in with the two-row planter.

Corn following corn at LWJ.

A view of our first planted soybeans in Morgan County.

No soybean planting this week as Mother Nature kept us out of the fields at Williamsville with more rain. Unfortunately, we learned that we will also be replanting a few acres at Williamsville due to hail that accompanied the three inch rain a few weeks ago. Wrapping up the remaining acres and working on the replant acres will be our top priority the next time the soil dries enough up that way. This week we put the finishing touches on our planned side-dress acres. David and Bob also logged a few hours on the two-row planter touching up wet-holes that drowned out in the corn fields around Ashland. This replant corn may not yield much, but we hope it keeps the weeds shaded out and puts a little "green" in those bare spots. Dad also got caught up on spraying corn and is now waiting to finish up the last few acres. We will start spraying soybeans soon as well. The past few weeks' hot and humid weather are bringing the crops along fast. We are receiving weekly rains which are helping the corn root down through any possible compaction. Most of our corn is on-track to tassel by the 4th of July. Some of the tallest corn in our area planted the last day of March is over chest high...

Covering acres...

2010-05-31T18:56:00.003-05:00

Planting beans on the Alderson farm.

David working ground in the bottoms.

The farm was busy with numerous activities this week. We lack a mere 20 acres of soybeans to plant at Williamsville; otherwise this week allowed us to cover all our remaining acres. A shower mid-day today rained us out from finishing Williamsville, but the beans we planted ahead of Tuesday and Wednesday's combined five inch rain really benefited from today's showers.

We also started side-dressing corn this past week. It is the ideal time to be side-dressing as the corn is rooting down and taking up nitrogen. Besides planting and side-dressing, we also worked in a few acres of herbicide application as the corn fields dried. The corn is growing fast and some of the first planted corn in the area is already shading the row.

2010-05-25T21:29:00.002-05:00

Planting soybeans at Williamsville.

Bedolli Excavating laying the new 6" tile.

Monday we were able to get back in the fields and resume planting. We covered 200 acres prior to an early evening pop-up rain storm. We had a brief window to plant this morning, but another storm built up and dumped 3" of rain & hail on the Williamsville farm in slightly over 30 minutes. The storms were not wide-spread, so we moved the equipment back to Ashland where it did not rain.

While we were planting at Williamsville, Andy Bedolli and his team installed a new run of tile and worked on replacing all the tile outlets on the ditch. Hopefully, Andy will be able to get his backhoe out after this big rain...

2010-05-20T21:56:00.002-05:00

Some of our first planted corn.

Dad loading the truck from the bins at Grand Prairie.

No planting this week. Too much rain along with cooler temperatures are still keeping us out of the fields. This week we are hauling corn out of the bins, working around the shop, scouting crops, and wading through the mud trying to get the water off the ponded areas of the fields.

More rain....

2010-05-16T21:41:00.002-05:00

David working ground at the U of I farm.

Bob running the Reel-till chopping up corn stalks left from last summer's tornado.

Since Monday's rains, we have not been able to get back into the fields except for a brief window on Saturday. We tried to plant, but the reside from the tornado corn combined with the damp ground made for poor planting conditions. We decided to work the ground with the Krause Landsman tillage tool and bury more of the remaining residue. The McFarlane Reel-till we are using in the second picture is good for sizing and cutting residue, but if we want to actually level the soil and bury more of the corn stalks we have to use the Landsman. It has rained here most of the day off and on, but the forecast for later this week looks very good with high's in the 80's, breezy, and abundant sunshine - we'll see if we get an opportunity to put the wraps on our 2010 soybean planting.

2010-05-11T18:20:00.002-05:00

Dad planting at Grand Prairie.

Loading the planter at the Daubard 80.

Owen spending his Mother's Day wishing his was out on Grandpa's tractor.

As of this post we have almost two-thirds of our beans planted. We were rained out late yesterday afternoon planting on the Williamsville farm, but we did get 110 acres planted up there in what is is left of the tornado corn. Recent rains brought anywhere from one inch to as much as three and a half inches of rain along with strong winds, lightning and thunder. Most of the corn and the recently planted beans will benefit significantly from the rain. We will resume planting beans again as soon as the weather allows, although the forecast is for more rain later tomorrow.

Spraying & planting soybeans....

2010-05-07T22:23:00.004-05:00

Loading the sprayer at the Stelte field.

Bob spraying the Clearview farm.

We have been busy this week spraying corn and planting soybeans. We have over 95% of the corn sprayed and slightly over half of the soybeans planted. The weather has been very cooperative until the recent cold front brought strong winds which caused us to stop spraying. Generally the corn in our area looks good with fields having uniform emergence; however we are hearing that some of the recently planted fields to our Southeast are struggling to emerge after the heavy rains.

Don't forget Sunday is Mother's Day.....

The Music is Back.....!

2010-05-06T14:16:00.003-05:00

The blog has been updated with a new music selection. It contains a few of the current favorites of the youngest member of Johnson Family Farms. We hope you enjoy!

Done...

2010-05-01T07:02:00.004-05:00

Yesterday afternoon we wrapped up our 2010 corn planting. Last year we completed our corn planting on June 1st - that's an entire month earlier this year... What a change from 2009. Last year we struggled to get the soils to dry enough for us to complete spring tillage and this year the majority of the time we spent trying to conserve moisture during our planting operations. We are happy to have our corn in the ground all in the month of April and hope that this end of April planted corn will pollinate ahead of any hot and dry weather that might occur in July & August. This earlier planting should also help our corn dry down, which allows for a more timely harvest and all other operations that follow.

The majority of our corn is up and looking good. We completed a minor amount of corn spraying this week, but the 30-40 mph winds late in the week put an immediate stop to our spraying. Next, we will begin planting soybeans and continue to work on spraying our corn acres with the first intended pass of herbicide.

Have a great weekend!

The planter rolling across the Doolin field as the sun sets on the town of Ashland.

Filling the planter on the last day with the bulk-seed delivery system.

Sunrise FS applying 20 gallons of 28% ahead of the tillage crew.

What weather....

2010-04-26T18:14:00.003-05:00

A birds-eye view of the planter as seen from the tractor seat.
We apply 3 gallons of 10-34-0 starter fertilizer along with additional zinc to all our corn acres.

Dad making a pass on the University of Illinois Farm - Hunter #3

We also planted our corn test plot during this last stretch of good weather. This year we had 32 entries. Thanks to Jeff Cosner (on the left) who is our local Pioneer Seed Specialist for helping us plant the plot.

The planter rolling across the hills of the Lehmann Farm.

What great weather! For the past 18 days we have been able to be in the fields applying Nh3 and planting corn. We have now completed the vast majority of our corn acres and lack one day of planting before we wrap up our corn acres. Recent rains have brought welcomed precipitation with our farms receiving between 1.0 & 2.0" of rain over the course of the last three days. The rains were good to help germinate the corn seedlings as well as give everyone time to recuperate from the long and productive days in the fields.

Our first planted corn is now up and you can easily row it due to its bright and brilliant color against the dark soil. We hope to wrap up corn planting this week and get as many acres of corn sprayed before the next rain. The early part of this week will be spent performing general maintenance on machinery as well as taking delivery of our soybean seed.

Planting corn...

2010-04-16T22:32:00.005-05:00

Tom & David loading the planter at the Lehmann Farm

Bob working ground on the Robinson 80

It has been a busy two weeks since I last posted. Since my last update we have completed our anhydrous ammonia applications and have begun planting corn. We are quickly approaching the 50% completion level with our corn planting.

This spring and the recent weather have been a welcomed change compared to last year. For the last two years we have started planting corn on today's date and both year's have been cool and on the wetter side. Quite the contrary for this spring - recent warm temperatures and daily 10-20 mph winds have dried out our soils quickly. We are now keeping a close eye on our soil moisture and doing everything within reason to plant our corn seeds in moisture to ensure even emergence.

Back in the fields...

2010-04-03T10:01:00.005-05:00

What great progress we made this week! On Wednesday afternoon we were able to get back in the fields. Two toolbars allowed us to cover many, many acres in this 2.25 day weather window before the rains came again last night. Many long and late hours were spent pulling tanks and operating tractors. We thank all those who kept us running; both with product as well as food. A few corn planters were running in our area, but mostly everyone was out working ground and putting on Nh3.

Typically, we try to apply as much Nh3 as the weather will allow in the fall. Due to the late and wet harvest, almost zero anhydrous ammonia was applied in our area. Once the soils dried enough, everyone was trying to get caught up which caused a strain or bottleneck in the supply system. We pulled tanks from both Sunrise FS in Virginia as well as Lincoln Land FS in both Prentice and New Berlin. Many times there was a waiting line to get your tanks refilled. All things considered, all of our suppliers did a good job of staying ahead of the demand. Only once did we have to stop because we were out of product.

Happy Easter everyone from Johnson Family Farms!

Tom running the CAT beside the shop.

Bob applying Nh3 on the Clearview farm.

The 3 hr. wait at Sunrise FS in Virginia to get anhydrous tanks refilled. The line wrapped around the bins for quite a ways.

2010-03-28T19:05:00.004-05:00

Planting corn on "Ott" Reiken's farm outside of Pleasant Plains, cira early 1980's.

Planting corn in Greene County last spring.

I had hoped that I would be able to post that we have been the fields applying nitrogen and working ground, but a 1" rain on Thursday followed by a 0.5" rain early this morning took care of that. The forecast does look promising for field work to resume later this week as temperatures reach the 60's & 70's.

We were able to get one of the anhydrous ammonia toolbars started on Wednesday, but due to a bad servo-valve, we only got 50 acres completed. However, it is good to have the "bugs" worked out of it so we can cover acres the next time mother nature allows. Since it is not uncommon for farmers in our area to plant this time of year in years past, I thought I would post a few past pictures of our planting operation.

Great weather...

2010-03-20T13:27:00.005-05:00

Great weather again this week allowed us to complete a few more projects. While we were not able to get in the fields, the sunshine is doing a good job of drying the fields. We hope we can miss the rains forecasted for this weekend and possibly get in the fields and begin anhydrous ammonia applications soon.

Installing the new Precision Planting 20/20 "Down-Force" system on the big planter. This system will automatically adjust the down-pressure on each row unit as we travel through the field. We are more concerned with having too much down-pressure and this system also allows the row unit to be lifted; thus dramatically reducing the compression of the soil surrounding the seed trench.

Bob loading the tandem to haul another load to Beardstown.

Bedolli Excavating also arrived this week and began leveling the spoil from last fall's ditch cleaning project at the Williamsville farm.

Trying to forget...

2010-03-13T17:06:00.002-06:00

As we try to forget all the acres of downed corn we harvested this past fall from the tornado, I had to chuckle at these past pictures. Apparently, each decade we "experience" this somewhere on our farm...

Fall 1979 - new shed & new roll-a-cones; ready to tackle downed corn.

PMM Johnson Farm - Fall 1986. This picture is of dad working his way through the downed Pioneer 3377.

Looks familiar doesn't it? Funny how the same technology we used in 1979 we utilized again in 2009. Although the automatic guidance system helped immensely.

Soaking up the sun...

2010-03-06T20:45:00.005-06:00

What a busy week - with the sun finally showing itself the spring projects began. The week's projects began in the shop with installing the new starter fertilizer tank on the planter. Later in the week the projects moved outdoors. Our friends from Precision Drainage were able to work on a tile project on the PMM Johnson farm south of Prentice. They installed two lines, each 1,225' long. They had to pull the tiling machine through two spots due to the hard ground and abundance of water. There was still 3-6" of frost in most places. Today we transported two pieces of machinery from McLean, IL down to our shop. We plan to use these this spring and thought today's weather was a good opportunity to get them moved down and ready to go.

Installing the cradle for the new 600 gal. starter fertilizer tank on the planter.

The 30' MacFarlane "Reel-till" we plan to use on standing corn stalks going back to corn.

A 15-row DMI 28% side-dress toolbar. This will allow us to quickly apply 30-60 additional pounds of nitrogen once the corn has emerged.

Pulling the tiling machine through a tough spot at the PMM Johnson Farm.

More past pictures...

2010-03-01T17:12:00.003-06:00

Since it is now the first of March and we do not have any anhydrous ammonia applied, I thought it would be fitting to share some of our past Nh3 application pictures. The weather here is still cold, but temperatures are forecasted to be on the rise and the snow is almost gone. We hope the weather changes soon so we can get in the fields and begin preparing the soil for this year's crop.

Uncle Bob putting on anhydrous just to the east of our shop. Cira early 1980's.

More fall anhydrous applications during the mid 80's.

Many years ago we used to till the soybean stubble in preparation for the next year's corn crop. We felt turning the soil dark would warm the soil faster in the spring and thus give the corn seedlings quicker emergence. In this early 1980's picture, Uncle Bob is running the Versatile tractor pulling a "Soilsaver" that had a Nh3 "Cold-Flow" system mounted on it which allowed us to combine both the tillage and anhydrous applications.

Pictures from the past...

2010-02-20T10:41:00.003-06:00

Spring 1980 - "The Fleet" which consisted of a John Deere 4630, 4320, & 4840 with triples which worked ground ahead of the planter. Also, if you enlarge the picture and look towards the cab of the tractor on the right you will see a little guy in a red sweatshirt waving at the camera - that would be me. I always seemed to find a way to be at the farm no matter what was going on.

Uncle Bob moldboard plowing on the Gooden Farm.

New machinery....

2010-02-13T11:53:00.005-06:00

This is a picture of my Grandfather's (E.Y. Johnson) first brand new combine. It was a Masey 410 purchased from S&J Equipment in Prentice, which is now Beard Implement. Cira 1968. This picture was taken on one of the first days of harvest that year. This was an usually late harvest for us that year, as we did not start until mid November.

This picture is of my dad's first grain truck; a 1964 GMC.

The picture on the right is before he repainted it and the left is the finished product in 1981.

This week Dad & I had an opportunity to travel to Louisville, Kentucky for the National Farm Machinery Show. It took us over two whole days to cover the 25 plus acres of exhibits under the Kentucky Fairgrounds Exposition roof.

Progress...

2010-02-06T10:40:00.002-06:00

One of the first Oliver combines sold in our area by Adkins Implement Company, Prentice, Illinois. This machine had a 10' soybean platform; picture taken sometime between 1945 & 1950. This was owned by John Thomas "Tommy" Adkins. Notice the lack of safety shields and the very thin stand of soybeans...

This picture was taken the same day as the picture above. An Oliver 70 tractor with an 8' platform on the combine with a canvas "draper" type conveyor. This was owned by neighbor Fred Hoagland and driven by Harold "Buck" Hoagland in this picture.

2010-01-30T15:21:00.004-06:00

More pictures of our family's farming heritage.

Harvesting ear corn south of Prentice.

A "Johnny Popper" amongst all the Oliver tractors...

This past week I traveled to Chicago where I was a guest of Bayer Crop Science at the annual Top Producer Seminar. It was a great opportunity to strategize with old friends and expand our network with new producers throughout Illinois as well as North America. The picture below is of Jerry Gulke giving the group (600 producers) his perspective on the coming months of the commodity markets. Thank you to Terry Sorgenfrey & Eric Ifft at Bayer Crop Science for making the opportunity possible.

A look at the past...

2010-01-24T09:39:00.006-06:00

This many pickers running together was very uncommon at the time. The pictures are of our Adkins side of the family who also owned an Oliver dealership at the time in Prentice. This was their harvest crew with all Oliver tractors except for one Deere (I believe) in the middle.

We believe this picture was taken at the old Adkins home,
which is where Dale & Donna Edge currently reside.

Since this time of year rarely allows for any exciting pictures of current farm work we decided to share pictures of our family's farming heritage. These pictures show the true measure of how much production agriculture has changed over the years.

Check back weekly for new pictures.

Happy New Year!

2009-12-31T07:50:00.001-06:00

We would like to wish you a Happy New Year from Johnson Family Farms! We wish you and your family a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2010!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T08:54:00.003-06:00

Working outside...

2009-12-23T06:08:00.003-06:00

Newly discovered tile @ the Williamsville farm

Where the "bridge" used to be...

Looking West towards Dan Gieseke & the trackhoe

Dan at work trimming the ditch bank

"Brent's" next project...

Our work continues as we try to wrap up 2009. We have been busy washing and putting away more of the harvest equipment as well as meeting with accountants and getting the remainder of our 2009 finances in order. As well, Sunrise FS has been spreading fertilizer on the Foster farms around Ashland.

Bedolli Excavating has wrapped up the ditch-cleaning project on the Williamsville farm. The ditch will now be able to handle almost double the amount of water it did previously. Not to mention that they discovered eight new tile lines that were plugged with dirt right at the bank that we now have running; nice surprise! They also removed two huge pieces of concrete buried in the ditch bank that appears to have been part of a bridge structure at one time. I also got an opportunity to learn what a "Missouri crossing" was for the first time...

More to do...

2009-12-17T07:16:00.003-06:00

Dan Gieseke operating the track hoe.

The new ditch bank vs. the old one.

Notice the color difference of the grass on the ditch bank.
The water level has dropped at least 2' since the start of the project.

While we finished harvest last Tuesday morning, we have stayed busy performing maintenance on the fall machinery and various other jobs. We even started the harvest crew back up and went to work helping a friend wrap up their harvest. Yesterday we finished the final 30 acres remaining for our neighbor and today we will move the machinery home we hope for the last time this season.

To-date the ground has remained too frozen to chisel plow. We are still hopeful that we can get in and till the remaining 230 acres around Ashland which we intend to grow corn on corn on.

Bedolli Excavating has arrived at the Williamsville farm to begin our ditch cleaning project. This project is a partnership with the adjoining land owner to widen and deepen 1.5 miles of drainage ditch. As you can see from the pictures, the work they have already completed has lowered the water level by a couple feet.

Harvest 2009 is Over...

2009-12-09T17:20:00.003-06:00

Adjusting the downed corn reel on a very cold morning...

The remaining corn at the Williamsville farm was all as flat as the corn in this picture...

Unloading on-the-go...notice how dirty the corn was.

Just as the rain and winds arrived late yesterday morning we finally wrapped up our 2009 harvest. A big thank you goes out to all of our employees and family for all your dedication, hard work and patience this harvest season!

We were fortunate to get all the machinery and trucks moved back home to Ashland and parked indoors before the temperatures dropped and the rain changed over to ice and snow. It is a good feeling to wrap up harvest, but we still have tillage that we would like to do if given the chance.

Thank you again to everyone who helped us this fall; whether it be driving a truck, running a grain cart, or delivering meals to the fields to feed our hungry crew - your help was truly appreciated!

The Holiday Season...

2009-12-04T20:06:00.006-06:00

Harvesting the last of the "standing" corn at Williamsville today

In celebration of all of the 'standing' corn being out of the fields, we have added a little holiday music to the blog! We hope you enjoy!