There is rarely anything that makes me miss Kansas City more than family, friends, and BBQ. However, not being able to be in Kansas City when the Royals were in the World Series was one of them. It has been great being able to listen to the Royals when I was harvesting corn and I hope that Blue October can happen every year.
Go Royals!
-Royally Blue Ryan
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Wheat Watch: Season 4 - Planting and The Trigo Tango
This season we were able to plant our wheat into moisture! Which is a
welcome change from the last few years. After planting about half of
our acres we actually had too much rain. I know, I know, make up your
mind you grumpy farmer.
The rain that did the most damage came very hard and fast and it washed out a lot of our wheat and created standing water lagoons that drowned our wheat seed in some places. On a positive note, my dog Brisket was happy to help me set my drill and test plant with me.
Another thing that affected our wheat planting season was it rained right after we planted and then it got really hot for a couple of days. This caused the top couple of inches of soil to form a hard crust. The crust stops the coleoptile from breaking through the soil and kills the plant before it can reach the surface. The coleoptile is a spear like growth that comes out of the wheat seed that allows the wheat to break through the soil. When seed companies develop new types of wheat a long coleoptile length is a trait that is sought after.
You can see below where we had a hard rain after planting. It caused a crust to form and it affected the amount of plants that came through the soil. Farmers call this plant population and look "the stand" of a field. You can see that below is a poor stand... (Sad trombone sound). A better stand would be the bottom picture.
After having these rains we had to replant some wheat. I started to call this little dance the Trigo Tango. We plant, it rains, we replant, it rains. 1, 2, 3... 1, 2, 3...
-Trigo Tangoer Ryan
The rain that did the most damage came very hard and fast and it washed out a lot of our wheat and created standing water lagoons that drowned our wheat seed in some places. On a positive note, my dog Brisket was happy to help me set my drill and test plant with me.
Another thing that affected our wheat planting season was it rained right after we planted and then it got really hot for a couple of days. This caused the top couple of inches of soil to form a hard crust. The crust stops the coleoptile from breaking through the soil and kills the plant before it can reach the surface. The coleoptile is a spear like growth that comes out of the wheat seed that allows the wheat to break through the soil. When seed companies develop new types of wheat a long coleoptile length is a trait that is sought after.
You can see below where we had a hard rain after planting. It caused a crust to form and it affected the amount of plants that came through the soil. Farmers call this plant population and look "the stand" of a field. You can see that below is a poor stand... (Sad trombone sound). A better stand would be the bottom picture.
After having these rains we had to replant some wheat. I started to call this little dance the Trigo Tango. We plant, it rains, we replant, it rains. 1, 2, 3... 1, 2, 3...
-Trigo Tangoer Ryan
Sunday, August 31, 2014
The Fable of Fireball
The farmer's old pickup was rusted and used
Many years on the farm had left it abused
The farmer had put it off for long enough he knew
His pickup was too old it and was time to buy new
The farmer's wife was so happy and so full of glee
The farmer hadn't bought a brand new pickup since 1983
The new pickup he bought was red as a maple in fall
But what should they call it? How about fireball!
The Farmer was happy, the pickup was great
Who would have though it had such a terrible fate
It was late spring and the wheat was ready to reap
The farmer's time was anything but cheap
So he ventured out on a field of wheat stubble so tall
And turned his pickup into - you guessed it - A REAL FIREBALL
Something that should be done to keep you out of trouble
Learn from the farmer - don't drive your vehicle in dry wheat stubble
This unfortunately really happened to my Father-In-Law. It was only the second new pickup he ever bought for the farm. He owned it for about a year then it went out in a blaze of glory.
-Fabulist Ryan
Sunday, July 27, 2014
Wheat Watch: Season 3 - Harvest Edition
This year's wheat harvest seemed like it took forever. The best time to harvest wheat is when the humidity is low and the
temperature is high. Typically this isn't a problem in Western Kansas in July. However, this year we had a little more than a week of cool wet weather right in the
middle of harvest. So what would have taken 12 days ended up taking about three weeks.
The farmers here will tell you that "wheat has 9 lives". If that's true most of our wheat used about 8.5 of them. Drought, erratic temperatures, and hail were the reason for most of the wheat attrition. The funny thing is that there is always one field that stands out and does surprisingly well.
This was the first year that I wasn't on the combine during harvest. My new job was to manage the harvest and harvest crew. So instead of being responsible for one combine, I was responsible for three combines, two grain carts, two semi trucks, and several third party trucking companies.
My first harvest on the farm I told my father-in-law that I had a new job title for him: Manager of Chaos. I didn't realize how appropriate of a job title that was until this year.
When harvesting with three combines there is always something that is broke. So basically my day consisted of running from one combine to the next and fixing things. It was a lot like juggling; fix a problem throw the combine back into the field and wait for the next one to come back.
When there wasn't a combine to fix there were wheat load tickets and truckers to manage.
My favorite harvest quote was from a trucker that had just gotten several big loads of wheat and it was the end of the cutting day. He was from Tennessee so think thick southern accent - "Man. I'm getting me a shower TONIGHT!"
-Combine Squadron Commander/Assistant Manager of Chaos Ryan
P.S. - No Dwight. Not Assistant to the manager of Chaos...
The farmers here will tell you that "wheat has 9 lives". If that's true most of our wheat used about 8.5 of them. Drought, erratic temperatures, and hail were the reason for most of the wheat attrition. The funny thing is that there is always one field that stands out and does surprisingly well.
This was the first year that I wasn't on the combine during harvest. My new job was to manage the harvest and harvest crew. So instead of being responsible for one combine, I was responsible for three combines, two grain carts, two semi trucks, and several third party trucking companies.
My first harvest on the farm I told my father-in-law that I had a new job title for him: Manager of Chaos. I didn't realize how appropriate of a job title that was until this year.
When harvesting with three combines there is always something that is broke. So basically my day consisted of running from one combine to the next and fixing things. It was a lot like juggling; fix a problem throw the combine back into the field and wait for the next one to come back.
When there wasn't a combine to fix there were wheat load tickets and truckers to manage.
My favorite harvest quote was from a trucker that had just gotten several big loads of wheat and it was the end of the cutting day. He was from Tennessee so think thick southern accent - "Man. I'm getting me a shower TONIGHT!"
-Combine Squadron Commander/Assistant Manager of Chaos Ryan
P.S. - No Dwight. Not Assistant to the manager of Chaos...
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Combine Combined
Getting three combines ready for harvest is an interesting kind of chaos. It is like when you start to clean your basement and you just keep finding more stuff you need to clean. Only instead of cleaning it's replacing parts and instead of cleaning supplies it's $100 ball bearings other expensive stuff. So by the time we were done we completely rebuilt the front end of two of our combines.
When "cleaning" this combine we found a crack in one of the wheels. So we had to take it off so we could weld it up, and put it back on.
After ordering a ton of parts, then I made it my job to become the parts librarian. So after some dewy decimation, I had them organized and ready to install.
All in all I think we replaced over 50 ball bearings, 10 chains, 5 belts and a bunch of other things with green paint on them.
-Combine Part Librarian Ryan
After ordering a ton of parts, then I made it my job to become the parts librarian. So after some dewy decimation, I had them organized and ready to install.
-Combine Part Librarian Ryan
Monday, June 9, 2014
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Godzilla the Strip Tilla
This year before we started planting corn we prepared our fields in a different way. Instead of using a disc and tilling our entire field we used a strip tiller. A strip tiller is an implement that only tills "strips" about 8 inches wide through the field. The strip tiller also has metal bars called ripper shanks that go deep into the ground and break up any compaction in the subsoil.
The benefits of strip tilling are huge. When tilling up the ground the old way the the disc had to till the entire field three times and then fertilizer had to be applied with a four operation. With Strip tilling all those operations are competed in one step. This equates to substantial savings on diesel fuel, time and wear on equipment.
There are other benefits to strip tilling that we are looking forward to realizing. Only tilling the soil one time means less moisture is lost during the tillage process. There is also moisture savings throughout the growing season. By leaving crop residue from the previous season on top of the non tilled ground, less moisture evaporates from the soil.
So what's the downside? In order to be able to strip till you must have an extremely accurate GPS guidance system. After all the strip tilling has been completed then the corn seeds have to be planted directly in the center of the 8 inch strip that was tilled. This requires accuracy, which is expensive. The other requirement of strip tilling is HORSEPOWER. A good rule to follow is that it takes 25 horsepower per strip tiller row. So for an 8 row strip tiller you need a tractor with at least 200 horsepower. Like accuracy, horsepower is also expensive.
Below is an example of one of our strip tilled fields. You can see the crop residue on the top of the non tilled strips and you can see where the corn is planted right down the middle of the tilled strip.
-Farmer Ryan
P.S. - You might have guessed from the title, I named our strip tiller Godzilla.
The benefits of strip tilling are huge. When tilling up the ground the old way the the disc had to till the entire field three times and then fertilizer had to be applied with a four operation. With Strip tilling all those operations are competed in one step. This equates to substantial savings on diesel fuel, time and wear on equipment.
There are other benefits to strip tilling that we are looking forward to realizing. Only tilling the soil one time means less moisture is lost during the tillage process. There is also moisture savings throughout the growing season. By leaving crop residue from the previous season on top of the non tilled ground, less moisture evaporates from the soil.
So what's the downside? In order to be able to strip till you must have an extremely accurate GPS guidance system. After all the strip tilling has been completed then the corn seeds have to be planted directly in the center of the 8 inch strip that was tilled. This requires accuracy, which is expensive. The other requirement of strip tilling is HORSEPOWER. A good rule to follow is that it takes 25 horsepower per strip tiller row. So for an 8 row strip tiller you need a tractor with at least 200 horsepower. Like accuracy, horsepower is also expensive.
Below is an example of one of our strip tilled fields. You can see the crop residue on the top of the non tilled strips and you can see where the corn is planted right down the middle of the tilled strip.
-Farmer Ryan
P.S. - You might have guessed from the title, I named our strip tiller Godzilla.
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