Snow Day

Every time a farmer sees a blizzard coming through, he smiles to himself and dreams of higher yields for his crop the following spring.  Every time anyone with livestock sees a blizzard coming through they pray for it to miss them.  Being that we have livestock and farm I guess I was smiling and praying during our 36 hour blizzard last February.

We had just moved half of our cattle to corn stalks about 10 miles away from our farm when we saw the forecast for the blizzard coming in.  Most of the time when we see this type of forecast we take it with a grain of salt because the weather service tends to be wrong in this regard.  Sorry weatherman relatives and friends...  This time however the blizzard was bad; 12 inches of snow and consistent 50 mph winds with gusts as high as 70mph.

When the blizzard was going full blast and I was stuck in my house I spent a lot of my day trying to not think about what was going on outside.  When the weather is that bad there is nothing that can be done for the cattle.  We had already done everything we could trying to prepare for the bad weather and we hoped it was enough.

The day after the blizzard was over I was ready to get out of the house and inspect the damage.  So I promptly got stuck in a snow drift.  I actually figured I wouldn't make it through but how do you know the limits unless you go too far sometimes?  I was planning on using the tractor we had parked at my house to pull my pickup out of the drift but when I tried to start my tractor the belts that power the water pump on the tractor engine broke because they were frozen together.  Hooray!

The good news was that my father-in-law had three tractors and a pay-loader plugged in "in case we need them".  We plug in our tractors because they have engine block heaters that keep the diesel engine warm and it makes it easier to start in colder temperatures.  So, if you got excited about a Tesla plug in tractor we don't have one of those... Yet.  The best part of the blizzard was when we actually made it to the field with our cattle and found them healthy and inside the fence!

On March 12th I've officially been on the farm for 4 years.  I've been telling people that I've completed my bachelors of farm management and now I'm starting on my graduate degree.  This is also the first year I'm primarily managing the farm and it is as fun and overwhelming as it was when I first started on the farm.

- Officially the Manager of Chaos Ryan

One Billion...

Us humans have trouble comprehending a billion of anything and hearing that we could win a billion dollars in the lottery sounds pretty cool.  So what would a billion of something look like?  I don't have a billion dollars to show you but I do have LOTS of seed wheat.

 

Seed wheat comes in many different varieties and each variety's seed is a little different in size.  Farmers like to look at this size difference in terms of seed per pound.  The variety that I am going to use in my example is Winter Hawk.  Winter Hawk has approximately 18,000 seeds per pound.  18,000 seeds per pound times 60 pounds in a bushel gets us 1,080,000 seeds per bushel.  On our farm we have a 1964 Chevy tandem axle truck that can hold approximately 500 bushels of wheat.

500 bushels of wheat times 1,080,000 seeds equals 540,000,000.  So a couple truck loads of seed wheat is a over a billion kernels of wheat.  Being by this truck has more visual impact than just seeing pictures but now when I think about a billion of anything I think about it terms of 1964 Tandems.  So when I heard the lottery could be up to 1.5 billion dollars I thought of three trucks of wheat.

-Seed Wheat Billionaire Ryan

P.S. - Every time I wrote the word billion in this post I heard Dr. Evil from Austin Powers in my head. 

Wheat Watch: Season 4 - A Day in the Harvest Life

There were a lot of ups and downs during this wheat season.  We planted our wheat and it came up great.  Then we had basically no moisture during the winter time and a lot of our wheat was winter killed.  Then we had about 13 inches of rain in a two month period this spring, next because of the moisture we had issues with a fungus called rust.  We didn't really have any idea what our crop was going to be like when we actually got to run our combines through it.  Below is a typical day in my life during wheat harvest. 

5:40 A.M. -  I wake up before my alarm goes off and I lay there and think about things that need to get done in order to get everyone going for the day.  I soon realize it is a waste of time to try to go back to sleep and I get up to brush my teeth.  About the only thing that breaks my mind away from harvest is the thought of coffee - the sweet nectar of the sleepless.

5:55 A.M. - Where is the coffee...?  Oh, my wife was up all night with our infant son so I'm on my own.  I stumble to the coffee machine and start making a double, make that triple, espresso.  I eat a bowl of cereal and contemplate how many acres I could get done in a day if EVERYTHING went as planed.

6:00 A.M. - I check the National Weather Service website for the forecast for day and the rest of the week.  Chances of rain tonight.  Wonderful.  Typically I would be happy about rain but all rain does during harvest is slow you down.

6:20 A.M. - I let my dog out of her pen and head for my pickup.

6:45 A.M. - I arrive at the field where we left our combines the night before and start to look them over.  There are 64 grease zerks on each combine and in order to reach them all we have to spend 3 hours climbing around all over them.  Typically that job falls to the newest guy on the harvest crew.  Mainly because it's the worst job and if you are not careful you end up with a bunch of grease all over you.

6:51 A.M. - I start pulling the safety shields off one of the combines and I notice that there is a belt that runs a major portion of the combine that is literally hanging on by a thread.  I call my father-in-law and send him on a part locate and procure mission.

7:00 A.M. - Our harvest crew starts to arrive and the new guy is handed the electric grease gun.  He LOVES to grease!

7:07 A.M. - Our combine service vehicle and fuel trailer arrives and we start fueling our combines in the field. 

7:10 A.M. - Once everyone has arrived and is working on their daily tasks, I start to check off the NASA launch list of things that need to be operational before we start.  Belts and chains need to be tight and in good shape.  There are six tires on each combine and they all need to be at a specific air pressure.  Engine Oil, transmission oil and hydraulic oil levels all need to be correct.  Windows need to be cleaned.

 

7:12 A.M. - I don't think a triple espresso is enough today.  I remember my wife told me about a coworker that used to order a quad americano.  I'm not sure what that is but it sounds like it has a lot of caffeine.  I make a mental note to look into that.

7:35 A.M. - One of our guys starts taking off the bad belt.  Of course this belt is behind three other belts and will take 30 minutes just to take the old one off.  I dislike you John Deere combine design engineer.

8:00 A.M. - The combines are fueled and we need to use our portable air compressor to blow out all the air filters and radiators.  Wheat harvest is a very dusty enterprise.  This causes the radiators and air filters to plug up.  So everyday we blow out three radiators per combine and three air filters per combine.

8:17 A.M. - I check the weather forecast again but this time for the relative humidity.  It is still pretty high at 67 percent.  At a higher retaliative humidity the wheat straw is tougher and is harder for the combine to process. In order for the wheat to be ready to cut I want to see the humidity below 50% but really the lower the better. 

9:11 A.M. - Father-in-law arrives with the replacement belt and we start to put it on.

9:16 A.M. - At this point the new guy is wearing more grease than he has actually got in the combine.  He tells me that he's done.  I start verifying that they have all be greased; I take my job as the Zerk Czar seriously. 

9:20 A.M. - They haven't all been greased and he gets to start in on the zerks he missed. YAY!

9:30 A.M. - Relative humidity is at 59%

9:32 A.M. - New guy says he's done again.  He's not.

9:41 A.M. - The new guy is finally done greasing.  He has been tared with grease and feathered with wheat straw but now the combines are greased to my Czarist's delight. 

 

9:45 A.M - We start all three combines to allow the engines to warm up.  Diesel engines require a little bit of warm up time to ensure that all the parts are warmed up and well lubricated. 

9:50 A.M. - We start up the combine harvest machines and soak all the roller chains with used oil.  We've found that this extends the life of the chains dramatically.

10:00 A.M - All three combine operators are in their combines and are ready to start cutting wheat.

10:10 A.M - Relative humidity is at 43%.

10:15 A.M - The combines are rolling through the wheat field and I get in the tractor and start operating the grain cart.  When we have three combines going in good wheat the grain cart never stops moving.  No rest for the wicked.

 

11:35 A.M. - We've been running for a little over an hour and its time to eat a snack while I unload the grain cart on a semi.

3:45 P.M. - I commend myself for getting all three of these combines ready before harvest.  They are running GREAT!

3:46 P.M - Two combines are broke down.

3:50 P.M. - Investigation ensues.

4:30 P.M. - I figure out what is wrong with #3 combine.  The header sickle section is broke and I fix the break with a metal splice that splints the two pieces of sickle together. 

4:45 P.M. - My father-in-law is looking at combine #2.  I start to walk over to see if I can help and as I'm getting close, all I see is him running to his pickup yelling something about "GETTING IT ORDERED BEFORE THEY CLOSE!".   After the dust settles from him driving away, I look to see what he is talking about.  One of the main augers on the bottom of the combine just broke in two.  I briefly consider the fact that this is going to cost a lot of money and we will probably be down until next Wednesday while we wait for the parts for this combine.

4:47 P.M. - EXCEDRIN!

5:00 P.M. - The header is broke again on combine number 3.  The splice fixed the sickle for a total of 12 minutes.

5:20 P.M. - I get a call from my Father-in-law.  Surprisingly, the John Deere dealership had the auger to replace the broken one on combine #2.  It costs 600 bucks.  I consider all the things that I would like to spend $600 on rather than an auger for the combine.  600 cups of coffee perhaps?

5:35 P.M. - My father-in-law finds out that the dealership did have the auger but "sorry" the bearings and other parts needed to replace the auger are in another dealership a hour away. 

 6:00 P.M. - After trying to splice the #3 combine sickle a second time and having a second failure we are going to need to do some serious farm engineering or order some parts.  It's a Saturday night and we've been running hard for 6 days.  It's best to give my sleep deprived, caffeine addled brain a rest before engineering a fix on Monday morning.  I send #3's operator home.

6:21 P.M. - I'm back in the grain cart keeping my one remaining combine going.

8:50 P.M. - The sun is starting to go down and it's time to shut it down.  In Western Kansas when the sun goes down the temperature almost immediately drops 20 degrees.  Cool temperatures don't go well with cutting wheat.

9:00 P.M. - We top off the last truck of the night.  

9:20 P.M. - We start to move all the machinery that needs repairs to our shop. 

9:30 P.M. - After hauling everyone to their vehicles and double checking that everything is turned off we are done for the day.  

9:45 P.M. - I eat dinner and I'm pretty much worthless at this point.  We don't harvest on Sundays on our farm so I'll be happy to get some rest the next day and I'll start making a plan on how to get our 2 combines fixed.

10:20 P.M. - I'm out cold.

I have to admit the day I've written about is about was the craziest one of harvest.  Most of the days we didn't have as many problems and we ran well.  After all the ups and downs that we had this season, our yields turned out to be the best we've had since I've been back.  One of the best things about farming is the satisfaction of producing a good crop.

-Zerk Czar Ryan

I'd like to dedicate this post and harvest to my Grandpa Marvin who passed away this year.  Marvin was a wheat custom cutter for years and started in Texas and cut wheat "all the way up to Canada" 10 times.  I can only imagine what kind of crazy harvest days Marvin had when he was harvesting wheat for 6 months at a time.

Marvin we miss you and I wish I could tell you about this year's harvest!

Just What The Doctor Ordered

This year we tried out variable rate prescriptions for applying fertilizer.  At the beginning of the year we grid sampled some of our irrigated acres in order to try to solve some problems we have been having.  Grid sampling is the process of collecting soil samples in an organized fashion.  A GPS system is used to create a grid and will guide the user to the appropriate location to take a sample.  The sample is then tagged with the longitude and latitude of the sample soil and sent to a test lab.

The lab then runs tests on the soil fertility for each sample.  All the samples are then complied and used to create a fertility map.  A fertilizer prescription is created in order to address the fertility deficiencies throughout the field.  After the prescription is created it is then loaded into our guidance system.  The guidance system then communicates with the strip tiller, via a rate controller, the amount of fertilizer it is dispensing at every point in the field.  Below is a picture of the variable rate map that we created.  Each color change in the map represents a change in the amount of fertilizer being applied.  Once I started creating the map I decided I wanted to do a test strip in the middle of the field.  I wanted to test how much of an increase in yield I would see with an increase in the fertilizer rate.  Now that we have yield mapping on our combines I can view the results as soon as we pick the corn in the field.

We are just in the beginning phases of using variable rate fertilizer but in the future I would like to vary the rate of seed population, fertilizer, and the rate of irrigation throughout our farm.  Using variable rate applications will allow our farm to be more efficient in its use of input costs. 

-Field Pharmacist Ryan

Calving Season

Calves have been dropping like rain drops on our farm over the last month.  We have lots of little babies running around and that's one of the funniest things to watch on the farm.

Fun Farm Fact: Cows have cow friends.  Most of the time when you see one cow you'll see her with the same group of cows almost every time.  The best part is that when the cows have young calves the Moms baby sit for each other.  You can find one Momma cow with 4 or 5 calves around her when you get close to their babies the other Moms come back to make sure their baby is OK.

-Rancher Ryan

Wheat Watch: Season 4: Episode 2 - WINTER KILL

Winter kill might sound like a bad horror film but it's actually what happened to some of our wheat.  It occurs when the ground temperature drops below freezing in the root zone of the wheat plant. 

In a typical year with wetter soils the ground insulates the wheat.  When the soil lacks moisture the insulation value goes down which leaves the wheat more susceptible to winter kill.  Quick temperature changes can also be a factor in the amount of damage.  If there is a very mild fall and then a cold snap hits, the wheat doesn't have time to build hardiness to handle the cold temperatures.

As my father-in-law and I were looking at some of our fields he said that sometimes as a farmer all you can do is just close your eyes and hope for the best. 

-Sightless and Hopeful Farmer Ryan

Farmerversary

I became a farmer exactly three years ago today.  It's funny to think back about how green I was when I started: I didn't know how to drive a tractor, I had never worked with cattle and I'd only backed up a trailer one time (unsuccessfully). 

One of the most important things I've learned in the last three years is that if you have a chance to try something new - DO IT!  It is amazing the things you that you will learn when you are outside of your comfort zone.

-Farmer Ryan