Harvesting Organic Corn: Recap of 2022

 

 

The corn (Organic Viking Seed variety O.58-85P from Albert Lea Seed) was planted 33,000 seeds/acre, 2.5 inches deep, on 6/1/22.

I have a Deere 9560sts combine with a 693 corn head that has the Calmer stalk chopping rolls in it. 

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The yield looks a little lower than average, around 125 bushels/acre, but I won't know total yield/acre until I get the final settlement statements from the buyer.  

• UPDATED to say that the statements show the corn had a test weight of 52.5 lbs/bushel and was at 20% moisture.  They pay me $11 for a bushel weighing 56 pounds at 15.5% moisture. So there were deductions from the gross amount I got from the buyer, as I was selling him corn that didn't make the spec.
  

To give you some way to make sense of this, last year, on a different parcel, we got about 160 bushel/acre. A couple of my conventional/chemical neighbors have told me their yields were down about 25% this year, due mostly, in their opinion, to lack of timely rain. (The average yield reported by conventional/chemical farmers in Polk County, WI for 2021 was 159 bu/acre. I seem to remember that the average organic yield for the county was around 120 bu/acre.)

Another thing that could have affected my yield was the fact that I couldn't get last years red clover cover crop terminated soon enough. Due to heavy spring rains, the lime and turkey litter couldn't be spread into the standing clover in a timely manner, causing the tillage pass that kills the clover to be delayed until right before I planted the corn. I've been told that unless the clover is killed at least 3 weeks prior to planting the corn, the exudates (?) in the dying clover will suppress the emerging corn plants.

Some relevant numbers:

• One bushel of corn weighs 56 lbs. 
• An acre has 43,560 square feet, the same as the area of a square 208 ft by 208 ft.  
• There are 2.47 acres per hectare

Using the above, the yield of 125 bushels/acre = 7.9 tonnes/hectare, if I did the math right.

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There are a few foxtail, pigweed, lambsquarters, and velvetleaf in the endrows, but overall, the weeds look under control. 

I was only able to get two semi trucks a day here, as they are in high demand this time of year. Each truck trailer will hold about 1100 bushels (weighing 61,000 lbs/28,000 kg), that comes off of a little less than 8 acres (approximately 3.25 hectares) of corn, so it took a while to get the 90 odd acres harvested.  Ultimately we filled 11 trailers with the corn.

I pay to have the corn delivered to the buyer, Cashton Farm Supply in Cashton, WI, about 175 miles away.  All things considered (price, currently $11/bushel; distance that I have to truck it; ability to take wet corn, i.e. above 15% moisture) they are the best buyer of organic corn that I've found. 

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The combine engine de-rating fault codes didn't happen again, so we were able to get the corn all combined without too much trouble from the combine. 

The 3 codes I have:

#1  -  AOO 676 05

#2  -  AOO 1569 31

#3   -  AOO 412 00

Basically all three are related to high temperature sensors or actual high temps in either the coolant or the exhaust manifold.

The combine will need to be serviced by the dealer next spring/early summer, when they can hopefully figure out what is going on.

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On the last day of combining the tractor, a Case 7140, that we were using to pull the grain cart stopped working. We think it's a problem with the fuel system. Fortunately we were able to rent a big enough tractor from a neighbor that we could use to pull the grain cart. The Case is still out in the field and will have to be hauled into the dealership to get fixed. I was thinking about selling that tractor (and replacing it with something like a Deere 8410) prior to this event and I'll pursue that further this winter. 

Prior to starting combining, there was about 5" of snow on the ground that started to melt due to warm temps. By the last day of combining there were some wet spots that I had to avoid with the combine for fear of getting stuck. Because of that I had to leave a small amount of corn unharvested.

Next spring we'll work on making that equipment crossing field entrance ramp, shown in the second video, less steep. A couple loads of gravel should do the trick. Once that's done the semi's can get directly into, and more importantly, out of the field without worrying too much about getting stuck.

This is the last of the major work this season. After we were done I blew everything out with the leaf blower (residual grain in the equipment attracts rodents who chew on wires) and then drove the combine and grain cart home, just ahead of the first major snow storm of the year. I was able to get everything put away in the sheds and the doors shut just in time.

Combining Weedy Beans

A brief summary of how we got to this point: 

Viking Organic O.1202N beans (with a RM 1.2) , planted (a little late) 160k seeds/acre on 6/17/22.

Damping off/fungus left me with a poor stand of bean plants. Then equipment breakdowns and weather made it impossible to blind cultivate in a timely manner. Result = lots of 5 ft tall weeds (mainly pigweed and lambsquarters) in all the rows plus very few beans.  No weeds in between rows because I could row cultivate.

I originally thought the bin would be done in time so that I could screen the weed seeds out after combining them, but it's being delayed for lack of a few critical parts. So the weed seeds will come back. About 3/4 of my beans are like this. The last 1/4 are fine, as they didn't have disease issues and I was able to cultivate them on time. 

On the first few passes, the feederhouse of the combine, a Deere 9560sts with a 625F head, was plugging up. I ended up, on the advice of a New Ag Talk forum farmer "Mr. Red/Green", taking out the upper stripper plates (Deere # H203049, part # 14 in this schematic - https://partscatalog.deere.com/jdrc/s... While not completely perfect, with those two plates removed I could go about 40 acres before having to clean out the partially plugged up sprockets. 

 

Test Run: Combining Corn

With all the repairs on the header and combine finally finished and the corn drying down, we decided to do a test run. Aside from verifying that all the new parts and repairs were meshing properly, it was a chance to set the combine up to give a clean grain sample as well as making sure it was completely chopping up the stalks and leaves. 

 

Once I had some shelled corn I took it to the local elevator where they tested it for moisture - its at 25.4%.  While the buyer, a feed mill, will use propane to dry it down to about 15% so they can use it and without spoiling, I end up paying for that drying at least two ways: the mill charges me a fee, per point of moisture removed, to get it down to 15%,  and also as extra trucking to ship all that excess water down to Cashton Farm Specialties (the buyer).  A good explanation of those costs and risks is here.

I'd like to have the moisture be under 20% before we start combining. That will probably take about a week of decent weather so the wind and sun can dry it down; the forecast calls for a few days of rain in the next 10 days so we'll have to wait and see. Hopefully the rain/snow will hold off for a while. 

This organic corn is going to be used as animal feed. In the future we might grow for the "food grade" market, like we did with the wheat, however selling into the food market is a bit more complicated. It would require me to be able to dry the grain myself, and then store it in a dedicated grain bin after drying. The costs of building that infrastructure are fairly high, especially considering that I can sell "wet" feed corn with a minimal cost/loss of revenue.

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What I've grown can be eaten by people, it just takes some work.

Ready for Harvest: Calmer Stalk Rolls are Installed on Deere 693 Corn Head

I've spent a fair amount of time rebuilding the corn head. I bought it, used, about 4 months ago. One of the first things we did was decide to replace the worn out stalk rolls with Calmer rolls, a fairly expensive upgrade. One of the main benefits of the new rolls is that they'll chop up the old corn stalks so that the following year there won't be so much residue that will plug up my row cultivating.

Before putting in the new rolls we stripped the head down and identified, then repaired/replaced, worn parts. We decided that the Calmer sprockets and gathering chains weren't worth the extra $1000/row. Time will tell; in the meantime we'll use what you see below.

In addition to the things I mentioned in the above video, I did (for the first time) an aluminum stick weld repair on a broken bracket. I believe that bracket, which holds the poly snouts in place where they join the tool bar, was broken as the same time when the last row unit was bent, when the previous owner ran into something (a rock?).

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I was happy with how the aluminum stick weld repair turned out. We'll see if it holds up after I run the combine for a while. It's not a key structural part of the head.

In front of my finger, on the left, is a nut I welded onto the broken off stub of the hex head flat drive screw that used to be in the spot where the newly installed, and silver, screw is now in place. It's just behind the new nut and slightly under the gathering chain. Prior to welding, the nut was exactly the same as the untouched nut on the right. I stick welded through the nut into the top of the broken off screw. The heat introduced by the weld helped to loosen the threads and I was able to put a wrench on the welded nut and back out the broken off screw.

I just have a few small things to adjust, and grease, and then the combine is all ready to go. The corn, approximately 100 acres that will fill about 15 semi trailers (each holding ~60,000 lbs of grain), is just about dry enough to harvest. 

The weather is favorable for the next 10 days, so starting in a week we hope to be able to get it all combined and trucked down to Cashton Farm Supply over 3-4 days, where it will be ground and blended to be ultimately sold by CFS as organic chicken feed.

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When I had birds up here I would buy CFS feed in 40 lb bags at the local co-op. It costs about 10% more than the standard, Purina, chicken feed. But.... when you open a bag of each the first thing you notice is the smell - The CFS smells like freshly ground corn/polenta. I've said before that it smells good enough to eat. The Purina smells about the same as dog food, vaguely chemical.  Another point on the economics is while corn makes up a substantial portion of the feed, I as an organic producer get twice the price for each bushel I sell, compared to a conventional/chemical corn grower. As I said before, the retail price is only 10% higher for organic chicken feed. Something to think about for any of you out there who aren't organic.

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I use my Huawei Mate SE phone to take all the videos and pics seen on the site. Several months ago the battery swelled up causing the screen to crack. I bought replacement parts on eBay and got the phone working again. Couldn't have done it without YouTube. 

Unfortunately it looks like I can't embed the video on the site. If you're interested go directly to the video, linked here. I'd never had a phone apart before - they're amazing pieces of equipment.

Before Wheat Harvest: Repairs to Deere 625F Bean/Grain Header and EZ Trail Header Cart

Many of the problems that we face are analogous to the "Fox, chicken, and a bag of feed" puzzle, in that the practical steps leading to a solution are often "hidden".

A farmer lives on a small plot of land next to a river. One day, he travels across the river in a small boat and purchases a fox, a chicken, and a bag of corn from a feed and supply store. When the farmer returns to his boat to cross the river again and go home, he realizes he has a dilemma.

The farmer can only take one item in his small boat at a time, otherwise he risks capsizing. He cannot leave the fox alone with the chicken, because the fox will eat the chicken. He cannot leave the chicken alone with the corn, because the chicken with eat the corn

How does the farmer successfully get all three items across the river?

 

The sickle bar on the bean head had a few broken teeth and knife guards, Dad/Gramps has been replacing them. There are a few other things to fix: The Crary Air input shaft needs to have the clutch repaired. I think there's a faulty hydraulic cylinder on the main reel as well as a leaking hydraulic hose that needs attention. Quite a few of the fingers on the auger need to be replaced. When all that is done we'll go over the sickle bar adjustment procedures in the Operator's Manual to make sure everything is running smoothly.

After repairs are finished the head will be used to harvest the spring wheat, which will be ready in about ten days. Right now I think, because of low weed pressure in the wheat, I can direct cut it with the bean head, rather than swathing it in windrows then using the pickup head to combine it. Assuming we get a little bit of moisture in the next couple of weeks I'm then planning on putting in a cover crop of peas, turnips, and radishes, as the berseem clover I underseeded the wheat with back in May failed to get established, I believe due to lack of moisture later in the month of May.

The original welds holding the tube to the cart were broken and the angled support bracket had been pushed about 1.25 inches toward the rear of the cart. Could have been caused by improperly putting the header on the cart, we're not sure.

I pushed the support bracket back in place using a steel wedge and rewelded the joints. The cart still needs to have two of the tires replaced: one is the wrong size, the other is bald/worn out.

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I welded a piece of scrap 4x4 tubing below the cart's 4x6 beam to act as a brace I could push against with the metal wedge in the next pic. Other pieces of scrap metal were clamped on to either act as spacers or to distribute the point load from the wedge along the length of the cart's vertical brace/leg.

I added some little gussets to help prevent any future cracks. There's a lot of stress on that little clamping plate. I'm not surprised the original welds cracked. Glad to have it taken care of, as having the head slide around while going down the highway would be a problem.

Repairs While I Wait for Some Rain

 We've had less than 1" of rain in the last 6 weeks. It's sprinkled a bit today and the forecast calls for a 50% chance an inch or so tomorrow. I hope we get it, as everything is already crispy and the forecast goes on to say the next 10 days will be 80º and sunny.

There's not much for me to do but get equipment ready.

 

My first attempt at welding cast iron. I've brazed it before with some success, this is going to be an experiment on a "low value" part. I'm using the Shark brand 11087 0.125" rod at 80 amps (220v). Any higher and I burned through. I increased it a bit on the following passes.  Looks like I should have used a carbide burr to widen the crack, not a grinding wheel. I went back and cleaned it up a bit before I added more weld.

 

Pics of the finished repair. Pretty happy with how it looks, there's a bit of weld undercut where I was too hot. The spatter/beads are cosmetic. The real test is to see if it holds up.

 

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