Funky shadows. Wheat on the left, kernza on the right. A penny in the center. Click on image to make it bigger.
I picked these two samples about two weeks ago.
Kernza is really tiny, roughly 80,000 seeds/lb, while wheat has around 14,000 seeds/lb. It's going to be a challenge to sucessfully combine the kernza.
It'll be another 2-3 weeks until both are ready to harvest.
For a lot more info on Kernza you can search Kernza.org, where you find a fairly comprehensive 48 page grower's production guide.
direct download link here - [https://Kernza.org/wp-content/uploads/Grower-guide_final.pdf]
In other farm news -
The corn is up and, where I got a good stand, looks promising. I replanted about 15 acres, which seems to have been the right move. Some weeds, some poor emergence in about ~15% of the ground ; at this point it's canopied and I'm done with it until harvest.
The beans are from 6-16" tall, with most towards the larger end of that range. It turned out to be a nice stand of healthy plants, though there are weeds in about 15%, which at this point I'm ok with. I've made the 2nd pass with the row cultivator on 1/3 of the acreage and will finish up the rest of them in a couple of days. I'm not sure if I'll make a 3rd pass. It depends if they can canopy before any weeds make it up.
The buckwheat is about 4" tall, looks good, with some weed pressure.
I've got a bunch of equipment to fix, and have been busy working my way through the list of projects.
It's nice to see everything turning green. Satisfying.
Until the tillers come up, it's easy to imagine that the drill isn't actually putting seeds down evenly in every row, as the Loup monitor only has sensors on 4 of the 24 rows. To make sure I'm on the right path, I dig down in the rows and look for seeds right after I start, but from then on have to assume that everything is going to keep working properly.
It's organic Hard Red Spring Wheat (HRSW), the variety is "Bolles", drilled 150 lbs/acre, 1.5" deep, on 7.5" rows May 4th and 5th. Then spread 2 tons/acre of turkey litter over it and used the tine weeder to work it in, as well as removing most little weeds in the top 1" of soil.
We have a short growing season this far north, the first of May is usually the earliest I can get into the field as the ground is just too wet and the equipment will bog down. One way to avoid this is to plant winter wheat, which would be drilled in late summer, overwinter, and then be harvested the following summer. My two other cash crops, corn and beans, aren't harvested until mid Oct and Nov, respectively, leaving no time to get winter wheat established in the fall, something critical to it's success. In the meantime I'm looking for other profitable markets that would let me change this rotation.
The wheat will set the heaviest, "best" seed head, if it reaches maturity before it gets really hot in the summer. That means it needs to go in the ground the first part of May; sooner if you're further south than me. Despite the wet spring, I found a small window of three dry days that let me get it drilled May 4 and 5th. Of the 77 acres, about six had to be "abandoned" as I didn't think I could get the drill through them without getting stuck.
Before I could drill the wheat I made a pass with the field cultivator to kill the flushes of 1" tall weeds that had already emerged. About 3 days after planting, weather permitting, I'll run the tine weeder over everything, killing any remaining weeds in the top 1" (I drilled - on 7.5" rows - the wheat 1.5" deep). When the wheat is about 6" tall I'll go over it again with the tine weeder to try to get rid of as many weeds, mostly pigweed and lambsquarters, as possible.
The variety is "Bolles" bought from Albert Lea Seed, chosen because it has the best chance of meeting the organic food grade standards that will allow me to sell it for a substantially higher price. Two years ago I made "food grade", and hope that luck continues this year. If it doesn't make the grade it'll be sold as organic animal feed.
Wheat is a necessary part of my crop rotation for a lot of reasons - soil health, weed suppression, Organic Certification requirements, and work load spread out during the growing season. Of the possible small grains (oats, barley, rye, emmer, spelt,....) it has the best markets for me.
The Loup drill monitor is ok, but it's not super accurate when seeding rates are so high (wheat is 2.1 million seeds or 150 lbs/acre. I think it would be better for something like soybeans - 162,000 seeds/acre - though I plant my beans in 30" rows, metered by the AgLeader monitor, so I can cultivate for weeds.) I bought it because I was tired of always running short of seed, as well as hoping to avoid the constant calculation/adjustment of ground covered vs. bags used followed by a tweaking of the levers on the drill controlling the amount it puts out. My math turned out ok, of the 234 bags (11,700 lbs), I used all but 3 bags (150 lbs).
Depending on the yield, I expect there will be 2 or 3 semi-trailer loads (100,000 - 150,000 lbs) of wheat to sell this fall.
After the wheat is harvested, around August 1st, we'll drill a cover crop in.
Things are starting to come together: the seeds (~ 20,000 lbs) are here; the tractors have mostly been repaired; the equipment is in good shape; turkey litter is on the way.
The weather is going to be good next week, so by Thursday or Friday I hope to disc the bean stubble and then drill in the spring wheat.
Last night it was -10º F (-23º C). There's not much to do here in the winter, especially if you don't like the cold weather.
After it snows I spend several hours on the open station small loader tractor cleaning up the drive after the county snow plow goes through. At this point the snow banks around the drive are 4-8 feet tall.
I found this story about Yosemite National Park Rangers who overwinter in the Park oddly comforting.
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.
_______________________
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.
______________________________
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.
______________________
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.
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.
_______________________
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.
%2010.15.53%20AM.png)