Brandenburg Farms - The Field Report
August 2, 2010
Corn Harvest Predicted First Week of September
Trent Brandenburg expects to begin his corn harvest the first week of September. His 105-107-day corn varieties have reached the "dent stage" of kernel development. The full-season varieties are not that far along. Trent forecasts above-average yields. Exact estimates are not easy, due to the uncertainty of the actual size of the ponded acreage in the fields. Fortunately, the July rains have increased crop growth without expanding the size of the ponded areas.
The July rains have also helped the soybean crop. Soybean plants are much taller than average this year, Trent observes, with a good pod set despite the heavy vegetative growth. The ultimate crop yield will depend on pod fill between now and Trent's mid-September estimate of beginning bean harvest. "At least the tall beans keep the weeds down," said Trent.
Trent believes the hot weather will field-dry the corn better than last year, which should speed the harvest. The wet corn of last year's crop overloaded elevator drying capacity, forcing the elevators to limit the quantity of corn they could accept ("dump") in a day, thus slowing the harvest. The wet ground also made field work very difficult last year.
Roadside mowing is Trent's main farming activity this week.
.............................................. June 17, 2010
"You Can't Complain When It Looks Like It Looks"
 Trent Brandenburg has received from 2-4 inches of rain in the past week on the various fields he farms. There is some ponding, but the probable crop damage from the ponds amounts to only 3-4% of the total acreage. The other 95%+ looks very good.
During these heavy rains "when it is running across the road" it's easy to say "here we go again" with the last two very wet years freshly in mind. But Trent knows that some spots will pond if there's only an inch of rain. "If it's 4 inches or 8 inches, it will just run off," he observed.
The crop progress is at least a month ahead of last year. Trent expects to be harvesting corn the first week of September. "You can see the compaction areas from last fall," Trent notes, recalling the muddy harvest and lack of soil preparation time after last fall's harvest.
Trent has all his corn sprayed and expects to finish spraying beans in a few days. The soil doesn't have to be as dry to spray as it does for tillage operations. The probability of any replanting of the recently ponded areas is nil, because the ponded areas are small enough that after considering damage to the "good crop" going through it to the pond, the total replanting operation is not economic.
Trent concluded, "After last year, you hate to look a gift horse [the current crop] in the mouth."
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June 1, 2010
They're Looking Pretty Good
Trent Brandenburg says his corn and soybean plantings are "...looking pretty good." The crops "are a month ahead of last year," Trent happily observed. He is cultivating his corn-on-corn fields and has finished his side-dressing. Trent expects to be spraying for weed control in the next few days. Some wet areas of his soybean fields were slow to germinate, but seem to be catching up except for a "few cosmetic holes" that are too small to replant.
Trent's spraying schedule will be the standard weed control application, as his field scouting has uncovered no emerging insect problems yet. After the spraying is done, it's time for mowing roadsides to assist weed control.
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May 15, 2010
All Planted By May 15
 Trent Brandenburg completed his corn and soybean planting by May 15, a substantial improvement over 2008 and 2009. Trent helped a neighbor finish up "for a couple of hours" on Friday, May 14. Trent's corn plantings are all up and looking good; his earliest-planted soybeans are also up. Trent is happy with what has thus far been "a better farming year."
Some of Trent 's newly-germinated corn seedlings were not seeded from his planter. Due to the difficult harvest season last year, more corn kernels than usual shattered off the ears during picking. The excellent growing weather in April and May this year has helped these kernels germinate as "volunteer corn". Unfortunately, the volunteer corn seems to have unintentionally inherited enough of the "Roundup Ready" gene pool, so that the usual "burn-down" herbicide application is not controlling the volunteer corn on fields with a "corn on corn" crop rotation. Because corn is a grass, the grass-killing herbicides that are used in the corn-soybeans-corn rotation cannot be used in corn-on-corn to suppress volunteer plants.
Trent has not noticed "Roundup Resistant" weeds in his fields "yet". Resistant pigweed strains have developed in Arkansas and Nebraska . "I have always planted a 20% refuge," Trent explained. The "refuge" is acreage planted to the same crop as the "Roundup Ready)" crop, but with varieties that are not resistant, in order to stifle the development of resistant volunteer seedlings.
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April 20, 2010
It Needs to Rain
 Right after Trent Brandenburg said this, he noted the irony of needing rain during the first planting season after the wettest year in central Illinois memory. Each farmer's field activity this week in central Illinois is visible for a couple of miles due to the dust clouds being kicked up by each tillage. Trent will complete his corn planting on April 21.
The soil preparation for Brandenburg Farms' corn planting required two passes over most fields to try to break up the dense clods that resulted from last year's wet soil remaining wet all winter. "At least it's [the clods] better than mud," Trent noted. The clods are a problem for the planter because they cause bouncing, which causes the the seed placement to be irregular, too shallow.
The favorable weather has helped planting progress across Illinois. The Illinois Farm Bureau reports that more corn planting was completed in Illinois just last week than in the entire month of April, 2009, or April, 2008.
Trent will now begin field work in his soybean fields. He is hoping the predicted rain late this week will be enough to make the tillage easier, more effective, and less dusty. He expects to begin sowing soybean seed about May 1. Brandenburg Farms has a new "planting tractor" this year. The new tractor has better fuel economy, lower emissions, and improved Global Positioning system (GPS) computer equipment and control systems. The new systems are now being adapted to Trent's operations
.............................................. March 23, 2010
It's Still Been Too Wet to Rip
 Trent Brandenburg would like to do some of the ripping he couldn't do last fall because of the incessant rain. Unfortunately, the soil is still too wet. Trent hopes there will be enough drying, before the next rains, to get some ripping done. The ripping, or chiseling, uses deep tillage tools to break up compacted soil below the plow sole, the compacted soil zone just beneath the soil that gets plowed conventionally. Modern low-till farming practices often omit moldboard plowing, to follow chiseling with discing, but a plow sole is still a plow sole.
Ripping improves soil drainage and aeration, especially important in central Illinois soils, which have a high clay fraction. Although the clay fraction enables the soil to hold nutrients and water very well, it is also quite vulnerable to compaction. The compaction chokes off air circulation and drainage in the soil, that are both needed for healthy root growth. The ripping is especially important this spring, due to farmers having run heavy combines over wet soil during last year's harvest. The wet soils are very vulnerable to compaction.
The vulnerability of clays to compaction can be understood by visualizing magnified soil particles. Sand looks like a pile of golf balls. Humus--organic matter--looks like sponges. Clay particles look like a pile of roof shingles that have just been ripped off the roof and piled randomly. When the clay particles are wet, they slide closer together, resulting in soil compaction. Proper tillage, when the soil is not too wet, restores the clay particles to the desired random spacing that lets both air and water pass through to the roots.
Trent's desire to accomplish some ripping is up against the calendar. If he cannot complete ripping by about April 1, he will not attempt it. He doesn't want to dry out the soil too much by ripping it as he gets very close to his desired April 10 first planting date. Fields that he cannot rip will be disced, to loosen the surface and chop up last year's crop residue. Then Trent will make another tillage pass to "finish" the seedbed prior to planting. He hopes to be planting by April 10.
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