Done For A Week Or So
November 2014 Farm Report
Trent Brandenburg is happy to have completed his 2014 corn and soybean harvest. “I’ve never known of elevators shutting down because they were full of beans,” Trent observed.
Trent is 75% done with his ground work, which has been slowed due to wet soils, “wet but tillable.” Trent likes to fall till to eliminate the tracks of heavy machinery and get a head start on next year’s spring planting. He estimates “a couple of days of nice weather” to finish up.
Trent explains that this is the season that will be remembered for many years. “Remember ’14,” farmers will say, recalling the near perfect weather but wishing the market prices would have been better. The yields were near-miraculous for Trent: a farm average of 70-bushel soybeans and 240-bushel corn. Trent will now begin planning for next year’s inputs.
More from The Field Report
Dry Weather Speeds Harvest
Trent Brandenburg is trying to get his field work done "before it rains". Much of the area Trent farms is in "extreme drought" according to the Illinois Drought Monitor https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?IL map, which is updated every Thursday. The very dry soil [...]
In a Drought, but Corn is Too Wet to Harvest
The current Illinois drought map (11 September) shows severe drought in the northern 40% of Piatt County and moderate drought in the rest of Piatt and adjacent areas of neighboring counties. Trent Brandenburg has barely started harvesting because his corn [...]
Summertime Mowing And Spraying
Trent Brandenburg has been busy mowing his lawn and his roadsides due to the sunshine and frequent rains making his grass grow as well as his corn and soybeans. He has been hiring aerial spraying of fungicides to suppress disease [...]