harvest

I do enjoy seeing wildlife when I am out at the farm. I just wish they would not do quite as much damage to my crop. Late Sunday afternoon I was combining the end of one of my corn fields next to a windbreak along my neighbor's field. In the picture you can see where the deer laid down and helped themselves to some corn...

Last weekend I spent a lot of time in the combine cab. I was trying to get as much corn harvested as possible because I was heading down to the National FFA Convention today. While I did have problems getting started last weekend with the wet corn auger, once I got going it went great...

For the most part I am hearing about very good yields for corn and soybeans this year. Many farmers are just getting a good start on the corn, but the bean harvest should be pretty well finished soon. There are some fields that are still too wet because of all the rain and will need a few more days to dry...

I saw this scene going out to the farm earlier this week. Now this is how you can harvest beans fast! A quarter section or 160-acre bean field would disappear in a hurry with these machines. Three big combines with it looks like 25- or 30-foot heads...

Roger and Rhonda Toquam, the boys and Orlo hosted the annual soybean harvest broadcast at their farm by Claremont. Special thanks go to the Toquams, along with Troy from Cashwise in Owatonna, for bringing the great lunch! It was a busy time for Roger and the boys as they were loading pigs at 11:30, stopped a few minutes for lunch and then started combining beans...

Today, September 30, 2016, I will close out my 21st year at KDHL. It was the first Monday in October 1995 that I began my career as a farm broadcaster. It does not seem like that long until I go to some event and realize how many people I have gotten to know...

Last Thursday evening the crew from Birds Eye Foods in Waseca moved in to harvest my sweet corn. I was out at the farm about ready to head for home when they showed up. It was fun to watch them for a little while. It is amazing how they harvest sweet corn now compared to 20 or 30 years ago...

This is a picture of a farmer-owned grain facility I took on my way out to Sioux Falls, S.D, on Sunday to visit my mother. It is amazing when you see these type of grain-drying and storage sites. This is called a "shuttle loading facility" meaning it can handle unit trains...

Wednesday afternoon I was hauling beans to the elevator and they had a crew there picking up their corn pile. There was a lot of corn piled outside this fall in Minnesota because we had a very good crop. It is not unusual to see a pile of corn by an elevator for a short time in the fall...

Harvest and fall tillage has pretty well come to an end in our area. Virtually all the crop has been harvested and any fall tillage that farmers wanted to do has been done. Although I did talk to a farmer by Lonsdale about 10 days ago who said they had gotten so much rain it was too wet for any tillage...