Wet & Wild

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Partners,

The average rainfall for the year seems to have caught up, all within a weeks time here - with the next four days calling for more precipitation. This past week alone I have dumped over 4" out of our rain gauges. Our creek is out of its banks since yesterday and has been there long enough we will be required to replant at least 40 acres of flooded ground. But as the saying goes for every bottom there is a hill that benefits from the water and the crops are in excellent condition - maybe not quite as good as last year but still above average. 

This past week we have been able to attack some more of our "projects" - things we want to do to improve and enhance our farms but don't feel we can necessarily justify hiring done. Since Marcus and Shanna have established a new color scheme at the Hess homestead, we have been wanting to recolor the outbuildings. So this week we began the process of re-painting the the machine shed there and will follow with the rest of the buildings as time allows. We are also shipping corn to meet our June contracts and mowing often to keep ahead of the grass and weeds. 

Prices for fall delivery:

Corn 3.40

Soybeans 8.85

Enjoy your summer and this blessed country we live in! Few weeks to the Fourth of July when we should really appreciate our freedom.

End & Beginning

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Partners,

Another week of rain and work between showers. Corn and beans are growing well and fast as we try to get side dressing done and corn spraying completed. We received over 2 inches on all farms last weekend and looks like another half inch this weekend. Our grain hauling pace has picked up and we intend to have everything delivered by the middle of July. We have been aggressive sellers of our unpriced inventory and have very little remaining. There was no spring rally due to excellent planting window and conditions. With the fields looking so good price slides continue.

Fall bids:

Corn 3.38

SB 8.85

There are two college graduates here that have been excellent team members at Hess Family Farm for the last couple of years: Mitch and Aaron from the WIU Ag Department. Mitch majored in Ag Business and Aaron in Agronomy. We've had a lot of good college help over the years here and appreciate them all. We are going to miss these two as they go on to careers in their fields and provide a new round of innovation and enthusiasm that the agriculture industry needs to stay vital and progressive. Best wishes to them both as they end their college time and go out into the real world. They will both succeed in whatever they choose to do.

Families are doing well, and with school out the summer schedule has begun. Lots of sports, swimming, picnics and travel. Our project list is already longer than we will probably accomplish but the weather this spring so far has allowed us to get a lot of things done we normally wouldn't have time for.

Farm Drainage: A History

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Partners, 

Two weeks have gone by. We have been squeezing in extra projects that often get put off in a normal cropping season. This past week we completed a field drainage project we began over two years ago. Weather and fieldwork demands complicate projects like this, but this winter we decided that we would first complete planting, and then tile if weather and time allowed. Thankfully, both did. This week we installed over four miles of plastic tile on a farm we purchased four years ago that adjoins the Doll Homestead. We have now accomplished our goal of draining the whole western two-thirds of our biggest contiguous field!

Draining the soils of the Midwest has been on going since settlement began here in the mid-1800s. The early settlers actually preferred the hills and lighter soils in order to avoid water problems. Around here the ancestors farmed around "buffalo wallows" - the depressions in the fields that held water, that apparently back in the open plain days the animals would go to to cool off in the heat of summer. Some of the earliest tiling projects here (using clay tile underground to drain wet spots) date back to the late 1800s when all the work was done by hand - what fun that must have been! Some of the earliest engine powered trenchers came into use in the 1920s and 1930s but farm economics at that time didn't allow widespread adoption due to tight/non-existent margins.

I can remember as a boy what a big event it was to hire a contractor to come in to do a tiling project. It always meant we would see a big improvement to the land: drying up wet spots, allowing the building of grass waterways for easier and more conservation-friendly farming, and being able to eliminate open ditches of running water that grew trees and brush.

Seeing the value of soil conservation and surface water management, we decided to purchase our first tiling machine in 1974 to address our water issues. The old 302 Buckeye turned into one of the most important pieces of equipment on our farm - not only on our own land, but the custom tiling I (Steve) did in those early years put me through college! In 1998 we traded up for a rubber-wheeled machine; a Speicher 600, that we still operate today to dig in big mains and assist the tile plow for ease of hookups for pattern tiling jobs. We purchased the Soil-Max tile plow (pictured) in 2010. The speed of plowing the tile in (as opposed to digging a trench) allows for much faster installation of lateral runs.

If you have farmland in Illinois, you undoubtedly have drain tile of some kind on your property. However, the common best management practice now is to pattern tile a field, which means completely drain the property on 30-100 foot centers. Pattern tiling allows the field to dry out evenly which facilitates timely field operations, and reduces soil erosion and compaction. This also eliminates persistent wet areas in some fields which in the past have yielded absolutely nothing in wet years. Additional benefits are more predictable yields, improved field efficiency, and generally enhanced profitability for the land owner.

We truly appreciate all the drainage work our partners have participated in over the past many years, and look forward to more projects in the future. Our goal is to continue to leave a legacy of conserving and improving the farmland of which we are caretakers.

The Last Acre

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Partners,

What a great weekend this has turned out to be.  As of 1 PM yesterday we completed corn and bean planting for 2015 (for the first time at least)! We have never been done this early - usually we are struggling between rain events to complete corn as of about now. This past week went like clockwork and all the preparation of manpower and equipment really paid off with field efficiency. Corn planting was finished on Tuesday by noon and switching over to beans began that afternoon.

We want to say a big thank you to all the staff that participated in this spring event.

Don't worry, we have still have plenty to do. We hope to complete a tiling project that has been on the list for several months, seed some CRP ground, and rework and seed some more waterways. Sidressing corn and spraying will be on the agenda in about two weeks

Was nice to relax on a Saturday afternoon and spend some time with families.

There is a chance of rain forecast almost every day this next week and 80 degree weather. Almost perfect growing weather! Just keep in mind, this is the situation in almost all of the Midwest growing area and prices are reflecting that. The bird flu story is also going to affect corn consumption for several months the way it is spreading, so keep an eye on that also.

Don't forget your moms next week!

A Good Week

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It has been a good week in the field - we are at 90% completion with the corn planting. We pulled the planter in the shed last night at 10:30 and rain started at 1 am. It was a perfect 1"+ which should get everything in the ground up and going well. The weather has still been cool; very few days up to 80 degrees yet. Our neighbors have just a few fields slowly coming up that have been planted for over two weeks.

We have also been completing spraying all the corn fields. It's a good feeling to be done with that project for now. The new sprayer and update to the tender system have really helped with efficiency and speed of the process. I am so enjoying being able to fully participate in planting season. We are experimenting with some different nitrogen methods and hope to fine tune the corn and bean production even more this season.

Celebrated Abbott Bruer Hess's one year birthday on Wednesday. Stopped planting long enough for some burgers and delicious cake. Actually scheduled a planter service call while we ate so wouldn't miss any planting time.

Crop prices continue to deteriorate with the mostly excellent planting weather across the midwest.

Fall prices:

Corn 3.58

Soybeans 9.03

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