FINALLY Planting

Conditions were borderline but finally some corn in planted. 1st day problems with new planter as usual but ran pretty well. Didn't get in a hurry and got about 50-60 acres planted. Forcast looks wet wet wet for the next week but I am way less stressed with at least something in the ground-even if it is only a small percentage.

With as warm and wet as it has been I am going to have to switch back to spraying before planting anymore-going to take a lot more roundup-but that is what mother nature has given us.

I don't want to complain about rain too much as we may be begging for it in July and August, but if the forcast hold I would bet not much will happen before the 2nd week of May.

Still Nothing to Report

Still too cold and wet here to do anything in the field. Corn is all labeled and laid out in the order it will be planted. I spent about 20 minutes walking around the shed looking at equipment and trying to find something to do, for the first time in 5 years I can honestly say I can't find anything to work on-it feels odd. Suppose I could do some stuff on the combine but that just seems wrong before anything is planted.

From the look of the weather probably not much going to happen before May 1.

The girls and I did go out and picked up trash in the ditches. What is wrong with people? We picked up almost a 50 gallon trash can full of bottles, cans, cigarette packages, etc. Found a 1/2 full can of hairspray and a cell phone charger, lots of other junk. Apparently Bud Light bottles and Miller cans are the most popular beers around here. I wish these people would think for a second, a glass bottle can ruin a $800 tractor tire when mowing roads. I would love to catch someone doing it and follow them home and dump my trash in their yard for a few days.

Watching and Waiting

Still cold and wet here, I don't anticipate any fieldwork this week or next week. Soil temps need to be about 55 degrees for corn and it is getting to the low 40s at night for the next week.

Probably a little premature but I went and picked up all chemicals for this year. It looks like the late start to planting will push planting and spraying times together so one less thing to do once the planter gets rolling. While it wasn't dry enough to do any fieldwork we were able to get the 4 wheeler out and do some spot spraying in the worst of the weedy areas and pick up some rocks.

Profit margins are going to be a lot tighter this year so I was able to save a couple bucks and acre by getting chemicals in bulk tanks. We will combine them in an inductor as they get loaded into the sprayer. This will mean a lot less handling and disposing of all the 2.5 gallon plastic jugs.

Rain rain go away

Lots of rain here in the last week. I am starting to sound like a broken record with not much new information. I got the disk out Sat morning and tried to work a couple gulleys shut but they were too wet. Some flatter and dryer spots would have worked well but being no-till I don't touch those.

Trying to keep busy-putting new Air conditioner in big tractor and piddling around the shop.

Even if it would dry out the 10 day forecast still looks cold, so I doubt any corn will be planted in this area in the next 10 days. I am changing my anticipated start date from April 13 to April 20.