Happy Saturday! Busy day at work yesterday meant that I didn’t get the chance to sit down and put together the weekly post at my usual time.
Not a lot new going on between last week and this week other than that we are steadily progressing towards harvest. You might have noticed that the crops (at least in central Illinois) are really starting to change as the plants die and the leaves turn different shades of yellows and browns. For our farm, we’re about 10 to 14 days out from beginning harvest, but close enough that we’re getting ready. Before I did field pictures on Thursday evening, I swept out the cabs of both tractors and the combine and washed the windows inside and out on all three. Dad got the planter out and greased it and the disc in anticipation of some fall tillage and a new method of cover crop planting we’re going to try as soon as we get the crop out of the ground (as long as the weather cooperates). Next will be to make sure all equipment is in good, working order and that everything is calibrated properly.
In the meantime, here’s a quick photo update for the week:
September 18, 2020 Update:
Soybeans (149 days)
The leaves and pods and soybeans inside the pods have all changed quite a bit in color. They’ll keep going until all or most of the leaves, stems, pods, and soybeans are mostly yellow or brown, but still a big change for one week (compare these pictures to last week).
The soybeans inside the pods have changed color, but they haven’t yet dried. We’ll want the soybeans at or as close to 13 percent moisture content as possible when we harvest for optimal storage (plus, that’s standard for soybeans sold on the market). I can tell these beans are nowhere close to being ready because of the size and shape of each bean – they’ll be small spheres when mature.
Corn (129 days)
The corn hasn’t had nearly as many visible changes this week as the soybeans, especially when looking at the field from the road. But it’s important to keep in mind that 1) the soybeans were planted nearly a month before this corn and 2) soybeans and corn mature on a different timeline. Chances are, everything will be ready to harvest at once. 🙂
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