Crops are growing bigger by the day on the farm. Everything has been planted for a few weeks now, and all the corn and popcorn has been fertilized. So what are we up to now? Take a look!
Moving Corn to Market
We delivered several loads of the 2013 corn crop. Right now we have about half our bins cleaned out.
Lifted Truck
I changed the oil in my truck, and swapped in a new fuel filter. It’s time for this rig to get a complete detailing inside and out as well. I’ll have to schedule in a day at the shop to get that done.
Watching Wheat
Wheat is still pretty green although it has started to change color recently. These kernels are still very wet. I think harvest might be a bit later than normal this year, but it’s supposed to get really hot next week so that may change.
Popcorn Progress
We’ve been walking our new field a few hours here and there picking up rocks. There aren’t really any huge rocks out here, but there are a lot of rocks. Rock picking isn’t the greatest thing in the world, but we can reduce wear and damage to equipment by hauling out as many as we can. This popcorn is looking good!
Every so often, I stumble across a mutant! It’s pretty cool to see the different colors. I’m not sure why, but I seem to notice these more often in popcorn than in field corn. These mutations are pretty rare, but they’re easy to spot when you’re walking near them in a sea of green.
Stay tuned to see what we do next week, and be sure to leave me some comments and questions in the comment section. See you next time!
Brian,In looking for rocks among the popcorn how do you know where to look?
They’re everywhere! We just take one pass at a time using the same wheel track as the planter. Someone drives the tractor, and the others just walk along picking what they find.
I see pieces of busted up corn cobs in the pic of the loaded truck. Do the elevators penalize you for that? How about with popcorn?
Yes they’ll have breakdowns of discounts for various levels of various things including foreign matter, weed seed, bugs, moisture, etc. Most times those bits of cob and plant material tend to congregate in the bin especially as the bins get empty, but they also won’t be distributed throughout the whole truckload either. Not a real big deal. These are things that need to be checked at harvest, and if you’re getting too much stuff that isn’t grain or you are damaging or losing grain you need to make adjustments to the machine.