Four-day workweeks sure fly by! Fields are shaping up nicely and it’s become much easier to differentiate which crop is growing in what fields from the car as you drive by fields at 55 MPH – so lots of progress this week. June 4, 2021 Update: Soybeans (42 days) Soybeans are steadily getting bigger and putting on more leaves. You can actually tell that there’s something growing here and it’s not just a field of a light brown (dead) cover…
Follow the Field 2021 – Update #4
May 28, 2021Happy Friday! This warm, humid weather we’ve had over the last few days has our corn growing like a weed. Fortunately the cool weather expected for tonight and over the weekend is short-lived and crops in our area will be just fine. May 28, 2021 Update: Soybeans (35 days) First up, we’ll talk about the soybeans. As you can see in the photo above, the beans are getting bigger. We’ve been a little concerned we may have some insect problems…
Follow the Field 2021 – Update #3
May 21, 2021Happy Friday! This week turned out drastically different than what they were predicting weather-wise a week ago. We only had a couple of rainy days and have ended up with a sudden warm-up that the corn and soybeans are soaking up. May 21, 2021 Update: Soybeans (28 days) A few days of warmer temperatures and these soybeans have more than tripled in height compared to the same time last week! We talked a little about soybean growth stages last week.…
Follow the Field 2021 – Update #2
May 14, 2021Happy Friday! The fields are beginning to come to life for the season, albeit slowly. The cool weather we’ve had over the last couple of weeks has really slowed down germination. The good news is that we have warmer weather coming to us in the 10-day forecast…with a chance of rain every day for the next week. Hopefully the heat kicks everything into growth mode and we get off on the right foot this year. May 14, 2021 Update: Soybeans…
Follow the Field 2021 – Update #1
May 7, 2021Welcome to another growing season! So far, 2021 is off to a better start than 2019 (when I first started this series) and even 2020. I’m following the same two fields as last year, but the crops growing in them have flip-flopped. Our farm operates on a two-year rotation, which means that every other year a field will grow corn with soybeans grown in the in-between years. As I’ve talked about before, the growing season starts wayyy before planting –…
Speaking Up for Agriculture
February 18, 2021Hi there – Long time, no update. We wrapped up harvest last Halloween, cleaned up equipment, left the field for the winter, and I ran fresh out of ideas of what to talk about. One challenge I have during the off-season is deciding what to talk about when I lose my sources for photos. I work full-time off the farm for an agriculture organization representing farmers. While it’s been great working from home nearly every day (thanks, global pandemic), it’s…
Follow the Field 2020 Update #22
October 9, 2020Harvest is here! October 9, 2020 Update: Soybeans (harvested 167 days after planting) Poof. Gone, just like that. These soybeans were harvested on Monday. This was the first field harvested on our farm. These beans yielded in the mid-70s (bushels per acre). All in all, they did pretty well for the season considering how dry it was there for a while this summer, but yields didn’t wow us by any means. Corn (150 days) This field is still here. You…
Follow the Field 2020 Update #21
October 2, 2020No major updates this week, but lots of pretty fall pictures of the fields as they dry down and exhibit their rich brown and golden fall colors. October 2, 2020 Update: Soybeans (163 Days) This field of soybeans changed a lot compared to last week. There are very few leaves left on the soybeans and most of the stems have turned from green to brown. Just look at all those beans! Lots of nice, plump pods just waiting for harvest.…
Follow the Field 2020 Update #20
September 25, 2020Still waiting on harvest, but it’s getting closer and closer. Some fields around us have been harvested, but things really won’t be going around here until about October 1. September 25, 2020 Update: Soybeans (156 days) See how much change there is in the leaves and stems this week? Still plenty of green out there, but headed in the right direction. Most grain crop plants die towards the end of the season. It’s just a natural process for an annual…
Follow the Field 2020 Update #19
September 19, 2020Happy 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…