Awh, spring...

Sorta.  Missouri weather is great; one day it's 70 degrees the next day, it's 30 and blowing snow.  Lately, however, it's been a run of nice days with temperatures in the 60's and sunny. 

Jerry and Michael will be attending the annual Ag Connect Expo in Kansas City, Mo. this coming week and will take part in several clinics about setting up equipment, marketing, chemical usage, and farm management.  Michael will be part of a small group of farmers from across the U.S. giving advice on the Expo and will speaking about their farming operation to others.  Michael will also be part of a networking seminar where young farmers unite to exchange tips and hints and make new friends.  More information on the Ag Connect Expo can be found at:  http://www.agconnect.com/

We recently showed some new purchases and we have since made another.  Here is our new grain cart.  It's a Parker brand and holds just over 600 bushels of grain.  It's been used one season and the owner wanted something bigger so we purchased it.  This will replace the current cart that is about 15 years old and only 450 bushel. 

We have also been playing some more with the 724 mulch finisher and have a short video on our You Tube channel if you would like to see it, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8pp-sfZDt4

The home office window was getting older and was not sealing well so it was time for a new one!  Here is a picture of the new window being installed.

We currently have a custom NH3 (anhydrous ammonia) application company (a local grain elevator) applying NH3 on fields that will have corn planted. The applicator they use will "knife" the NH3 into the soil.  In other words, the NH3 is applied through a shank going through the soil.  This method will not only allow for the NH3 to be applied but also give a pass of tillage to the field.  We will come back and make another tillage pass to smooth it out before planting.  Though we don't have a current picture of this operation, here is a picture from last year.

Our former CRP fields have tree stumps under the surface of the soil along with roots and other foreign matter that would pose a danger to a shank going through the soil so our liquid applicator that uses smooth discs to apply the NH3 will be used.  After this pass, corn will be planted without another pass.

We currently have most of the CRP clearing complete and was recently featured on Google Earth (lol).  Here you see two CRP fields after a tractor and mower was used and some trees cut.  Only 50% of each field can be mowed and cleared at a time (in this case, the contracts expired after clearing 50% so 100% of the fields were later cleared) which is way the fields look a little crazy. 

 

Started the year off right.

Well, its a new year and spring isn't that far away.  With a new year comes mountains of paper-work and taxes...we'll stop there.  Anyways, we finished our 2012 Farm Movie and it can be found on our Youtube channel by either clicking: www.youtube.com/morrisfarmmo or find a direct link to the right of this page.

We will be acquiring some more land to farm that is mostly river bottom next year therefore some updated tillage equipment was in order.  We found a terrific deal on a later model John Deere 724 Mulch Finisher at a local dealer and made the deal final.  The idea with this tool is you get a basic disk then a cultivator right behind that.  It's like a vertical tillage tool but just a little more aggressive.  

 

                                 Of course after you get a new tool, you have to play with it!

As we clear former CRP ground, we cut the trees and brush at or below ground level however, taking anything with a shank through this ground would be very hard and would probably damage it.  So, we decided to go with liquid fertilizer instead of Nh3 on this ground.  We found a liquid applicator about 110 miles away at a dealer that was setup on 15" centers for pre-planting application and you can take every-other row off and make it 30" centers which is perfect for side-dressing corn.  We can also use the toolbar for strip-till if we wanted.  It's currently setup for 16 rows but we will most likely make the wings fold twice making it easier and safer on the road and we can side-dress 12 rows or 16. 

Speaking of CRP clearing, we are finishing some of the more grown up land.  Several more hundred acres remain to clear but the worse is nearly done. 

As always, Like us on Facebook and Follow us on the blog! 

A long road...

What a year it's been!  Yup, we haven't blogged for over a year so I guess it's time.  You have really missed a lot but we will do our best to bring you all up to speed. 

We finished our 2011 harvest in good time and with decent yields for the dry year we had.  Our winter was busy washing, fixing, upgrading equipment with GPS/Auto-Steer, along with some field work and CRP clearing. We also attended several Ag workshops and classes in the Kansas City area to better educate ourselves with new farming practices. In late winter, we began building Janet a Garden Shed for her to grow and produce our own organic herbs and vegetables and also help with the upkeep of her several flower gardens. 

We also built a work shop for smaller equipment storage, repairs, along with seed storage.

 In the Spring of 2012, we hired a local farmer to Strip-Till several acres for us on some corn ground. This process allows for the dry fertilizer to be placed directly in the row for planting and also creates a raised row much like you do in your gardens with raised beds.

Mid-Spring came with the hustle and bustle of clearing CRP, corn planting, drilling soybeans, preparing for wheat harvest, and unloading our Tu-Fu beans. 

With over a thousand acres of CRP to mow along with the regular pasture and road ditches, both of our brush cutters were worn out.  It was time for a new one!  We headed out during a wet week to pick it up.  It's a 2011 John Deere CX15 with all options.  Check it out!

 In the Summer months, everything was looking good but mother nature had other plans.  It started to get hot and dry.  Very hot and dry.  In fact, it was the hottest and driest summer on record in many places.  The green fields quickly turned brown and began to die.  Fires raged all over and some for several days fueled by the dry weather and high winds.  We all wondered if harvest was even going to be needed. 

Finally, we got a break.  The temperature dropped, the winds diminished, and small amounts of rain began to fall.  As Fall rolled around, the crops began to gown again and to everyone's surprise, the combine was being made ready.  Harvest 2012 was about to start!

Even Lucy was excited to see the combine rolling.

The corn harvest went smoothly and quickly since not many trucks were needed.

We began drilling Tillage Radishes and Rye Grass this year as a Fall Cover Crop.  The idea being the Tillage Radishes grow and will loosen the soil and reduce compaction while the Rye Grass grows to cover the ground preventing weeds from growing.  Both the Tillage Radishes and Rye Grass provide nutrients in the soil as well.

Finished this field in pouring rain.  It was a welcome sight though!

Here is an early picture showing the Cover Crop among some volunteer corn.  

With corn harvest complete it was time for soy-beans.  Given the year, the beans were not very clean and we were getting a lot of pods in the tank.  Many area farmers were having the same problem and there only was only one solution: a grain cleaner.  After a week or two of searching, we found one in Illinois.  It took several days to arrive but we finally got it and began to unload the bin while we waited for the longer variety beans to mature.   

Finally it was time to dive into the later soy beans.

So I think that has us up-to-date.  Finally.  Be sure to check out our Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/morrisfarms and our Youtube channel at: www.youtube.com/morrisfarmmo

It's that time of year.

As Summer leaves it's warm, dry conditions, we enter into a beautiful season called Fall.  The trees are turning many colors and the temperature is dropping but still no rain.  With corn harvest complete, its now time for beans.  We started with cutting some former CRP no-till ground with the BPA not the greatest but given the year, not bad.  We then headed over to harvest our Tu-Fu beans next with improvement over the other fields.  The yield wasn't the best but average for this year so far.  With most first-crop beans cut, we have a short window of time before we begin cutting double-crop beans.

We have recently made two purchases to aid in land clearing!  We have have also been doing some custom jobs as we find the time to offset the purchase costs. 

Purchase number one: 2008 John Deere 325 skid loader with 507 hours.

Purchase number two was is a brand new Brush Monster Brush Cutter.  This cuts and shreds brush and trees under 4" which saves time and money for the land-owner rather than using the Marshall Tree Saw.

We have also updated our grain bin to a new pad and installed a new floor, unloading augers, and installed roof vents. Soon we will be building another pad and constructing another grain bin left of the new site.  This adds safety and security along with more efficient ways to monitor and keep grain in great condition.    

We also have 90% of winter wheat planted on bean ground.

As if all that wasn't enough for just a handful of people, we have been clearing more CRP and former CRP land using the skid loaders. We have cleared roughly 150 acres since our last posting with several more hundred more to go next year.

Before

After

 In our next blog, we will finish up bean harvest and show more land clearing along with more pictures of the grain bin.  Please check out our new YouTube page at: www.youtube.com/morrisfarmmo