Check out the recent profile on the Fastline blog about Martin Family Farms.
You may have to copy and paste link into browser.
http://blog.fastline.com/2009/06/11/fastline-spotlight-martin-family-farms-gets-connected/
I posted a new video for those of you who are curious about how no-till planting works.
Well we have finally reached the point where we have to make a decision we never thought we would have to make. Today we have decided to switch almost 200 acres of "corn" ground to soybeans. We applied nitrogen to these fields last fall but they have not been dry enough to plant corn into so we are hoping it will dry up enough in the next two weeks that we can plant soybeans on those farms. With the high cost of nitrogen last fall ($100/acre) we will have a tough time breaking even on those acres with soybeans. If we get any kind of big rain before we get the rest of the fields planted it is possible we will not raise anything on those acres. (I never thought that would happen)
As of today all we have left is about 320 acres of soybeans to plant. We have planted all the corn we can and about 400 acres of soybeans. We have been fortunate enough over the past weekend that we were able to get quite a bit of work done. The next biggest challenge we face as we try to get the crop planted is to keep up with the herbicide application. We have pre-emerge beans and corn chemical to apply along with the post application on some of our earlier planted corn. By using round-up ready technology this is made a lot easier and allows us greater flexibility to get the chemicals sprayed.
Hopefully we will miss the big rains this week and be able to finish up.
Martin Family Farms is a six generation family farm that produces corn and soybeans in central Illinois.

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