Martin Family Farms

Here is what we have so far...

 
    Even though the temperatures have been cooler than normal and we have had a lot of rain the corn we planted is still working hard.  The first corn is up and looking pretty good. Some of the pond areas will have some late emergence, but where the water is not standing it looks pretty good. The last corn we planted on the April 13, 14 is coming.  It has made more progress than I thought when I looked at it this morning and will probably emerge with a day or two of sun.  There might be some bad spots we have not found yet but for what we have to work with I am not complaining.  The weather sounds better for the next week.

 Corn planted on April 6Corn planted on April 14 right before the rain.

 

Pretty slow week on the farm....

    Well not much has happened here on our farm in the last week or so.  Mother Nature continues to keep us wet and out of the fields.  The forecast does not look too bad, but we are over saturated with water standing in many of the fields.  Our first planted corn is up and looking a little pale from the lack of sunlight we have had. All of the low areas of the fields that worked so good a couple of weeks ago are now full of water and will probably have to be replanted.  Hopefully we can get back on schedule next week, but all of the rain is starting to bring back nightmares from the last couple of years. We really need to raise a big corn crop this year or we might be in for some extremely high input and commodity prices due to the low stocks. 

Local News Article on Planting Progress

Our Local paper ask us some questions on planting progress and fuel prices this week. Here is the link to the article.

http://www.lincolncourier.com/topstories/x2057180954/Planting-season-kicks-off

Oh no more rain

    Well we have had a excellent start to the 2011 planting season, but mother nature is slamming the brakes on fast.  As of today we about 40% done with our corn planting on our farm. However, the area is probably 10% at best. We decided to keep planting because the soil was in the best condition we had seen in several years and the seedbed was in good shape. Soil temperatures have been cooler than we like, but are still warm enough to get the seed germinated. Yesterday  our soil temperature at 10 a.m. at a 4" depth was 55 degrees. The forecast for the next week does not look good. There is a decent chance of rain everyday for 7 days.  I  just hope we don't get a flood. Another wet spring will really get discouraging.

 

It's official....

It is official the 2011 planting season began this past week on our farm and throughout central Illinois. Although not everyone was pulling the planter out of the shed there was a lot of activity in the fields doing fieldwork. As usual the first day was to work out all of the bugs and make sure the planters are working like they are suppose to.  With all of the technology (gps, swath control, etc...) it takes some time to get everything working.  It can be frustrating at times, but it is well worth it when it all works. Once we got the planters set we decided to keep on planting, and covered a decent amount of ground in just a few days.  Soil conditions are probably the best they have been in years. With a lot of the fieldwork done last fall and a lot of freeze/thaw cycles this past winter the soil is about as good as we can ask for.  Some warmer temperatures and more chances of rain are predicted for this week so we will see if we can make some more progress.

 

setting the swath control in a 30 mph wind
 

Planting into our NH3 strips

Here we go....

    With the dry conditions and warm weather mother nature has provided us with an excellent start to spring. This past week was extremely busy putting on some anhydrous ammonia, leveling ground, hauling our last bins of corn to the elevator, began a tile project on one of the farms, and making sure everything is ready to go for planting.  Soil conditions are almost perfect for planting, but we are still a little worried about the soil temperature and the cool forecast. If the forecast for the following week looks good we will probably begin planting this upcoming week. Hopefully we will get a little rain tonight to settle the dust and put some moisture in the ground.   We are getting excited for the upcoming growing season!