Winter Grain Hauling, Shop Work and Meetings

 Folks ask us all the time what we are doing on the farm during the winter months.  I usually smile and say something like, "Getting ready for Spring."  The fact is our team is not as busy in the winter as we are during planting or harvest periods.  Instead of 60-70 hour weeks we are only putting in 40-50 hours per week.

We are busy in the office with tax preparation sending out W2's  and 1099's.  We meet with our banker, landowners, agronomist, insurance agent, accountant, equipment salesman, precision specialists, and many chemical and seed company representatives to plan for our spring and summer crop needs. Variable rate prescriptions are being written for each corn field for Lime, Nitrogen, Phosphate and Potash fertilizers and seed.  Soon it will be time to begin the process of securing our labor for the tobacco crop through the H2A program.

We have already had some variable rate lime and fertilizer applied to the corn fields and the rest will be ran when the ground is dry enough.  Our field work will begin in earnest in about 2 weeks.  We will begin applying nitrogen fertilizer to the wheat.  By the first of March we will begin applying anhydrous ammonia to our corn ground and will start tobacco transplants in the greenhouse.  In reality our "winter slowdown" will only last about 2 months.  The pictures below give an idea of the winter work our team has been doing.

Above, wheat is being loaded out headed for delivery at Siemer Milling in Hopkinsville, KY.  Wheat is harvested in June but the flour mill needs milling quality wheat year round.  Below, corn is being loaded for delivery to the ethanol plant at Hopkinsville, KY.  Hopkinsville Elevator Company is a farmer-owned cooperative that owns and operates the ethanol plant.  The profits are distributed back to the farmer-members each year.  This type of business allows farmers to benefit from turning the corn into a value added product such as ethanol for a fuel additive and by products like dried distillers grains (DDGs) that are fed to livestock while providing jobs and putting money back into the local economy. 

We have been busy gathering up materials to fire cure tobacco later this year.  Ricky Massey is pictured above unloading sawdust at one of our tobacco barns.  We prefer to haul our sawdust and wood slabs during the winter while we aren't as busy.   

We like to spend some of our time in the winter trying to learn about new technology, issues and farming methods.   Jake and I had the opportunity to attend the National No-Tillage Conference this month.  We learned about advanced cover crop systems and different no-till systems from other farmers and industry experts.  It's always interesting to hear other people talk about successes and failures with new technology and ideas.  We came home with a couple of ideas to help our farm be more efficient and environmentally sustainable.

Sherman Marklin, Ricky Massey, Jake Mitchel and Chris Marklin have been working in the shop doing preventive maintenance and cleaning up our equipment.  It's much better to make repairs now than when we are rushing trying to complete fieldwork in the spring and summer.  It takes a lot of time to keep the trucks, tractors and implements field and road ready.  

There is something about waking up to a snow covered landscape.  We all need to take time to enjoy the scenery more often!  Remember in just a few weeks we will be headed back out on our tractors in the community.  Please be sure and look for farm equipment on the roads and share the road so we can all do our job and get home safely!