Fall Harvest Action

 Fall Harvest action is in full swing in our area!  We are almost finished with corn harvest and have begun soybean harvest.  The corn crop has been great with above average yields.  The early planted soybean yields have been great too.  Our harvest crew has put in some long days and nights to make it all happen in the harvest window.  We have been spread pretty thin trying to harvest corn and soybeans at the same time.  Sowing winter wheat has been thrown in the mix this week too!  

The fall season is a beautiful time of year to be in the fields working.  We've had some amazing sunsets this harvest season.  This picture was taken in Simpson County KY.

Dad and Jake Mitchell unloading the combine "on the go" to maximize combine efficiency at harvest.  Sherman Marklin waiting on a load of corn.  There wasn't much waiting this season!

Dalton Crumley loading a trailer at the field.  Ricky Massey below is unloading a load of wet corn at the bin and hauling dry corn out.  We don't have enough capacity to hold all of our corn crop in our bins at once.  We have to haul corn in and out daily.  Some of our corn has already made its way to end users for pet and livestock food and the rest is stored in bins on the farm.

We are at the halfway point of the harvest season with the corn almost done and starting soybean harvest.  Remember to watch for tractors and combines on narrow country roads this fall.  We aren't there to slow you down we are just trying to get our work done.

2015 tobacco is in the barn.

 I get lots of questions about dark tobacco and how we grow and cure the leaf.  Each plant is hand cut and spiked onto the tobacco sticks.  The sticks are then loaded on the wagons to take to the barn.  We try and let the tobacco hang a day or two on the wagon to wilt and make it easier and lighter to handle.  The pictures show the tobacco cut in the field and then being picked up and placed on tobacco frames for transport to the barn.  We have barns that all sizes and shapes.  Some hold an acre some hold 5 and our biggest holds about 12 acres.  Cutting tobacco in 95 plus degree heat is a grueling task.

Sherman Marklin pictured above backing a wagon up to the barn to be unloaded.  The tobacco is unloaded and then handed up into the barn and hung with care on the tiers of the barn for curing.  Each stick weighs about 75 pounds.  

Once the tobacco barn is full we place hardwood slabs from oak and hickory trees on the floor of the barn and cover them with sawdust.  Then we place kindling in holes scattered throughout the barn and light fires in each hole.  This is the part where knowing the barn and having an understanding of the stage the tobacco and the weather is in becomes critical. If you light too many fires and get it too hot too quickly you will flash dry the tobacco and set a green or yellow color.  If you don't light enough fires you will "sweat" the tobacco and make the leaves rot in the barn and greatly decrease quality and yield.  Curing tobacco is equal parts knowledge, tradition and luck.  

The fires are lit and they will die down to a smoldering fire once the kindling is all gone out of each hole.  We get lots of calls from folks passing through to tell us our barns are on fire.  

Dark Air Cured tobacco is hung in a more open barn where the natural heat and wind cure the tobacco.  If you have good curing conditions you get a nice color if it's too wet we may have to open fire these barns to dry them out.  Basically, open firing is lighting little campfires all over the barn to dry the tobacco out.    

Summer Crop Update.

It's hard to believe the kids are back in school and the summer is almost over.  Soon the days will be getting noticeably shorter and hopefully cooler!  I've had a lot of questions about the crop conditions with all the rain we had in July.  July was one of the wettest on record.  In some of our locations we received close to 20 inches of rain during one of the normally driest months of the year!  We expect the corn harvest to be one of the better in recent history.  We have to remember the wet conditions in which we planted much of the corn.  I don't think it will be the best crop we have ever had.  That being said we are looking forward to a better than average crop.  The tobacco crop looks good.  Generally a wet weather crop doesn't weigh what it seems like it should.  It's big and heavy going in.  Maybe it will weigh good coming out this winter.  The soybeans need a few more showers yet.  The double crop soybeans are flowering and setting pods.    

During the hottest days of the past couple of weeks we watered corn under pivots to help cool the plants down and encourage the kernels to grow as large as possible.  Overall mother nature provided most of the water needed for our corn crop.  What a blessing!

We have a few single crop soybeans scattered around and they are filling pods with beans.  The recent showers have really helped them along and they look great.  The wet conditions have caused a few spots of "Sudden Death Syndrome" in some fields but not enough to get excited about.  We have sprayed all the soybeans with weed herbicide and are beginning to spray fungicide to promote pod fill.  Clean beans are happy beans!

We have been scouting corn fields and yield checks look really good in most fields.  The ears pictured above came from an irrigated field that had extra fertilizer applied through the pivot.  These are early estimates.  Yields are usually all over the place depending on the field and specific variety in each field.  Very few ears are exactly the same so estimating yield is quite difficult, but it's fun to get out and look at a great crop in the field.

Tobacco cutting is underway in the whole area.  We began cutting last week.  Tobacco is still a very labor intensive crop.  We have a great group of men that come help us get the tobacco in through the H2A Visa Program.  Each plant is cut by hand and put on a stick with a spike by hand.  There are about 800 sticks per acre.  Each stick is then loaded on a wagon and hauled to the barn where it is unloaded and handed up by hand into the barn to be hung on the tiers in the barn where it will cure.  It's tiring just thinking about the whole process.  All of this happens in 90 - 100 degree heat!

Two proud young farmers.  They love to come to the field.  They had a contest to find the biggest leaf the other day.  Tobacco farmers take great pride in their crop.  We sell the leaves and try to handle the tobacco as easily as possible to make it to the barn with the leaves on the stalks.  A few are inevitably broken off during the process.  Tobacco from our area is exported all over the world.  Much of it is used domestically for smokeless tobacco products.

Be sure to watch for farmers on the road during the coming months.  They are trying to get their work done.  They're not out joy riding on the tractor. There will be hundreds of tobacco wagons on the road in our area over the next few weeks.  PLEASE be alert and try to be patient if you get behind one. We know fall is just around the corner when the barns start smoking in Robertson and Simpson Counties!    

The wheat harvest hustle is almost over!

We've been busy on the farm with summer harvest activity.  The recent rain has delayed us from finishing the last few acres of our wheat crop.  Yield and quality have both been excellent.  All the little things done over the growing season pay off when the weather cooperates and we have the blessing of a good yield.  The wheat has had great milling characteristics with high test weight.  Heavy grains make better flour and better cookies! 

 

Our team has worked long days and into the night getting the job done right.  With the weather, we have had to do the harvest hustle when we could!  I hope you enjoy the everyday harvest shots as much as I enjoy taking them.  If you have a question about what you see or read please ask.  We have had a lot of positive feed back about our crop updates.  If you have a suggestion for a post let me know.  We take for granted the scenes and work we get to do everyday.  We enjoy what we do and hope you have a better understanding of how we do our job of growing safe and affordable food through our blog posts.

Chris Marklin running one of the combines day and night in Robertson County, TN.  Soft Red Winter Wheat is used in many food products derived from wheat flour.  Wheat flour is also one of the main ingredients used to bond plywood and particle board together.  Your house probably has flour in the kitchen, literally!

The weather has slowed field work but has also given us some magnificent sunsets too.  This picture was taken in the Prices Mill community of Simpson County, KY.

We had a friend stop by with his drone a few days ago and took these shots of the combines and the planter in between rain showers.  Dad and Sherman dumping the combine on the go Chris Marklin in a combine and Jake Mitchell planting below.

A panoramic view of the field office.  It's nice harvesting a good crop, when everything is working right.  Automated steering makes it easy to take a nice picture too!

The field captain keeping everyone in line!

David Jepson and Sherman Marklin assisting Guy Reeder with Agriserve Crop Management calibrate yield monitors in the combines.  The monitors in the cabs of the combines keep up with the yield for each field and farm.  It takes a measurement every few seconds and records it and the GPS location of each data point.  It is important to keep the monitors calibrated for weight and moisture.  We use this data collected from every field and farm to make fertility and seeding prescriptions for our crops.  Precision agriculture lets us turn our data into decisions.  The better the data the more accurate picture we have of the  situation in each field.  This information helps us make smarter agronomic decisions that affect our bottom line and the environment.  

Ricky Massey waiting on a load for the cart.  There hasn't been much time to stand around during harvest.  Thanks for reading and be on the lookout for a crop update for soybeans, corn and tobacco in a couple of weeks! 

Tobacco setting is complete and Summer Harvest 2015 is here!

Grain harvest has begun in Middle TN!  We raise barley and wheat in our area.  The barley was harvested last week.  Barley is used in feed rations for livestock.  We like to raise a few acres of barley to set the combine and make sure all of our harvest equipment is ready to go.  Barley usually matures about a week before the earliest wheat varieties.  We expect to begin wheat harvest in a just a few days now.  

Jake Mitchell planting double crop, GMO herbicide tolerant, (RoundUp Ready) soybeans into the straw behind the combine. The straw will help hold moisture in the ground during the summer.  

Chris and Sherman Marklin filling the sprayer with herbicides to kill the weeds in the field so they don't compete with the seedling soybeans for water and nutrients.  

Sherman Marklin spraying grass herbicide on tobacco in Robertson Co. TN.  

The tobacco setting crew "riding the setter" transplanting tobacco plants.  Each plant must be placed into the setter.  This is just the first time of many for these plants to be handled by worker hands.  Tobacco is a very labor intensive crop.  

The setter and tiller tractors running in the field on RTK guidance.  The RTK guidance gives us sub-inch accuracy that can be repeated from one pass to another with different machines.  This makes a long day of driving the tractor much easier and more efficient.   

The farm where these pictures were made is owned by our cousin and has been in the family since 1806.  Dark Tobacco has been grown on the farm most every year since then.  We still hang tobacco in barns that have been on the family farm for over 100 years like the one in the background below.  I guess it's a family tradition for a dying breed.  My cousin said the other day "Grand Pappy would be proud to know we are still here and raising tobacco."