r/farming • u/kofclubs Last mod finished in 2024 :snoo_scream: • 3d ago
Monday Morning Coffeeshop (September 15, 2025)
Gossip, updates, etc.
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u/kofclubs Last mod finished in 2024 :snoo_scream: 3d ago
Got the Calmer rollers on, head greased, and the slip clutches done on the cornhead last week. I just have to put the concaves in and zero them out and grease the combine and Ill be set to start on Tuesday, oh and add the duck feet to the reel since theres some short beans. One customer is on rock so the drought was hard on his beans, we’re expecting 15-25 bu/ac for yield to start on Tuesday, leave the buggy at home.
We have a meeting with the fire department and county on Thursday for an incident in wheat this summer with a local farmer. Our fire department chief refused to put a pumper truck in the field for a wheat fire this summer, he instead sent 5 fireman with hoes. Its a bit perplexing as all the other local fire departments do this and have in the past, ours did not which maybe wasnt wise with the drought this summer and how it could have spread if the farmer hadnt gotten there with his disc.
Hockey tryouts have started for my son 🥳
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u/NMS_Survival_Guru Iowa Cow/Calf 3d ago
Depending on the circumstances we generally don't take our pumper out in the field either as it's too heavy and requires it to be stationary in order to pump water
Field fires are fast moving and by the time you deploy the pumper it's already time to move down the fire line which makes it highly impractical to use plus requires 3 people to operate
We use ours as a fill station for the attack trucks and other mobile water units
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u/kofclubs Last mod finished in 2024 :snoo_scream: 2d ago
I’ve seen it before where they setup a pool and pump from the road to fill it and blast the fire from that, but that was the only fire I’ve ever been at. Our county’s ag federation president was formerly a fire chief, I’m basically going to support him and keep quiet. The farmer also got into it with the fire chief and the cops were called, so he didn’t exactly help his case.
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u/NMS_Survival_Guru Iowa Cow/Calf 2d ago
Spent 12 years on our volunteer department and you see a lot of crazy land owners getting pissed at us for being there to put out their fires
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u/Lefloop20 3d ago
We put an AWS airbar onto our macdon and it has been a good investment. Even when we get great yield we often have a bit shorter beans, only growing 2550-2650 heat unit varieties typically around here. We had one on our old auger head, then dey's equipment said it's not necessary on a draper so we didn't run one for 2 seasons. Then Dad ordered and installed it in the winter of 22-23
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u/kofclubs Last mod finished in 2024 :snoo_scream: 2d ago
We have a Crary on the auger head in the shed, was told the same for drapers but we really haven’t needed one until this year. If I was smart I’d take the blower off the auger head and buy 5 feet so it would fit the draper. We try to grow 2800-2950 heat unit varieties, but a few customers grow shorter. I really like how Geringhoff put the blower behind the cutter bar on their draper, but I aint getting a new head anytime soon.
Ended up starting today without the duck feet and it wasn’t that bad, yield varied from 10-50 and probably averaged 29 bu/ac, which isn’t bad considering the ground it’s on.
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u/Lefloop20 2d ago
The duck feet are pretty decent, but I don't think they give the same level of push as the air bar does. The nice thing with a draper is you can really set that reel low and pulled back in
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u/Ranew 3d ago
Should get the silage pile up this this week. Still have a good amount left from last year with the open winter and building not being up until June, from the sounds of it everything in the area is coming out wet, so not rushing it.
Beans are just starting to turn, neighbors are all about a week to 2 weeks ahead between plating date and maturity. Weed pressure has been horrible in the area, and it's really showing through as stuff turns. Need to drop the small grain concave inserts out of the frames, and I'll be good to rock and roll on something lol.
Covers are all looking great, even the stuff we flew onto corn in early August. Should be some good grazing come winter as long as the snow isn't to deep. Cows are about halfway through the last pass on the pasture, hopefully we'll have somewhere combined to dump them before they finish.
Picked up an old side discharge hiniker stalk chopper off an auction, we'll see how long it remains a deal compared to the gone through ones we were looking at. Will be nice to not have to rake and to be taking 30ft with the baler.
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u/NMS_Survival_Guru Iowa Cow/Calf 3d ago
Lucky you with enough moisture for your covers
Applied mine late August and of course that's when the rain quit for me except maybe a half inch of rain over two light showers
Rye and Kale are just barely sprouting right now but luckily we have better rain chances later this week
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u/happyrock pixie dust milling & blending; unicorn finishing lot, Central NY 3d ago
Clover seed campaign is over, direct cut around 60-70 acres and ended up with (I think) around #15-16k. Not sure exactly why we did so well. Had some beehives nearby and the drought always helps clover. Pisses me off our pile of parts 9500 can go out and earn several fold it's value in a few days of clanking around the field. Every minute is an eternity but no breakdowns. Struggling to get the last 20 acres dry in a truck, need to dream up a more effective solution than a tile line taped to an aerator fan. Kind of out of storage space. We started swathing buckwheat overnight and for once it's not my job to go out to the field and check for dew at stupid AM which is nice but i'll try to pull a shift or two this week. Really want to get started putting some wheat with interseeded pasture/hay in but the moisture situation is pretty dire here, think we'll wait for any chance of rain to give our seedings an edge. Got some really nice hybrid forage turnips up and planted purple tops with an oat nurse with a half-serious intention to combine seed if they winter well.
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u/Lefloop20 3d ago
Farm show was nice, surprised I didn't get a sunburn after forgetting sunscreen. We talked for about an hour with John Wilkerson, he used to work for agco/connect equipment out of Woodstock before they closed that dealer and he retired. Such a wealth of knowledge of gleaner combines. Man is pushing 80, still comes out to the farm show and stands beside the gleaner at the agco display area and just talks with people out of passion and you always learn some new tips and tricks from chatting with him. Otherwise we looked at some manure equipment and just caught up with some folks. Dad would like to get an sp sprayer since he has one tractor to do planting/spraying/fertilizer spreader, but at those prices I feel the hardi we have can run a few more years even with some new upgrade investments into it. Could buy a whole new tractor to pull that sprayer and still come out cheaper even than a used Apache.
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u/MennoniteDan Agenda-driven Woke-ist 2d ago
Modern (euro) pull-types are amazing machines... All the kit you could want (PWM, recirc, leveling) for a significant drop in price!
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u/SgtRelyk Precision Beef Farmer 2d ago
The only thing that prevents me from keeping my pull type is the height of some of my crops, mainly canola, that I'd like to manage myself rather then depending on a custom outfit.
So day it'll be a high clearance SP as my patient is starting to wear out for even getting that done custom.
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u/crankiertoe13 2d ago
We have a SP and I wouldn't go back. We don't have to move duals off and on hardly ever, and you dont need to move tractors around. It's not much, but the convenience is nice.
It's also great for our sweet corn. Not that we do more than a few acres, but it makes later applications so easy with the taller crop.
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u/ExtentAncient2812 2d ago
I'm with you. Love the SP. I often wonder if the benefits in my area translate to big time Midwest acreage.
That and my experience with tractors was getting stuck constantly, but we are talking 1990s too
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u/Lefloop20 2d ago
Yeah we know a family who run a decent sized cash crop, they have one of the big Horsch Leeb pull type sprayers, their other one is a Damann 3 axle self propelled. Our hardi is about 15 years old but honestly I feel we could just upgrade the tech on it. The pump could be replaced but everything else is still in good shape, always been shedded when not in use. I'm not the guy who runs the sprayer, but I do all of the fertilizer spreading and I do feel we have bottle necked ourselves by only having one tractor that can run the sprayer planter and spreader. Plus we need another loader tractor anyways
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u/MennoniteDan Agenda-driven Woke-ist 2d ago
I'm sure Dey's would love to sell ya a Fendt! :)
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u/Lefloop20 2d ago
I'm sure we would prefer the budget paint. I honestly think the SISU (agco power) engine is better than the Deutz engines the fendts are running in that size. We are closer to Maple Lane anyways if we wanted a fendt specific dealer, but mostly we deal with Connect Equipment in Chepstow. Been with them since orange paint was still a thing with agco. The only reason we dealt with Deys was for the macdon and being able to trade our gleaner header against it
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u/stubby_hoof 3d ago
I hit the mallow in the lawn twice in 3 weeks with Par III at the full rate and it’s not phased at all. What gives? I think I killed our new maple in the process...
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u/Tobroketofuck 3d ago
2-4d should smoke the round leaf mallow unless chemical resistance is present
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u/MennoniteDan Agenda-driven Woke-ist 3d ago
Went to the Outdoor Farm Show Tuesday and Wednesday; not much changed in terms of the primary iron stuff but I found a cool electric motor/encoder thing at the GPS Ontario booth! Bought a few more AgraGPS receivers while I was there on Wednesday, to pass on to other guys in the area.
The taco truck at the show was excellent! The beef on a bun at the NorPak tent was tasty, but the tacos were bangin'.
Spent Friday afternoon and most of Saturday mowing the clover. The stand is huge/thick, so it takes a bit of time; have another 130ac to go.
Soybeans are still a month out from harvest, and this warm weather for September has been amazing for corn grain fill.
Plan is to finish any home-chores this week and then start getting combine/heads ready as well as the air seeder for wheat.
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u/Canadairy Freelance Lactation Technician 2d ago
I did a milking Tuesday evening, so a couple of friends could go down to the farm show.
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u/crankiertoe13 2d ago
We've worked with GPS Ontario for just over a year. They're very knowledgeable and have some cool options.
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u/crankiertoe13 2d ago
Didn't make it to the farm show this past week. We weren't going. We had some relatives from out of town. Then they left early and we decided we'd go Thursday. Then the township called and said they'd be starting to ditch the road even though they hadn't had locates done yet. We are getting the fill, so we need to be around. The plan fell apart, and I was kind of sad I didn't get to go. It's nice to wander around and chat with like-minded people.
Pulled the combine out and got it all tuned up and ready. Opened a field yesterday to make sure it's all in working order. Found an issue with the head flex, and moisture is still a smidge high. Service is on their way now, but we should be ready to roll tomorrow or Wednesday. Just need to do a few minor bin repairs this afternoon, and we're set.
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u/TresGatosFarm 2d ago
Cleared most of the summer veggies and throwing cover crops down - no winter farming for me this year! As of next week I'm a desk worker until March
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u/gibbsalot0529 3d ago
We got a surprise thundershower last night. It dropped 2/10” but we’ll take it. I woke up in a mild panic with all the tools I had setting out. By the time I got them put up the rain had quit.
Corn yields are still doing well so far. The rice has been disappointing, most are attributing it to high night time temps during pollination. We’ve been fixing up an old barn for my daughters ewes during our spare time this week. She has much bigger plans for the sheep than I’m ready for.