Growing for Seven Generations
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The Rushed Season
July 2017
A wet spring and early summer has made 2017 a fast paced growing season. Planting got off to an early start in late April but was brought to a screeching halt by torrential downpours that seemed to last days at a time. Planting did not begin again until mid May, and even then some of the early planted corn had to be replanted. From that point on, we has a blur of time sensitive work that didn't seem to end until wheat harvest was finished--Hay overlapping with planting, spraying overlapping with side-dressing and then back to spraying again. It made for long days but short weeks. Now we find ourselves trying to finish up all the odd jobs that were put off before harvest begins, and some (like modifying our grain bins) have to be finished before we can harvest.
In all the rushing around this season we did find time to try out some new things. We did variable rate application of Gypsum for the first time. We installed Y-Drops to more closely control our fertilizer placement and allow for late season applications. We trialed sprayer installed crop sensors that allow variable rate application of Nitrogen Fertilizer and measure crop health. These are the things that are hard to find time for, but could be something that pays dividends in the end.
Right & Below: Y-Drops being used for a mid-season application of Nitrogen and a photo noting the superior placement of N along both sides of the corn row.
