Corny As Kansas in August

Walking through a corn field these days is starting to sound like you're shaking cornflakes from the cardboard cereal box into a bowl.

Our 2019 corn crop is beginning to dry down. There's still plenty of green, but it's losing its lush, verdant color as it transitions toward harvest.

A corn field nearing harvest looks like it needs an airbrush before a beauty shot. In contrast, I think a wheat field looks pretty from start to finish ... well, except if it gets hailed on or a combine is stuck in the field. OK, I guess there are exceptions to every generalization. But, by the time the corn crop is ready to combine, those dried out leaves and husks just don't look that appealing from afar.

Last week, we tested moisture on some fields to see if the moisture was right for transporting to Haw Ranch Feedlot near Turon. While traditional co-op elevators want moisture content at around 16 or below, the feedlot wanted high-moisture corn - grain between 24 to 32 percent moisture.

Randy hand-shelled some kernels, choosing a couple of cobs from stalks that looked more dried down. He put them in the moisture tester while I held on to the canister to prevent spills.

The drier cobs' moisture tested at 18.0.

He then tried a couple of cobs from stalks still showing more green. However, the moisture contest was 21.2, so it was still too dry for the feedlot and not yet dry enough for the co-op. 

We had been missing the rains that had zigzagged across Kansas in the past week or so. However, on Saturday night into Sunday morning, we got 2.90" of rain. It filled the mudholes back up, and it will put the 2019 corn harvest on hold for awhile longer. (But the rain was great for sudan and milo. We hope it will help boost the third cutting of alfalfa, too.)

The prevented planting of wheat acres meant an increase to those we devoted to corn on the County Line this year.

Photo taken August 2 - If you compare how brown the field is now, you can see how much it's dried down this month.

The countdown - and dry down - continues. Planting date makes a difference.

Both the following photos were taken on Friday, August 23.

The field in the photo above was planted a week before the field in the photo below. It's the same variety of corn, so the week difference in planting date is definitely evident. The fields are about 2 miles apart, so there could be a slight difference in rainfall, but not appreciable.

Let's hope this year's corn story has a happy ending!

Ballet for the Bovines

Click on the photo for a closer look at the "choreography."

It might not be Swan Lake, but there's some fancy choreography in this Ballet for the Bovines. A bright morning sun lit the scene instead of a stage's spotlights. Rather than tiny, light-footed ballerinas in a choreographed dance, three mammoth tractors lumbered in pirouetting perfection. Two rainbows of gold provided the special effects. The audience included several thousand bovines who just might have been licking their lips in anticipation of a visit to the "concession stand" at intermission.

Last week, we hauled several loads of higher-moisture corn to the Haw Ranch Feedlot near Turon. While traditional co-op elevators want moisture content at around 16 or below, the feedlot wanted grain at 24 to 32 percent moisture.

In fact, if the corn was too dry, you got docked. If the moisture dropped below 24 percent, there was a 1.2 percent per point dockage. If it was too wet (above 32), the shrinkage was 1.5 percent per point.

The feedlot is around 15 miles from our farm. When we got to the feedlot, Randy unrolled the tarp covering the truck bed. 

Meanwhile, cowboys had herded some cattle onto the scales, weighing them to determine weight gains after a few weeks of dining on crabgrass pastures. Cowboys and cattle aren't usually part of the scenery when we take a trip to the co-op elevator.

After a moisture test at the scale house, Randy dumped the corn right on to a cement pad. Almost as soon as it was dumped, a big front loader came and pushed the corn into a pile.

Then, they used another front loader to scoop corn into the grinders.

There, the corn was broken down into cattle feed. Augers shot the ground corn into the silo, where the three big John Deere tractors pushed and packed it tight. 

I was glad I went along for the ride when I did because we didn't have to wait very long. Later in the day, Randy was in a line with 30 trucks, mostly semis, waiting to dump. We don't have a semi, so he decided we would quit hauling to the feedlot because of the distance and the downtime.

The big equipment and crew travel from feedlot to feedlot during corn harvest, putting up the corn into silos. The Haw Ranch Feedlot planned to take in approximately 800,000 bushels of higher-moisture corn in about one week's time. In addition, some area farmers sold corn silage to the feedlot. All will be used to feed cattle there at the feedlot, which has a 50,000-head capacity.

 

Ours was not a starring role in the Ballet for the Bovines, but everyone knows that those "bit parts" are important to the overall big picture.