Tag Archives: equipment

Grain Dryer Replacement

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Just to refresh your memories, we had a grain dryer fire last fall. The dryer was repaired to the point that we could finish drying our harvest but we decided to replace it in time to use for the 2020 season.

Replacing a grain dryer is no small task and it consumed a lot of our spare time during the summer of 2020. To start things out, we thought we had a company lined up to do the crane work for us but they failed to follow through. After a text and phone call we had K & S Millwrights, from Buffalo Lake, MN, lined up to help us with the project. They were doing some work at a nearby town and would get to us once that project was completed.

In the mean time, we had a lot of work to do getting ready for the crane to come. We disconnected everything from our old grain dryer then went to the farm site of the farmer we purchased the “new to us” dryer from and prepped that one for moving.

Moving control panel
Detaching electrical
Extending concrete pad

Removing the old grain dryer

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Early corn cultivation pass

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Best laid plans….. This was the year for us to try something new in our corn fields. We have been experiencing root and stalk issues the past few years and feel that the cultivator is the culprit. Our plan was to do different trials consisting of 1) no cultivation 2) early cultivation but not ridging and 3) early cultivation followed by ridging. We managed to get the first cultivation in in a timely manner while the plants were still small. We left the cut away discs down to be as aggressive as possible with our weed control. On our ridging pass, the plan was to raise the cut aways and just use the sweep with ridging wings. This plan was thwarted by the onslaught of rains that followed. By the time things let up, the corn was tasseling. So much for trial 3.


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Soybean Planting 2018

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Planting soybeans on ridges.

Ridges after planting soybeans.

It took until May 16 to get rolling in soybeans. A couple of weeks later than ideal but there are places south and east of us that are continuing to struggle with water issues preventing them from planting corn. This year is a little different than what we’ve done for seedbed preparation prior to soybean planting. Most of our planting is still on ridges but we do have one field that is following corn that wasn’t ridged in 2017. To prepare that seedbed we did a fall pass and a spring pass with our Excelerator vertical till machine. The results were beyond expectations! We couldn’t have asked for a better seedbed.

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Corn Harvest 2017

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OK. I know it’s now the end of January and I’m still not caught up on posting from last fall. I am finally feeling caught up, to a point, with my most important winter office work. Last year’s data has been pored over, crunched, edited, tweaked, post calibrated and used to make decisions for 2018 and forward. Time has been put into selecting seed, figuring out the best way to keep weeds at bay both chemically and physically, crunching numbers to make the current corn and soybean prices work, developing marketing plans and attending winter meetings put on by the U of M, Coop and other ag related entities. My calendar for February still has more meetings and training sessions on it.

first-field-of-corn

First field of corn.

opening up the headland

Opening up the headland.

fan motor taken apart

Fan motor needed bearings.

Now where was I before going off on that tangent. Oh yeah, corn harvest. It really did happen and I have the pictures to prove it. Normally, we don’t start harvesting corn until after soybeans are done but this fall was not normal by any measure. After getting tired of the weather delay we kept having during soybean harvest, we gave in and harvested some corn. The moisture was at 22%, dry enough to get a start. The variety removed all of the headlands on a 300 acre field. Taking these off would make harvesting the remainder of that field much easier when the time came. After meticulously going through the electric motors that need to reliably get us through harvest, we still had a breakdown on day two of corn harvest. We hadn’t done the main motors that cool the large grain bin.  The second one went out about 3/4 of the way through harvest as well. Oh, well. Maybe next year will be trouble free. Yes, I’m dreaming again. Continue reading →

Grand prize winner of NCGA Fields-of-Corn Photo Contest!!

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combine-truck-of-corn-sunset-photo

Harvest Glow

I was informed on Monday, January 29, by the National Corn Growers Association, that I was the grand prize winner of the 2017 Fields-of-Corn photo contest. I had entered this contest quite a few years ago and haven’t thought too much about it again until this fall, after capturing a spectacular sunset during corn harvest. One of my greatest joys during the harvest season, is the never ending beauty, displayed by God, during the evening sunset. I never tire of viewing or snapping photos. The backdrops, provided during harvest, add to the canvas something that is only available during a short season of the year.

In the past, cell phone photos seemed to lack something but I have been very impressed with the iPhone 7 camera. It is so much better at picking up differences in lighting to capture the full beauty of what my eye catches.

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Soybean harvest and rain delays 2017

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Soybean harvest weather started out so well. But then the BIG rain hit. Waiting for the soils to dry out allowed us to do some, much needed, tree trimming that we had been trying to get at all summer. For the most part, the soils handled the rain event well. Fields dried out and firmed up in about 10 days. We didn’t have to go around  any standing water or mud. The money spent on drainage tile pays off in many ways.

 

A neighboring field after 5″ + of rain.

Neighboring field with ducks at sunset.

Burning tree branches after a couple days of trimming.

Grain handling prep for harvest 2017

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Our grain handling system is a key piece in the harvest process. It needs to run efficiently, with as few break downs as possible, to get through corn harvest in a timely manner. Even a small thing can bring harvest to a halt. Every seven years we change the bearings in all the electric motors of our grain system that put high hours on annually. 2017 was the year to do this again. We take all the the smaller motors off but leave the larger ones in place and remove the internal rotor that the bearings are mounted on. The largest motor, a 20hp 3ph motor on the top our our 120′ grain leg, is always a challenge. This year, we were able to do all the work on top of the grain leg thanks to a powerful 20V DeWalt impact wrench that helped remove the bearings from the shaft.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also need to test fire the grain dryer to make sure that the flame control system is working properly. One of the burners wouldn’t fire. Upon investigation, a wire wast found to be chewed in half by some critter.

 

Our seed beans are handled in a gentle manner. This means using a belt conveyor to load them from the truck to the bins. We also unload the combine tank at half throttle to limit damage to the seed from the augers.

Prepping the combine for harvest 2017

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Our time, during the end of August and first three weeks in September, is spent getting ready for harvest. This includes making sure the combine, along with the corn and bean heads, is harvest ready. A post-harvest inspection is done every year by our local John Deere dealer. They are quite thorough and always find something that needs attention. We are comfortable in handling most of the combine repairs but let the dealer do the ones that are more involved.

Combine with bean platform at shop.

Cutting sickle removed from bean head.