Why did we turn this land in to pollinator habitat? We we rented this farm consisting of six fields this 23 acres was the most challenging. Nine acres of is a large sandhill with trees all along the North edge. Most years it wouldn’t produce very much grain at all. So when we bought this […] The post Creating Pollinator Habitat From Farmland appeared first on The Farmer's Life ..read more

Another fall, another drain tile installation. This time we are adding a drainage system to a spot on the farm that frequently sees water damage. Even a potential total crop loss in the lowest spots of the field. This is going to be a great improvement to the farm for many years to come. Our […] The post Drain Tile Install on Farm appeared first on The Farmer's Life ..read more

Just like your lawn in spring, we make a weed and feed pass on our wheat this time of year. Nutrien came out with their John Deere R4045 Sprayer to apply about 100lbs an acre of nitrogen via 28-0-0 and weed control through some Harmony Extra herbicide. We don’t currently own a sprayer on the […] The post John Deere R4045 Sprayer Topdressing Winter Wheat appeared first on The Farmer's Life ..read more

If you have never seen a corn field grow from the day of planting all the way through harvest I can help you out! On YouTube I’ve made a playlist dedicated to one of our corn fields growing in 2020. The corn you see is waxy corn growing in the field surrounding our farm shop […] The post Corn Field Videos from Planting to Harvest appeared first on The Farmer's Life ..read more

The time has come for a corn head upgrade. We ran our John Deere 612C for seven seasons, and for the last few years we’ve have some gearbox issues including replacing a couple of them for a hefty parts bill. A new 712FC late in 2019, and now it’s here from the factory near the […] The post A Corn Head that Folds appeared first on The Farmer's Life ..read more

Wheat Harvest 2019 We grow soft red winter wheat which is planted in the fall, and harvested the following summer. Usually harvest begins the first week of July which was true again in 2019. Wheat was growing during the cool, wet spring of corn and soybean planting so it was slow to develop.  We did […] The post Wheat Harvest Drone Video appeared first on The Farmer's Life ..read more

That stringy stuff on your sweet corn serves a very important purpose. So important you wouldn’t have sweet corn to eat without corn silk. It’s kind of annoying because most of it comes off when you peel back the husk, but some of it seems to really want to hang on the ear. There are […] The post What is the Purpose of Corn Silk? appeared first on The Farmer's Life ..read more

I’m a family farmer, and I have signed a Monsanto contract.  I’m the 4th generation to work this land.  Somewhere along the line the idea corporations control farms or farmers are slaves to “Big Ag” came about.  People claim that we are beholden to corporations like Monsanto and have to sign unfair contracts to be privileged enough to use […] The post What’s in a Monsanto Contract? appeared first on The Farmer's Life ..read more

Another year of blogging and farming gone by already! It was an interesting year that started out too wet, but brought us perfect harvest weather even if the yields weren’t perfect. I’ve been sharing my top ten most viewed posts of 2015 on facebook and twitter so I thought I’d collect them all here in […] The post My Top Ten Blog Posts of 2015 appeared first on The Farmer's Life ..read more

On our farm we grow corn for grain. Unlike sweet corn our corn remains in the field until fall when the plant reaches maturity and the grain dries out.  So what kind of equipment do we have to get it out of the field and into our grain bins or off to market? The Combine […] The post How Do Farmers Harvest Corn? appeared first on The Farmer's Life ..read more