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Quinn Farm Update - Challenging Growing Season Completed

Russ Quinn
By  Russ Quinn , DTN Staff Reporter
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The 2014 growing season on our farm is wrapped up as we finished harvest on Friday, November 7. This year's growing season will be one we remember for years because of the weather challenges we faced.

As I wrote earlier this summer, the farm I live on was hit by a severe thunderstorm on June 3. This storm featured wind-driven, large hail and 4 inches of rain in a very short time.

Results of the storm included severe roof and siding damage to our home and buildings, many trees toppled over, knocked down power lines and much crop damage. For the first time I could remember, both corn and soybeans had to be replanted in mid-June.

Luckily for us the rest of our fields are a good 30 miles to the south. For once, farming fields that far apart was a good thing. Those distant fields didn't see the large, damaging hail. I was always kind of envious of our neighbors who have all their fields within a few miles of each other. Not this year.

In addition to the massive hailstorm in early June, the crops also had to survive several other weather trials Mother Nature decided to throw at them. Let's see. We had a very cold spring; then we had an extremely wet June followed by a dry July and most of August; and then, to cap things off, we had a wet late August and September.

Evidently Mom Nature didn't have any locusts handy to release upon us as well this growing season.

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The other challenge we face every year is hoping our "seasoned" farm equipment holds together for yet another harvest. Being a small farm, we have to get by as best as we can with the older equipment we have. This usually involves some repair work.

We really didn't have too many issues with the harvest equipment this year, surprisingly enough. We lost parts of a couple different days as one of the chains of the unloading auger broke on the combine and managed to wrap itself around the one shaft, thus bending it just slightly.

Luckily our neighbor was a John Deere mechanic before coming back to the farm full-time, so he will work on our machinery. He was busy with his own harvest, but he did come over one afternoon and helped us take the shaft out of the combine. Dad and I put it back in the next day.

Despite all of the weather challenges and machinery obstacles, yields turned out to be fairly decent. Our fields that did not see the hail featured the highest soybean yield we have ever seen on our farm. The one farm yielded right at 60 bushels per acre.

We had some issues with even getting 50 bpa in recent years, so 60 bpa beans is a pretty amazing number. The best corn yield we had was about 175 bpa, which is about what we have seen in recent years.

That was the good news. As you would expect, the replanted crops did yield considerably less.

The corn was about 120 bpa and the beans right at 40 bpa. I can remember being a kid and my dad and uncle would have been extremely pleased with "three-digit" corn yields and beans starting with a "4"; but this is 2014, not 1984.

All the harvest equipment is tucked back in the one corner of the shed, and we got it put away just in time with the winter-like weather here in mid-November. It is as if I went to bed on November 11 and woke up on January 12 with temps in the single digits already.

How were the holidays?

The continuing wild weather here in November is really not that surprising with what we have seen during much of 2014. I'm afraid a tough winter may be in store for all of us here in the Midwest, although I hope I am completely wrong.

I am guessing many of you are also hoping I am wrong about my winter weather prediction.

(JP/CZ)

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