Field work continues, though in a limited fashion, as farmers manage to squeeze into the fields for a day, maybe two, before rain pushes them back out. Looking ahead, the weather pattern appears to continue this trend for the near term at least. Aside from some localized flooding and wind da…
Joe Sperfslage operates a family farm in Linn County near Coggon, growing 1,800 acres of corn, 800 acres of soybeans and 150 acres of wheat.
Last week's weather was about as close to ideal as one could get here in east-central Iowa. Farm operations were able to move forward uninhibited with sunny skies and calm winds before rain moved in Thursday evening and continued off and on throughout the weekend. The forecast is calling for…
Post Memorial Day weather has been excellent. Winds have been calmer, allowing sprayers to return to the fields. Some operations have begun to sidedress corn, and most of the first hay cutting appears to have come off without being rained on. Over the weekend, we managed to snag a few tenths…
The past week brought measurable rain over several days, giving the soil the opportunity to soak it in and loosen the crust for easier emergence. The cool weather that followed has put a pause on crop development, but the forecast is turning much warmer. With the excellent moisture we have i…
Not much to report here. Planting wrapped up for the most part last week, and the forecast looks perfect for an even and fast emergence.
After a slow start to planting, most concerns have been eliminated by a week of excellent progress, and most guys in this area will likely be wrapping up this week. After an April of unrelenting rain, some are already voicing concern that the spigot may have prematurely shut off on us. We wo…
The weather pattern in east-central Iowa finally seems to be turning the corner. Fields are starting to dry out, and equipment is beginning to move, though overall planting progress remains minimal at this point. We continue to watch the forecast closely as the window to make up lost ground …
Between the volume of rain and its frequency, meaningful field work across east-central Iowa has largely been limited to tile repair. A brief window opened up the first half of last week for some spraying to take place and a handful of planters to roll on lighter ground, but heavy rain retur…
It was a good week for book work. It was so dry we’re not going to get anywhere anyway that gets us in the field. We also had hail and tornadoes going around us. Manchester, northeast of here, got bombed with rain. Farmers are itching to get out, but we’ve had lots of big storms the past few weeks.
Joe Sperfslage operates a family farm in Linn County near Coggon, growing 1,800 acres of corn, 800 acres of soybeans and 150 acres of wheat.
Joe Sperfslage operates a family farm in Linn County near Coggon, growing 1,800 acres of corn, 800 acres of soybeans and 150 acres of wheat. Sperfslage is the Linn County Farm Bureau vice president and a board member of River Valley Cooperative in eastern Iowa and Western Illinois. “About ha…
We finished fall tillage and fall fertilizer applications. We have wrapped up field work. We’re waiting on warm days later this week to wash up equipment and put it away for winter. Overall, it was a year of peaks and valleys. Happy with the early growth and good start, but disappointed in h…
I started fall tillage and got fertilizer on about half of it. We’re making repairs among after-harvest duties. Beans and corn wrapped up for about a week with a little shower early last week. Still got tillage to do. We have had good yields. The farm average corn yield hit 250 bu./acre. Mea…
I finished corn and baled some stalks to wrap up harvest 2025. Now we’re preparing for post-harvest tillage and fall fertilizer. Our work with cattle went good, and they’re set to be gone and we’ll start with some new ones.
We’ll wrap up harvest with corn this week with about 100 acres left to get. It’s good to have so much done A little rain didn’t slow down corn. Yields look good for us with 220 bu./acre on the low side and up to 280 on areas sprayed with fungicide. I might start some fall tillage this week. …
We wrapped up harvesting beans and moved on to corn yesterday (Oct. 12). It’s really dried down a lot — from 24% to 15% in a couple of weeks. We’ll keep plugging away at harvesting corn — maybe 70% left to do. We’re seeing yields of 250 plus for those that got fungicide on it. We may work th…
It’s sprinkling and I hear more rain is coming today. We are about 70-80% done harvesting beans. Yields are pretty good, ranging 60-80 bu./acre, but most of it closer to 70-80 bu./acre for field averages. By mid-week, we’ll finish beans and switch back over to harvesting corn.
We had a warm week and we’re getting another one. We got in the field for corn harvesting at Kirkwood Community College and at home. All equipment is working as it is supposed to do. We’ll start on beans this week — hoping to see decent bean yields. Corn yields show a yield difference of abo…
We got a little bit, but most of the rain missed us. More combines will roll out this week. Some farmers might switch to combining beans, but so far I’ve only seen corn combining. We’ve been sweeping out bins and a few other last-minute chores to get ready to harvest.
It’s been hot. I checked Thursday with hand shelling. One field is down to 25% moisture. We maybe start combining this or next week. On Wednesday and Thursday we’ll see what the weather does, as there may be rain coming. Beans are turning color this past week. Our last cutting of hay is done…
Corn’s starting to dry down pretty fast in some spots. I drove from here to Ames to the football game this weekend and there are definitely fields that are pretty dry, and that could be from a shortage of nitrogen or southern rust. Corn looks pretty good all things considered on our farm. I …
We’re getting to the last of the bins. We cleaned the last few loads and took them to ADM and Cargill. We’re getting harvest equipment ready to go. Disease progressed fast in fields. We are maybe starting an earlier harvest than planned. We fixed augers this week. Additionally, I hosted abou…
Weather was good and cooled down nicely at the end of the week. Fields are dried out. All that’s taken pressure off crops from heat. I need to get back in the field. Diseases are progressing pretty harsh through some area fields. It’s not a disaster, just more pressure. That effect could be …
We made a trip to the State Fair and worked on equipment to get ready for fall. We’re wet but not swamped, as we got about half to 1 inch of rain every two to three days in the last week. It’s humid. Crops are showing some stress from diseases and we’ve sprayed fungicide but when it rains co…
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