Elyssa McFarland is the sixth generation in her family to farm near Columbus Junction in Louisa County. She runs the farm with her husband Dave and parents Tom and Chris McFarland. Her degrees in soil science and soil conservation guide her management of the family’s row crops. The family also raises beef cattle, Berkshire and Duroc hogs, broilers and laying hens. Connecting with the community drives the family’s direct-to-consumer meat business.

We’re hoping to get soybean planting started by Thursday probably. It’s been so cold as we got frost over the weekend. Forecast calls for good, dry and warm conditions. That will be a change from the 2 inches of rain received last week.

Rained out Friday after the ground was fit to plant Wednesday and Thursday. Folks were planting corn and beans and sprayers were running. Rain was variable Thursday night. We only got a quarter inch here and were able to run this weekend. West of us, I have heard reports of more rainfall and likely to be out of the fields for a few days. I was sent a photo of corn up enough to row south of here in the river bottoms where the sands warm up quick. My oats and peas that I plan to chop for silage are looking excellent!

Spotty rains last week kept some folks out of the fields, but most people I talked to made some progress on planting. The temperature forecast is keeping folks from going all out. Early-planted corn in the sands are up.

This week was very dry as most missed the rains early in the week. Lots of planting progress here with some folks able to finish up planting. The dry conditions are leaving early-planted beans in need of rain. There were some irrigators running this weekend, too.

Last week was very dry. We irrigated our soybeans and spent a good bit of time scouting and checking soil moisture. Deep cracks were forming, and soil moisture depth varied from a half an inch to 3 inches plus. We built fence, and it felt more like August than May. The dry conditions made driving posts difficult, but things improved over the weekend. We had 0.2 of an inch of rain on Friday night and another 0.2 on Saturday night. By Sunday noon, the top of the soil was dry again as the rain was quickly absorbed. We are hoping for more rain early this week. Plans for this week include finishing building pasture fence, cleaning up fence rows around crop fields and refreshing the radar to see if the rains are going to make it to us!

We were lucky to catch an additional 0.75 inch of rain early in the week which helped the crops substantially. Corn in our area is off to a good start. The beans were a little slow getting out of the ground with the dry conditions earlier in the spring, but they are catching up now. The added soil moisture has improved the pasture conditions, and the fence building went more smoothly this week. Our oats and peas are well past knee high.

Last week was another dry week. We ran irrigators, sidedressed corn and moved cows to fresh pasture. There was spotty rain over the weekend, but we did not receive a measurable amount. Hearing from some folks in the area with concerns about stands, and a few fields have necessitated replanting. We haven’t had to go that route, but I would say that our non-irrigated acres are a bit behind normal due to the lack of rain.

We missed most of the rain during the week, so we were still very dry heading into the weekend. It finally started raining on Sunday and we are up to a half inch of rain. Last week we made repairs to irrigators and worked on some shop projects. Hoping to get our oats and peas chopped towards the end of this week.

Rains last week totaled about 3.5 inches. There were strong winds on Wednesday that took down a few trees in the area and leaned over some corn. We are a bit behind on post spraying beans but hope to be mostly caught up in the next day or two. Upcoming, we have some standard things to do, like mower blade replacements. We are also likely to start some planned projects in the shop to prep for harvest and a few more fence projects.

We had some pretty strong storms roll through on Wednesday. The rain totaled 2.5-3 inches, and I heard reports of some damage to bins and buildings to the south. We were able to catch up on spraying prior to the rain and worked on a few projects in the shop while we waited for things to dry out enough to bale hay and chop our oats and peas. It rained again all day Sunday. While it would be nice to get more work done outside, I am grateful for the rain. The lack of need to run irrigators and the improvements to pasture conditions are definitely a silver lining.

This week was fairly quiet weather-wise. The crops are coming along nicely here, but I have heard from agronomists in our area that the poorly drained fields are starting to show stress. There are concerns about nitrogen loss from the rains, but so far I have not seen symptoms. It will definitely be something to track as we move into tasseling. Other important things going on at the farm this week include my dad’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Dad!

The worst of the heat wave seems to have broken and just in time! The corn is starting to tassel here, and I have seen minimal diseases while out scouting. We ran irrigators a bit last week but got about half an inch of rain on Friday night so we didn’t have to run them over the weekend. Driving around the area, I noticed more nitrogen loss showing up in the corn on more poorly drained fields, but overall the corn crop looks decent. The beans have really come along in the last 10 days. They are fully canopied and flowering like crazy! I noticed some isolated damage from insect feeding — mostly Japanese beetles.