Hi my name is Curt Schweers and I grew up in West Central Iowa, in a little town called Arcadia and that’s where I have farmed for the past 27 years.
My wife and three kids and I are proud to be living on a century farm, which means the farm has been in my family for more than one hundred years. We’ve got about 900 acres of corn and soybeans, a little bit more than the average Iowa farm, and I custom harvest about 500 acres for a friend.
Getting ready for harvest around here means cleaning out the grain bins and silos to get ready for the new crop, plus I’ve checked out all the mechanics on my combine. I only drive green John Deere equipment on my farm and lately I have been picking up new technology to help monitor my yields.
During harvest, I usually start the day by unloading any left-over grain that was combined late the night before. Then I will I fuel up the combine and the grain cart (wagon that holds grain), check the levels on the storage bins to see what kind of space I’ve got and I finish up any little details left from the day before. Then it is back out to the field for a full day of combining, loading, and unloading.
I think this year we seem to be a week or two later than normal for harvest, but we’re constantly checking crop conditions to see when we can start and we’re making sure we know where we can store everything.
Like every harvest, this year, we are dealing with Mother Nature and waiting, wishing, and the hoping for a good harvest. I’ll keep you posted. - Curt
Update 9-29- 08
Got rain here Sunday night about half inch. Few beans came out on Saturday and Sunday, moisture running in the 12 to 14 range. I am going to start on Wednesday noon hopefully.
Update 10-3-08
We did get started Wednesday. Not a lot of beans going, but it seems like everyone is at it a little. We have about 100 acres done. One 30 acre field went 46 bushels per acre while the 50 acres tonight was about 55 bushels per acre, but the yield monitor was showing as high as 77 bushels per acre. As soon as the sun set we where done the bean stems got too tough to go through the combine.
Friday Oct. 10
Harvest is going well. We are at a farm that is 50 miles from home and we broke down about 3:00PM. Nothing we could do about it- just part of the bussinesss, but it will be Monday before the part comes in.
Monday, October 13
Started raining about 5:00 this morning. We hope the parts are in. 12:00 too wet to harvest and too muddy to get to the combine out. One part is on its way, but not until Tuesday.
Update 10-14-08
Audio update- listen to this!
Parts are in, sould be able to combine Wednesday if the rain stops. 4:00 PM started to rain not to hard, but weather man said we are to get about an inch.
Wednesday, Oct 15
Everything is fixed and ready to go. We have two day's of beans to combine. It will be dry enough hopefully Friday or Saturday. We are going to switch and combine corn tomorrow. The bill for the part earlier this week was $600.00. If you look at it the way I do. A $600.00 part stopped $250,000.00 worth of harvest. It's one thing to be broken down, but when you are that far from home and the sun comes out you are a little on edge. Better luck next week.
Monday, Oct. 20- Finished the soybeans tonight. Finaly walked in the house at 10:30 tonight go to be done. Weather man said rain the rest of the week.
Monday, Oct. 27-Nothing like a week lay off! Today was the first day we could combine since last Monday. Looks like a good week ahead.
Thursday, Oct. 30-Corn harvest going well. Yeild is from 180 to 200 bu. Looks good so far!
Monday, Nov. 17----We have 4 days left, more with break downs. November has been interesting. The weather to date has given us about 4 half days this month. On top of that the gentlemen who drives a harvest tractor for me lost his son to cancer this weekend. His son had lung cancer and only lasted 4 months. He has been at the hospital with him for two weeks. My mom came out of retirement to run the grain cart. She is 82, but can handle a tractor like anyone. We hold most of the harvest at home. The last of the crop will go to the local elevator for storage. As of tonight the line up to unload has been about one hour. I will get a wrap up next week
Wrap Up- I finished harvest on Friday after Thanksgiving The last farm was the best as far as yield. My grain cart driver came back for the last four days which was good for all of us. For the last week I have been cleaning equipment and putting in sheds. As far as the grain, we need to get the grain temperature in the bin below 40 degree. We do this with fans. I will let the fans blow air for as long as a month on larger bins. Then check the top of a bin for condensation or crusting on top of grain. In the first days of January we will take some grain out of each bin to get centers out as well as remove the top. The important part is the top of the bin because all moisture and heat will migrate to the top as a rule this all happens early in storage. As spring gets here we will again raise the temperature to carry the grain into spring.
With the harvest getting done late I didn't do any tillage to the fields. For the next days, weeks and months we will be making seed corn, fertilizer and financial decisions that effect next years crop decisions. When all that it is decided we start all over again. It has been fun for me to keep track of my harvest. I hope someone out there has enjoyed reading and watching me. If you did please respond to the Iowa corn site and let them know.
Curt Schweers
