Author Archives: sewildman

Chopping Corn!

 

 

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Shooting the silage into the buggy.

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You can see how the corn gets pulled into the chopper. He’s taking 10 rows of corn at a time.

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He’s turned around and ready to go up the next 10 rows.

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The chopper fills one buggy while the second empty one drives alongside ready to switch with the full one.

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This is after the chopper driver has filled the one buggy and the second is now next to him being filled. I will put up video in the next post so you can see the “dance” they do to accomplish this.

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Equipment for Chopping Corn

 

Here’s just some of the buggies and semi’s that have traipsed through our barn lot this week. It takes a lot of equipment to get the job done.

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Planting Cover Crops

On some of our highly erodible ground Richard plants a cover crop for the winter so the dirt won’t run off. He will kill the crop before planting corn late next spring. He’s just gotten the drills filled with seed and is ready to go.

Richard and drills

 

Richard sowing cover crop 01

 

Here is the seed. It’s a combination of rye, clover and radishes. The roots from these will help break up the compaction of the soil from running over it with the chopper, buggies and semi’s.

Rye Clover Radishes cover crop seed

Silage Harvest Has Started!

The corn is ready for silage-making.

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The crew came last Wednesday and started chopping our corn for silage for the dairy cows. Two choppers, eight “buggies”, and five semi’s. It’s been a busy place! Remember, when you chop the corn for silage they chop the WHOLE plant. When you “combine” the corn, you just take the kernels of corn. In the picture below, the “buggy” is following the chopper that is blowing the silage into it as he “opens up” the field. Once the chopper has gone all the way through the field and then turns around the buggy can drive alongside him.

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The chopper takes 10 rows of corn at a time. Here he is getting ready to open up some more rows.

 

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Now he starts to blow the silage into the buggy behind him.

 

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Here’s what silage looks like up-close.

 

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It started to pour rain while they were chopping but you can see both chopper spouts and the wagons they were blowing into.

 

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Soybean Update

To say the least, they’ve gotten tall. Here’s Richard standing next to them for scale.

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The bean pods are filling out nicely.

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