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Grandpa Fred never saw me. Despite the fact I was at his house nearly every day for over two decades. That’s because he was blind. From a farm accident. An anhydrous hose burst and shot the gas in his eyes.
Today is the 70th anniversary of a cultural icon: the TV Dinner. As a kid, TV dinners were a fun Saturday night treat (my tastes have evolved, thankfully). They were served by mom before my parents went out for the night. This invention literally changed the eating habits of our entire nation: shifting our culinary culture
“They haven’t been farming it as long,” was the response my western Illinois-based Grandpa would offer when confronted with news of success stories coming from the west (a region he defined as across the Mississippi River, less than 50-miles from his farm). I’ve long held a similar belief when it comes to the adoption of non-traditional
Memories awoke recently when I added a Versatile 4WD to my toy tractor collection. It’s a relic of a by-gone era, when thick clouds of smoke bellowed across the Prairies and Plains as steel blades turned the soil. In the 1970s, high horsepower 4WD tractors were all the rage in the Midwest. And our western
Seeing is believing. And I’m convinced the recent WASDE reports on crop production aren’t lying. Over the weekend we took my son to college. Our scenic journey through farm country – beauty is in the eye of the beholder, after all – took us deep into the Corn Belt. The projected 2024 corn yield in the Prairie State
Imagine your boss walks into your office, says your productivity is tops in the company, but he’s reducing your salary by 25%. That’s what it’s like being a farmer in 2024. We’re expecting to see the largest year-over-year drop in farm income in history, on the heels of a 19% decline in 2023. Farmers and ag lenders
Farmers waiting on a summer market rally must feel like teenagers waiting by the phone to be asked to the dance. Only their prospects are much dimmer. Capitalizing on summer rallies is how many farmers base their marketing plans. When you chart commodity prices throughout this century, highs typically spike during the summer months. That’s
Corn is made in July, soybeans are made in August.” That’s long been the belief of many farmers in the Midwest and much of the South. This is based on the reproductive stages of the various crops. For corn, pollination (tassel time), which usually takes place in early July, is the most critical phase in
It’s National Corn Month! Okay, I know what you’re thinking. Isn’t that every month for me? True. But hey, it’s only fair that we reserve an entire month to recognize USA’s most widely grown crop. Over 90 million acres – about the size of Montana – of corn is grown annually across the fruited plain.
Look up in the sky: it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s… a drone? This weekend I flyover fed my corn using a Rantizo drone. My corn has well exceeded the height of the ground rig, and airplane application is not an option. Since I wanted to feed and protect the crop at its present R3
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