Illinois Farm Families Blog

A WatchUsGrow.org reader recently asked us to define "modern farm equipment," so we put the challenge to our bloggers to share what's new on their farms. This is the fourth part of that series.

This is our John Deere 2630 Display.  It’s a touch screen computer that holds maps and information about every field we farm.  The screen is moved and used in all of our equipment – the tractor that pulls our tillage equipment, the sprayer, the fertilizer buggy, and the tractors that pull the planters and the combine.  In each instance, the computer pulls up a homepage that shows a map of the fields, its boundaries and the location of any waterways and fence rows. 

On this day, Andy was making the first pass over the fields in the sprayer.   The large box at the top shows the field map. The acres already covered are blue. The white line is the tracking line.  We use auto-steer technology in all of our equipment, which means that with the push of a button the tractor, sprayer or combine – with GPS – will drive itself through the field. Notice the little green box right at the top that reads “2 in.” This indicates that the sprayer is just two inches off its target track.  

To the right of the field map is basic field data.  Below that are more numbers and symbols. Andy watches the green bar labeled 3D RTK.  The bar shows the strength of the RTK signal. RTK stands for real-time kinetic.  It uses satellites and a base station, which acts like a cell phone tower, to guide the equipment through fields with “sub-inch accuracy repeatability”.  Fancy terminology that means when Andy comes back to this field to cultivate, plant, fertilize and harvest, the equipment will follow the same paths within centimeters.  The same path can be repeated next year and the year after and the year after.   

The large bottom box tells Andy about the sprayer’s performance. The blue box surrounded in yellow shows how much product is left in the tank. Below that are the boom indicators. The boom is 100 feet wide and is divided into nine sections.  The blue arrows show that each section of the boom is on.

As the sprayer moves through the field, the computer is reading the map. If the sprayer crossed into an area already covered, the computer would shut off those sections of the boom.  When the sprayer encounters a waterway or fence row, the computer will turn boom sections on or off according to their location in the field and proximity to the area.

This technology is all about efficiency and better management of inputs.  We are reducing the amount of pesticides and fertilizers we add because we can be so precise with their application.

 Katie Pratt, Dixon

A WatchUsGrow.org reader recently asked us to define "modern farm equipment," so we put the challenge to our bloggers to share what's new on their farms. This is the first part of that series.

The tractor in the photograph isn’t new.  It’s a 2008 with over 2000 hours on it.  You could say it’s the equivalent of a car with perhaps 50,000 miles on it.  Neither is the implement attached behind it.  The implement is a fertilizer applicator that’s over 12 years old and has been over thousands of acres.  What could be considered “new” is the technology that resides on each and connects the two together.

By having GPS- and yield monitor-equipped combines, we’re able to generate yield maps of the various fields.  Merging those maps together over the years results in a composite map that truly gives us a good indication of the yield potential of the different zones within a field.  Using that information, we can write “prescriptions,” for the application rates of various materials – usually fertilizer quantities or seeding populations.

It sounds complicated, but hang in there with me.  Once I’ve made prescription maps, I can load those into the computer in the pictured tractor.  The tractor is also GPS-equipped and therefore knows where it is within a field.  It “talks” to the fertilizer applicator tells it where to put on more fertilizer, carried in the tanks behind, or less fertilizer, based on the prescription I’ve written.

The benefits are huge, by far outweighing the costs (this equipment isn’t cheap).  The primary benefits are efficient use of the fertilizer by putting only as much as is needed only where it is needed.  This helps protect both the environment and my checkbook.  The autosteer function in the tractor keeps it going straight – much straighter than I would normally steer – and prevents skips and overlap.  The whole process is recorded and documented for subsequent download, allowing for accurate record-keeping – a must in today’s world.

A tractor still has four wheels and pulls various implements through the fields.  That much hasn’t changed since my grandfather’s farming days.  What has changed is the technology we use to be more efficient in every way, and in this case, the efficient use of fertilizer.

Chris Gould
Elburn, Illinois

A New Orleans newspaper reported an average of 108.4 million viewers watched this year’s Super Bowl. At one time, 164.1 million viewers were watching the broadcast. You can bet most of those viewers were also watching the commercials and not skipping over them with their DVR systems. During the fourth quarter, Dodge ran a two minute commercial for their Ram line of trucks. This ad, during the largest televised event of the year, gave America’s farmers a shout out and a very impressionable one at that evidenced by ranking the most popular commercial in the polls.

The Dodge Ram commercial began with one of many shots of America’s farmland: a cow standing in a snowy pasture and Paul Harvey’s name in blank type across the screen. Then, the voice of Harvey, the late radio broadcaster, began. What continued was his “God Made a Farmer” speech from the 1978 Future Farmers of America convention.  During the two minute spot, Harvey’s speech was set to brilliant photos of America’s hardworking farmers (men, women, and children), their land, livestock, equipment, and aspects of their lives.

His speech began with an allusion to the story of Genesis: “And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker.’ So God made a farmer.”  

Harvey continued to describe God’s desires for the type of person he needed to take care of the land, crops, animals, and communities. Harvey followed with “So God made a farmer,” as an answer.

Even though the speech was from 1978, I truly believe that the “farmer” Harvey describes can be found on today’s farms and in rural communities. Both sides of my husband’s family are a testament to Harvey’s speech, as well as the many Illinois farm families I have come to know over the years.

I didn’t have the pleasure of seeing the commercial air live since I was busying putting my little ones to bed, and I really wish I would have. My husband, who is a full-time farmer, caught the commercial and watched it a few times until I returned downstairs to watch it with him.

From the start, I was captivated by Harvey’s smooth tone set against the backdrop of a slideshow of awesome photographs of God’s country.  I listened to the “God Made a Farmer” recording and thought to myself, ‘Yes, he’s got it right, that’s America’s farmers, and that’s my husband and his family!’ I could clearly put family members’ faces to Harvey’s descriptions of farmers. And I wanted to call my family members, who are not farmers, and proudly shout, ‘Did you see that farmer commercial? That’s my husband!’

I’ve viewed the commercial multiple times, and every time I tear up at the end of the speech when Harvey talks about a son wanting to farm just like his father. Those are the men in my husband’s family who, generation after generation, have chosen to farm.  And one day, that son will hopefully be our son, if he chooses to farm alongside his own father and grandfather.  

The commercial ended with silence as the last pictures came on screen. Ram dedicate the aid “To the farmer in all of us” which was printed on the last photo of a Ram truck.

Thank you, Dodge, for highlighting the time, dedication, patience, strength, “guts,” and “glory” it takes to be a farmer and feed America.

And, thank you, God, for making farmers.

Kristen Strom

Brimfield, IL

Kristen is a city-gone-country girl after her marriage to her husband, Grant, who is a full-time farmer.  You can follow her stories and adventures on her blog at http://farmnoteslittledahinda.blogspot.com.

 

This time of year, I always have people ask me the same question: “What do farmers do in the winter? They don’t have much work to do, do they?” While this is an honest question, and I’m sure my husband and in-laws would like some much-needed weeks of rest, this is not the case. Yes, my husband gets home earlier than usual, but this only means he’s home by about 6pm rather than midnight. During the winter, he works the typical business hours compared to the early mornings and late nights of planting and harvest seasons. There are no crops in the ground to tend, but he still has paperwork to file and bills to pay by the end of the year. There is also a list of projects on the farm to take care of that go by the way-side during the busy seasons (some projects have been on the to-do list for years). Farm families are business owners, so time spent out of the tractor is used to repair equipment, prepare financial statements, tend to relationships with customers and suppliers, attend conferences and seminars, and the list goes on (just like that list of projects at home that need attention). 

While winter does bring colder weather and snow, it doesn’t always mean that harvest is over. January 5th, 2010 was the last day of the 2009 harvest. That Christmas, my mother-in-law joked that we should decorate the tractors with Christmas lights and wreaths in order to get everyone in the Christmas spirit. Many mornings, the farmers went out to harvest the corn only to be brought inside by a snow fall that stopped them from picking.  Harvest is always an exciting time of year for farmers, but by the last couple of weeks they are anxious to get out of the fields. You can only imagine the frustration at harvesting through Thanksgiving, Christmas, AND into the new year of 2010.

Thankfully, this year our family farm was done harvesting and assumed “shorter” working hours by Thanksgiving. That meant we could go to the suburbs to enjoy a long Thanksgiving weekend with my family. This will also be true for our Christmas where we can travel and celebrate the holidays with family and friends. In addition, his winter days keep him home on weekends where we can take care of our own to-do list around the house that grows during harvest, catch up on missed TV shows, spend some much needed play time with our two children, and schedule family parties. We even squeeze in some date nights, which we don’t get during the harvest months of September-November and again from April-June during planting.

While this schedule, ruled by the seasons (and the weather), is typical for farm families, it is not what I grew up with. In the almost six years of being a farmer’s wife, I’ve learned to live the life of the farm family and really look forward to having my husband home during the winter months. While winter brings the joy of the holiday season, for farm families it also means that husbands are usually home for the holidays, which I’m always thankful for.

Kristen Strom
Brimfield, IL
Kristen is a city-gone-country girl after her marriage to her husband, Grant, who is a full-time farmer.  You can follow her stories and adventures on her blog at Little Dahinda.

We spotted the first round bales of the growing season on the way to our small-town high school’s graduation. And more on the way to town for groceries the next day.

There they sat, rolled tighter than a homemade cinnamon roll, and quite larger than Grandma’s baked treats, weighing about 1,500 to 1,700 pounds at a 6-foot diameter.

I like my cinnamon rolls on a cold winter morning. Same for grazing cows, which eat on round bales when the pasture grass doesn’t grow or grow well. Definitely in an Illinois winter. (Or a summer drought, heaven forbid.)

On those travels we never saw a tractor in the field. As seems typical. A friend once likened the appearance of round bales to that of raised mole tunnels in the side yard. You find the result, but often miss the action. 

Though we never saw the tractor, our 4-year-old son described the process all the way to the graduation. He has witnessed the action from the buddy seat of the tractor cab with bale-making relatives and watched the procedure on his “tractor movie,” a DVD of farm equipment at work. Then he imitates the event through play with his own toy tractor, baler and set of six bales. Granted they are 1/64th the size of the real thing. (Don’t ask me to locate the full collection.)

 It’s interesting we usually miss the debut of the bale or its associated activities because a tractor generally is present four times in the process of a single cutting of hay. A tractor mows the alfalfa or grass. A tractor rakes it into rows. A tractor pulls a baler that forms the bales. Then a tractor moves the bales. So when I drive by on another day, they’re lined up at a field edge or an out-of-the-way grassy area, becoming an ideal spot for kids on the farm to climb and leap. 

A few farmers even move a round bale or more to near the road as fun yard decor, stacking them into “bale people” or adding oversized replicas of turkey feathers for a fall-time greeting. Regardless of use, large round bales are an often-photographed, iconic rural symbol and add a pleasing texture to an otherwise uniform landscape of corn and soybeans in areas of the state where cattle graze. A photo of round bales even is a desktop photo choice on Windows 7, on which it is the only photo that some-what resembles the Illinois landscape. Albeit the photo was taken of straw in the state of Washington and uses twine to secure the roughage. In fact, if you look closely, you can see a loose piece trailing off the screen.

Nowadays, most round balers are equipped with weather-proof netting, or “net wrap,” which replaces twine and eliminates the extra step of adding a plastic wrap to protect the bales from the weather when stored outside. My farming relatives use net wrap today, but as a kid, our round bales used twine and I remember helping slide those thick plastic wraps onto the bales. It was like putting a pillowcase on a brand-new pillow, except you can’t shake and squish a bale. 

Then again, what am I griping about? I never pitched loose hay or tied wire bales by hand like my Grandpa and Great Grandpa did as kids on the farm.

They deserve the cinnamon rolls.

Joanie Stiers
Farm woman
Freelance writer from west-central Illinois.