2010 Corn Harvest Pictures

For the past week now, corn harvest has been going full blast in SWMO.My renter was shelling corn south of my house this afternoon so I grabbed the camera and took some pictures.I rode along for about 30 minutes.

The yield monitor was showing from 150-190 bushels per acre at 17 % moisture.This corn never hurt for moisture as it had 5.3" in June and 9.2" of rain in July.I thought that this field would make 160 plus but we wont know until its done.Theres a big low spot that drowned out that they havent gotten to yet..40 years ago 80-90 bushels was one heck of a corn crop in this area.

The 9770 JD just plays with a 8 row head at 6 plus mph..Its keeping the grain cart and semis real busy.Theres alot of dollars worth of machinery getting this crop out of the field.

The bottom picture shows beans just north of my house that nearly touch my chin.They desperately need rain as August has been very hot and dry.There have been many days over 100 degrees.So far in August I have only had .90" of rain and some have had less.We have a 40% chance Wednesday.

Thanks for the pictures - haven't seen anybody in central Illinois started yet.
Bet this will get billonthefarm charging his camera batteries!

Our corn wont' look like that until we get a frost...probably 5-6 weeks. Plenty to excessive moisture all summer, although we've been dry for a whole week now. A couple guys have opened fields, green chopping, but that's all. Still some small grain being combined here.

Great pics,are you around Nevada?

Whew! All that new green paint almost blinded me.I'm not downing this guy by any means and wish him only the best but will someone PLEASE tell me how in the world someone can pay for all that with all the high inputs that go into corn and a market price of what $3.80-$4.00.Here in central Ga we have figured inputs several times at over $600 an acre on the low side for irrigated corn.Even if you make 200bpa by the time you make all these equipment payments there will be nothing left to live on.

Government subsidies. First 2 people hired by the big operatores are accountant and lawyer to figure out how to work the system to their liking. Trying not to anger any big operatores, but they make it harder for the small guys to make a go of it.

I saw some fields being opened up down around Peoria and east this past week. Traveling across US-24 from IL-117 to Gilman IL.

people are starting to chop corn to fill silage bags around here.
we went out sat night with some friends randy was wondering if we will see combines running in the corn feilds by the end of sept. after the mess we around here fast year i'd bet we do.
some guys hardly got done in time to plant this year's corn.

never been around any corn harvest, got to be noisy running them cobs through the machine though it seems.

The cost of production is lower here.If I had been farming this myself I would have had around $350 per acre for inputs.150 bu x $4.00 is $600 per acre which leaves a very nice profit.Corn hasnt bombed out in this area since 2003.That combine gets over lots of acres every year.

The govt farm payment here is around $15 per acre no matter how many acres you farm.If you farm 300 acres you get $4,500.If you farm 3000 acres you get $45,000.That looks fair to me.

Yes.

And farms that run up against the payment cap just split the farm up on paper into 2 farms/corporations, make their wife the president and major shareholder of the 2nd farm/corporation so they can collect another payment. I know many farms that are split up to 4 different farms.

And just to hammer point even more, you could go to our local elevator and watch the elevator employees ask a farmer which "farm" does his wheat he is hauling go to.

Also, I worked for NRCS for awhile and we had guys with 2 sometimes 3 different applications for programs like EQIP. In simple words, the same farmer was coming in and signing 2 or 3 different applications using a different farm each time. So if a farmer was accepted on all of his applications how much money does that leave for the small guy who could only sign one application. Each county is allocated only so many dollars. In my county 2/3s of the money allocated for EQIP was going towards 3 big operations that each had multiple applications. Get it??

If you think our current goverment programs are fair for everyone, you are way out in left field. But the only thing to do to make it fair is to drop the programs. Because like the other poster said, a smart lawyer or accoutant will always find away around the rules. And for the record, I farm for a living and we are considered medium to big operators in our area.

Crop looks real good, looks like you have some real good land there.

Wonder what would happen ,,If farm subsidies were capped at $50 thousand

We have practically no farms in my area that are large enough to have to be split to cheat the program.Most of the larger farms are 2000-4000 acres with 2-3 actively working partners.

There are several large operations about 30-40 miles away that may split theirs up.

1206 nice pics and the JD9770 and catch system looks great no matter the farm polotics. CT