Crops need a little more time before harvest

CHEBANSE, Ill. — The corn and soybeans weren’t quite ready for harvest when AgriNews visited with Alan Smolkovich on Sept. 20.

“We’ll probably be harvesting soybeans within a few weeks, but the corn is still pretty green,” Smolkovich said.

While the crops may not yet be fit for harvest, Alan and his brothers, John, Joe and Marko, were able to cut and bale hay.

“We cut some hay in the waterways a week ago and are now doing round bales there. We’re also doing our third cut of alfalfa and we’ll square bale that. We’ll try to get it done before the rain comes later this week,” Alan said.

The dry weather impacted the number of hay cuttings this year.

“This was our second cutting of the waterways. We only had three cuttings of alfalfa and we usually get four cuttings. We were held off about a month with the dry weather,” he added.

Corn Picker

Alan fired up the corn picker, hooked up a wagon and gave a demonstration during the AgriNews visit.

The Smolkovich family uses a 1978 New Idea 708 harvester with a John Deere 443 corn head to pick 30 acres of corn that’s designated for feeding their cattle. They use a John Deere 9570 combine for the remainder of their 700 acres or corn and soybeans.

“The John Deere corn head on the picker has been modified from 36-inch rows to 30-inch rows,” Alan said.

The 30 acres of picked corn fills about one-half of a crib (4,000 bushels). That corn is ground and fed to their cattle along with hay, providing balanced nutrition for their 22-head of Angus.

“They don’t get as bloated. It fills them out more. It’s a fiber and better nutrition for them,” he noted.

“It’s been tested and found to be one of the best ways to feed out cattle because it has protein in it, so you don’t really have to add that much supplement to it. We grind it up into a powder. We’ve had really good luck with it,” Joe said earlier.