Record wheat yields; corn and soybean crops looking excellent

SHABBONA, Ill. — Berkeley Boehne harvested an excellent wheat crop in July and his corn and soybean crops also look good at the start of August.

“Our wheat produced farm record yields and we just loaded out the final bushels today,” said Boehne, who raises corn, soybeans and wheat with his brother, Vaughn, on their farm in north-central Illinois, where they also feed pigs and operate a custom manure application business.

“We started harvesting wheat at the beginning of July and combined for seven days and got done before it started raining,” Boehne said. “We had 525 acres of wheat and we planted beans on 350 of those acres.”

The beans were no-tilled into the wheat stubble.

“We’ve had good weather conditions for them,” Boehne said. “They look a little thin right now, but our wheat stubble was about a foot tall.”

Some of the wheat acres will be utilized for manure application and Boehne sets aside at least 100 acres for the Northern Illinois Plowboys.

“They are doing a plow day on Aug. 17 on the Fay farm,” he said. “There are guys that come from Missouri and bring a semi load of tractors and plows.”

Boehne has not seen a lot of insect pressure in either his corn or soybean fields.

“Nobody is talking about corn diseases and I haven’t heard anything about rootworm pressure,” he said. “For the amount of money we spend on inputs for crop protection, it’s nice to see the reward.”

For the past three years, Boehne has applied fungicide on 100% of his corn and soybean acres.

“We just finished spraying last week,” he said. “We fly on the fungicide for the corn and we spray the beans ourselves.”

The development of the crops, Boehne said, is on track for an earlier fall season.

“In about three weeks, Bayer is planning to start picking seed corn at Rock Falls,” he said. “That’s about a week earlier than normal — usually they start after Labor Day, but they planted early, too.”

The rainy July has delayed manure applications.

“We’ve got a big summer load this year and we’re way behind schedule now,” Boehne said. “Our goal is to be caught up so when they start harvesting seed corn, we have clients there and that eats up our September.”

Boehne focuses on maintaining customers in that area due to the timing for applying the manure.

“Then we make our way back west and it has really worked out well,” he said. “We were ready to start the custom applications right after July 4 and we’ve done a little, but we’re probably a month behind.”

With harvest season approaching, Boehne is concerned about the continuing labor shortage, especially with farm implement dealers.

“Harvest is going to creep up on us faster than we realize and I hear our local John Deere dealership is still catching up from planting,” he said. “We have to focus on the trades and getting our workforce built back up.”

General maintenance work of the grain handling equipment has started on the Boehne farm.

“I think storage is going to be hard to find this year with the great crops,” he said. “And I think there’s quite a bit of grain sitting around in the country.”

The goal for Boehne is to move all his grain out of his storage by March 1.

“It is a timing thing for our labor,” he said. “We’re not pumping manure that time of year so I can keep my employees focused on moving grain.”

As the president of the DeKalb County Farm Bureau, Boehne enjoys his involvement with the Farm Bureau family. He recently spent two days attending the County Farm Bureau Presidents Conference.

“It was a great two days of motivation and getting to know people,” he said. “We have new leadership with President Brian Duncan and Vice President Evan Hultine and AFBF President Zippy Duvall was there for both days.”

Boehne participated in the resolution committee discussion for the first time.

“We talked about industrial hemp laws, apiculture, regenerative ag and food labeling, including expiration dates,” he said. “We also were updated on legislation and what’s going on with the farm bill.”

Net farm income is predicted to be down 16%, Boehne learned at the conference.

“But we’re coming off two-year highs so we’re still OK, but everybody is tightening up a little bit,” he said. “We don’t have a farm crisis coming, but we’re in a downturn.”

Additional topics at the event included estate taxes and CO2 pipelines.

“CO2 pipelines are a big issue in central Illinois,” Boehne said. “Many of our members don’t realize the benefits they get with people working behind the scenes on these issues.”

That’s why it is important to belong to organizations like the Farm Bureau, the county president stressed.

“It takes resources and dollars to stay aware of legislative issues,” Boehne said.

“Farm Bureau is a family organization where everybody can be involved,” he said. “We need to engage our youth more, but it’s hard to do because in many counties there is not enough staff.”

Illinois Farm Bureau is currently working on an Organizational Member Strategy.

“We are trying to figure out where Farm Bureau needs to go during the next 100 years,” Boehne said.