Grain Handling

One of the obvious signs of a healthy, hardy corn crop can also present major headaches for those working in it.

Mark Seib, a grain farmer in southern Indiana, has finished soybean harvest and is closing in on corn.

Harvest is on pace for the Rahn family to finish earlier in 2024 than they have in many years.

This St. Joseph County village with a population of 2,076 is touted as the “Seed Corn Capital of the World” and the site of Bayer’s largest seed corn production facility.

Warm, dry weather is helping farmers in northern Illinois to quickly harvest corn and soybeans with little need to run the crops through a dryer prior to storage.

The water level of the Mississippi River is unusually low for the third straight year, forcing barge companies to put limits on how much cargo they can carry and cutting into farm profits.

Corn harvest started on the Rahn farm at the middle of September, which is typical for them.

Firestone Ag has introduced the high-performing Destination Cart radial tire, providing a heavy-duty grain cart tire designed to support soil health and fluctuating cart weights.

John Deere introduced the new T6 800 walker combine, offering operators outstanding harvesting performance and the ultimate operator experience.

GSI is introducing a new lineup of Mixed Flow dryers for the 2025 harvest season, designed to promote greater efficiency and maximize grain quality.

To help farmers harvest more acres with every engine hour, Case IH is launching the new AF9 and AF10 combines, redesigned from the ground up, to maximize capacity and crop flow.

I think the very earliest planted corn is getting close, but with the dry forecast, producers are probably taking advantage of in-field drying to get the moisture down so there’s not much drying expense.

You are so much more important than any crop you will ever harvest. Don’t get in a mad rush. Don’t cut corners.

I think we’re going to be better than last year for corn and soybean yields. I don’t have super high expectations, but it’s going to be good.

National Farm Safety and Health Week will be observed Sept. 15-21 this year. The theme, “Don’t Learn Safety by Accident,” encourages people to take a proactive approach to safety education.

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

It seems like it’s forgotten to rain in the month of June for the last few years. It was great weather for wheat harvest. It was about as easy as a wheat harvest can get because the weather was so warm and dry.

Wet and hot conditions in northern Illinois are impacting crop growth, as well as providing an opportunity for increased disease pressure this year.

Southern Indiana native Clark Smith will serve as director of Indiana Grain Buyers and Warehouse Licensing Agency.

Berkeley Boehne and his brother, Vaughn, raise corn, soybeans and wheat on their DeKalb County farm, where they also feed pigs and operate a custom manure application business.

Five new officers elected by the delegates during the 96th Illinois FFA State Convention will be traveling throughout the state during the upcoming year engaging with members to inspire them to achieve their goals.

The Stars Over Illinois announcement of the top four FFA members in the state was just one of numerous highlights of the 96th Illinois FFA State Convention held in the state’s capital city.

We began plant 2024 in March, and we ended Friday, May 31. It was the longest planting season in my 50-year experience of planting. We have corn that is waist-high and some that is just peeping through the soil.

The winner of the Star in Agricultural Placement award will be announced during the Wednesday afternoon session of the Illinois FFA State Convention starting at 2 p.m.

Construction on a new GSI grain system is complete and the final touches are being made on a farm in Putnam County in west-central Indiana.

CHS has signed an intent to purchase agreement for eight grain assets in five states from Cargill.

Bruce and Linda Muegge lead their family farm with faith and a strong work ethic. They’ve worked hard to build the farm to what it is today — a successful corn, soybean, wheat and cattle operation with an on-farm meat store.

The 2023 U.S. corn crop is projected to be the largest on record with the lowest percentage of broken corn and foreign material to date, according to a report.

Tim Gauck is the new president of the Indiana Corn Marketing Council, the state’s corn checkoff program.

We had a record week for harvesting of acres starting Saturday, Oct. 28, to Saturday, Nov. 4. Then we started to get full. Now we need to worry about trucking, so the focus has shifted. Plus, our dryer is getting backed up.

How can every harvest be so similar and yet completely different? The goal is always the same — get everything through the combine and into bins, and yet there are so many circumstances that come into play.

It’s been really pretty good harvest weather. On Oct. 9 and 10, it rained about two-tenths and that let everybody stop for a day and get caught up with maintenance and hauling some grain and that kind of stuff.

A milling company has agreed to plead guilty to federal charges that employees at a Wisconsin corn plant falsified records in the years leading up to a fatal corn dust explosion.

Properly timing corn and soybean harvest is a critical crop management decision. While an early harvest can reduce field losses, drying costs can increase. Likewise, harvesting later reduces drying costs, but may result in decreased crop quality and reduced yield.

In southern Illinois, as in most of the Corn Belt, the 2023 corn and soybean harvest is shaping up to be a year of averages — and variability.

August is the month for maintenance jobs and preparing for harvest on Chris Gould’s farm. “We finished sweeping out the bins so the wheat and corn are all gone,” he said.

Last year saw a roughly 40% increase in the number of reported cases nationwide involving agricultural confined spaces, according to a report recently released by Purdue University.

Farmers will soon be getting their combines ready for the harvest season. Justin Render, senior product specialist for Kinze Manufacturing, said it’s also important to perform basic maintenance on grain carts.

Dairymen have the potential to harvest some good corn silage this year even though the early part of the growing season was dry.

We are finishing our last fungicide and herbicide applications. We have had a few weeds push through our early herbicide application, so we have been forced to make another pass to clean some weeds up.

Picking and shelling ear corn is a rarity in today’s agriculture, but visitors to the Half Century of Progress Show can see the entire process from start to finish.

A grain storage system designed to add more research capabilities at the Precision Technology Institute farm is anticipated to be online for harvest this fall.

Chris Gould harvested record wheat yields from his farm in July. “The wheat produced 115 bushels per acre,” said Gould, who together with his wife, Dana, grow corn, soybeans and wheat on their Kane County farm.

There was a 40.7% increase in the number of reported cases involving agricultural confined spaces last year, according to the 2022 Summary of U.S. Agricultural Confined Space-Related Injuries and Fatalities report.

The high quality corn harvested last fall continued to maintain high grades through the supply chain to the export channels.

GSI is introducing a new mobile app, called GSI Connect, that will optimize the quality and profitability of dried grain and eventually connect customers with their entire grain system.

Increasing productivity and profitability of AGCO customers is important for the company to meet the needs of a growing population.

Mathews Company, a leading provider of agricultural equipment, announced the launch of its new grain handling product line.

It only takes 20 seconds to become fully engulfed in a bin of flowing grain. It takes 3.5 hours, on average, to extract someone from a grain bin.

The annual summary recording nationwide grain dust bin explosions reported nine incidents in 2022.