Site Blog #3

September 28, 2021

Site Blog #3

This past week was a very busy week on the farm. In preparation for Farm day on October 2nd, we have had to get the Sorghum ready for harvesting and the machines ready for processing. In between the busyness, I was able to get a detailed tour of the farm which was very informative.

Me with Doug and Larry Harrell

The Soil on the Farm

According to Web Soil Survey the soil that is present in the Clifton clay loam. This I can agree on because I performed a texture by feel test and concluded that it was clay because of how sticky the soil was. During my tour of the farm, I learned that the fields are given a winter cover crop which is turned over before they plant their main crops. After the sorghum is harvested they will be planting a rye cover crop and the cornfields already have their cover crops planted which is turnips. This helps to replenish organic material in the soil and is very important for keeping the soil healthy. Because of this, I would say that soil health and fertility are increasing over time. I was also informed that their crops have been getting better each year which I would assume is caused by the healthy soil. For example, last year the sorghum had a sugar-juice percentage of 19% this year it is around 21%. Larry informed me that they manage fertility on the farm by performing annual soil tests, lime and fertilizer are applied per soil recommendation, and that they rotate cows among pastures and rotate field crops. This all helps to keep the soil fertilized and healthy.

Web Soil Survey results of the sorghum field

The tool used to read the sugar-juice content of the sorghum plants.

The sugar is at about 20-21%

Cornfield with the turnip cover crop

Cattle

I was curious about how the cattle are managed on the farm so I asked a lot of questions about them this week. I learned that they have 3 cattle fields that they rotate between and they rotate them every 2 weeks. They also have around 55 cows on the farm and have slowly been reducing the number of cows they have due to lack of help.

View from one of the cattle fields

The cattle hidden in the trees

The cattle

Sorghum and Corn

The sorghum will begin being harvested on October 1st using a corn binder. The corn binder will actually be pulled by a 1949 Cockshutt model 30 tractor that was made in Canada. This model of tractor has been used on the farm for a very long time. The sorghum was planted on May 28th so that means it has been growing for about 4 months. I was also curious about profits on the farm and found out that they harvested 1400 bushels of corn and had a 65% profit margin.