The Official Farming Thread...

[jblnut]

1st load of many hailed home with the new running gears under the old hay trailers. They sway waaaaaaaaaaaay less than the other ones did !!

 

[Bill G]

............................Looks like we already spent some of the extra bean money Brand new 2026 Grand Design Imagine 2470BH. I went to the dealer looking for a new awning fabric for our 25yr old camper. I guess I found a new awning. Gonna have to tell the tax guy it’s an office so I can put it on the depreciation schedule lol.
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I thought your wife just remodeled the old one?

Helped Mama Bear tear out the vinyl and carpet flooring in the camper to put different vinyl and carpet in.
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She’s on a mission to make a perfectly good camper “better” and I decided not to ask any questions. She doesn’t look around the shop and ask why I needed the sprayer or the forklift or any other things up here so I keep it zipped about the crap she wants to do.
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[Bill G]

I like the way you think. Mobile Office trailer.

Put tool box and a empty fuel can in it and it is a tool and fuel trailer.

I am betting a good tax person can get it as a qualified expense on income taxes but I am also betting the Minnesota Department of Revenue are not not going to consider it farm tax exempt on a sales tax basis.

 

[Bill G]

There is no doubt I look for some real oddball items but hell I am a real oddball......many folk call me worse. I have spent a lifetime of buying old junk at farm auctions cause "I might use that someday". Probably close to 25 years ago I bought a mineral tub full of 8 inch bin fans/tube fans. They spent the next couple decades in the same mineral tub, buried in the barn, untouched. Last summer I had a hairbrained idea for a use for a couple of them so I dug them out and not a damn one worked. I lubed the tiny little shafts but still nothing. I called the original company that made them many years ago and they had no information. I called other bin fan manufactures and of course totally struck out. I fully understand there is zero demand today for a 8 inch inline tube fan but I do not give up easily. There is a very well respected electric motor repair shop northwest of me in Tipton Iowa that does the vast majority of farm fan work. I phoned them and explained what I had. He said he was very skeptical he could help me but to bring one up. It was cheaper to just UPS him one instead of time and fuel. He got it the next day and called to tell me there was nothing he could do. I told him to put it in the scrap bin.

Now that brings me to my question......has anyone seen any of these around for sale? I believe there are still a few places that have the tube aerators but I would prefer a 8 inch inline fan.

 

[jblnut]

I thought your wife just remodeled the old one?

Yup. New awning, redone roof, new tires, new flooring, interior painted, different curtains and a bunch of other crap.

Mama gets what Mama wants. We can afford to do it so I guess we did it. Had to finance it to get an additional $3000 off otherwise pay the $3000. Seemed dumb so I asked how much I could put down and how many payments I need to make before I can pay it off. I put down 75% and can pay it off after 5 payments. The first payment will be around 15% of the remaining balance and the next four will be 2.5% each. The sales buy was baffled why I’d want to pay it off so quickly and I told him I wanted the $3k discount but didn’t want to finance so I’d play the game. Ended up costing around $250 to finance it so I’m $2750 in the black. Perfect.

We started looking at $22,500 campers and they are built with toothpicks and tape it seemed so we asked to see the nicest one with the floor plan we liked. Never heard of a Brinkley before but wow are they fancy. And at $68,000 a little outside what I wanted to spend lol. We looked at this one next and it was just as well built but $25k less. It doesn’t have some of the bonkers stuff like an app you can control everything with from your phone or comes with a matching set of camping chairs that said “Brinkley” on the back. Not deal breakers lol.

Fanciest darn thing I’ve had here in a long time !!

 

[jblnut]

Into the corn finally !!


Purple speckles in this stuff

 

[JimBear]

Into the corn finally !!
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Purple speckles in this stuff
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Looks like enogen corn with the marker kernels.

 

[jblnut]

Looks like enogen corn with the marker kernels.

Yup. Around 400a of Enogen planted this year. Mostly for my feedlot but I’m raising some for a few neighbors.

The sales guy up here calls it the “Enogen Value Tracker”.

 

[JimBear]

Yup. Around 400a of Enogen planted this year. Mostly for my feedlot but I’m raising some for a few neighbors.

The sales guy up here calls it the “Enogen Value Tracker”.

As far as I know they don’t sell that around here anymore. None of the ethanol plants will take it. I am not sure that any of the elevators will either.

 

[jblnut]

As far as I know they don’t sell that around here anymore. None of the ethanol plants will take it. I am not sure that any of the elevators will either.

It is very much sold where you are. The product has transitioned from “Enogen Energy” to “Enogen Feed”. Ethanol plants up here still purchase it but in limited quantities so no one really grows it for ethanol anymore.

We have a half dozen feed mills within 15 miles that will purchase it as regular #2 yellow for normal price. We raise it for feed ant not really with the intent of running it to a sale point. I see a .15lb increase in daily gain on the steers while feeding it.

Full disclosure…. I’m a Golden Harvest dealer lol. Last year we were the top Enogen selling dealer in MN and 99% of it was sold to feedlots and dairies. The varieties being released now are part of the “Enogen Feed” program and are geared for both grain quality and whole plant digestability and are true dual purpose hybrids. We had some 112 day stuff average North of 35 ton/acre on a few different farms with an estimated 288bu/a grain in it. That’s insane for this area !! We’re excited for what it does in the gut of a ruminant and our customers are seeing positive things. Help the customer make money and they’ll help you make money. It’s been a great product line for us so far.

 

[JimBear]

It is very much sold where you are. The product has transitioned from “Enogen Energy” to “Enogen Feed”. Ethanol plants up here still purchase it but in limited quantities so no one really grows it for ethanol anymore.

We have a half dozen feed mills within 15 miles that will purchase it as regular #2 yellow for normal price. We raise it for feed ant not really with the intent of running it to a sale point. I see a .15lb increase in daily gain on the steers while feeding it.

Full disclosure…. I’m a Golden Harvest dealer lol. Last year we were the top Enogen selling dealer in MN and 99% of it was sold to feedlots and dairies. The varieties being released now are part of the “Enogen Feed” program and are geared for both grain quality and whole plant digestability and are true dual purpose hybrids. We had some 112 day stuff average North of 35 ton/acre on a few different farms with an estimated 288bu/a grain in it. That’s insane for this area !! We’re excited for what it does in the gut of a ruminant and our customers are seeing positive things. Help the customer make money and they’ll help you make money. It’s been a great product line for us so far.

I knew that you sold GH.

My buddy sells GH as well but I didn’t hear him talking about enogen this year. I will ask him about it next time I see him.

Maybe some of the feeders around we here plant some.

 

[legdelimber]

Always appreciate you folks putting up the images and some info as to what I'm looking at.
Helps me to remember (and sometimes just understand a bit better) what gets done to have bags of groceries in my house.
Amazing how quickly some of the tech and procedures have changed.
Still gives me a pause to realize that my Mom actually sometimes picked cotton when she was a kid.
The Family pulled her out of school to work in the field, as a teenager.
She was always quite determined that my Sister make it through college and get a decent, office sort of, job.

Sis did it

 

[Bill G]

Always appreciate you folks putting up the images and some info as to what I'm looking at.
Helps me to remember (and sometimes just understand a bit better) what gets done to have bags of groceries in my house.
Amazing how quickly some of the tech and procedures have changed.
Still gives me a pause to realize that my Mom actually sometimes picked cotton when she was a kid.
The Family pulled her out of school to work in the field, as a teenager.
She was always quite determined that my Sister make it through college and get a decent, office sort of, job.

Sis did it

I still have my last ear picker in the shed and my Grandpa's first mechanical ear picker over the hill.

 

[legdelimber]

The images of the corn and its marker kernels caught my attention. One of the TV channels that show rodeos, was running some farming shows a while back.
Stuff about ground temp and various seed characteristics and just a few days difference in plant/crop maturity. Coatings and so on. Didn't know that Talc is used as a seed lube until I saw a few programs.
Seen many videos of mired down equipment, But didn't really connect all of the underground drains and getting inside of the planting window, as being so closely linked.

 

[kingOFgEEEks]

If the nights get long I can feed and sleep the harvest crew.

I don't know about your harvest crew, but you might want to put them in the old camper... LOL.

 

[jblnut]

Bushels on bushels on bushels !!


Not sure who learned more from whom but Pops and my little guy spent most of yesterday in the Combine cab together.

 

[legdelimber]

Neat how you can see the auger ripples in the corn flow in that picture. Looks like rain could be coming. You guys get everything in before it got damp or wet?
Photos like that are what I always loved about National Geographic magazine.

Oh dating myself a bit here, but back then, the fan in the cab woulda been plated steel.

 

[jblnut]

Neat how you can see the auger ripples in the corn flow in that picture. Looks like rain could be coming. You guys get everything in before it got damp or wet?

No rain that day and it’s been quite dry around here the last month. We got 0.6” Sunday and it’s mostly dried out and gone already.

Photos like that are what I always loved about National Geographic magazine.

There are lots of very stunning scenes in front of me daily, I just gotta remember to stop and take a moment to appreciate them.

Oh dating myself a bit here, but back then, the fan in the cab woulda been plated steel.

The AC in the combine has been on the fritz so Pops brought his cordless fan with. There is a warm old man funk smell in there that may never go away now lol

We did the test plot yesterday. 16 varieties from 90-105 day. A few surprises but nothing real out of the ordinary.


A neighbor dropped a bunch of jars of pickles off in the shop today so i ate a whole jar yesterday. I’d hate for them to go bad lol

 

[JimBear]

I have a conundrum with a bin fan.

When turned on the blade turns the proper way, it will suck your shirt sleeve up against the grill, blow your hat off if you stick your head in the man hole on top of the bin.

After 12-30 hrs, time frame varies, it sounds almost like has a slight imbalance/strange tone, just barely perceptible. At this stage it barely sucks any air at the grill & no air moving out the manhole.

I shut it down, the fan is still turning the proper direction. No blockage, behind the fan, I can see thru to the other side of the bin looking thru plenum.

Fire the fan back up, it turns the proper direction & moves all kinds of air.

Rinse & repeat. I am completely baffled. I have been around all kinds of bin fans over the years.

The only possibility I can think of is the fan is spinning on the shaft BUT I would think it would slip on startup as that is when the most torque is generated.

And it creates normal air flow on startup & for several hours.

We are stumped. Any thoughts ?

No tripped breakers, no obvious wiring problems.

 

[jblnut]

I have a conundrum with a bin fan.

When turned on the blade turns the proper way, it will suck your shirt sleeve up against the grill, blow your hat off if you stick your head in the man hole on top of the bin.

After 12-30 hrs, time frame varies, it sounds almost like has a slight imbalance/strange tone, just barely perceptible. At this stage it barely sucks any air at the grill & no air moving out the manhole.

I shut it down, the fan is still turning the proper direction. No blockage, behind the fan, I can see thru to the other side of the bin looking thru plenum.

Fire the fan back up, it turns the proper direction & moves all kinds of air.

Rinse & repeat. I am completely baffled. I have been around all kinds of bin fans over the years.

The only possibility I can think of is the fan is spinning on the shaft BUT I would think it would slip on startup as that is when the most torque is generated.

And it creates normal air flow on startup & for several hours.

We are stumped. Any thoughts ?

No tripped breakers, no obvious wiring problems.

It’s a day for fans I guess lol

Is it a regular metal bladed fan or a fancier one with fins that can move ?

Does it appear to be spinning as fast ?

Have you checked amps on startup, just after it’s up to speed and before you shut it down when it sounds dumb ?

It’s a possibility that it heats up and the bearings in the motor get loose or something and it’s drawing more juice and or not running as fast.

A good electrical tester can tell a lot here. Rule out wiring issues. I spend a few hours troubleshooting this on the dryer today. Turns out the DC side of my VFD is failing and it’s struggling to run the main fan as full speed so I slowed it to 57hz instead of 60 and it’s happy as a clam. For now. I’ve a new VFD on the way. Hopefully this one limps through the 12,000bu in the wet bin so it’s at least not sitting there heating up.