Welcome!
Hello and welcome to our blog! First off, let me introduce myself. My name is Betsy, I came back to the farm full time in about 2009. I spend most of my time in the office managing the bookwork side of things, but when the busy seasons arrive, I head out to the field with everyone else. I have wanted to start a website for West Bureau Farms for awhile, and have finally taken the time to get it done. I wanted a place where I could provide a more in-depth look at what is going on at the farm, something a little more than what social media posts can provide. If you want to follow us on social media, we are on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @westbureaufarms. I hope to post a blog update about once a month, although it may be less during spring and fall work.
Speaking of spring work, that is going to be just around the corner. It’s starting to get warmer and things are starting to green up. We got our first shipment of seed in the other day and it won’t be long before we are planting it! Right now, our days are busy with getting equipment ready. We are working on putting a starter fertilizer system on the second planter. We have used starter fertilizer on the corn planter for several years now, and decided to upgrade the second planter as well. This is so when we are done planting soybeans, the second planter can help finish up planting corn without sacrificing the ability to apply starter. We have also been wanting to experiment with using starter fertilizer on the soybeans as well, and now we can!
The other development in the ag world that you may have heard about are carbon credits. If you don’t know what carbon credits are, here is a brief explanation. Basically, one company introduces more eco-friendly practices that help lessen their carbon footprint, generating carbon credits. Those credits can then be purchased by another company, for example an airline, who generates a lot of carbon. Over the winter, carbon credits have become quite the buzz topic in agriculture. Farmers can be paid for introducing practices like reduced tillage, managing nitrogen applications, planting cover crops, rotating crops, and other things. The whole project is still in it’s infancy and there are still a lot of question marks surrounding it. But, we think that it has some merit and believe that it could be more important in the future. So, we are in the process of looking into it and seeing if it is going to work in our operation.
As you probably know, our bin site was heavily damaged during a windstorm last June. That project is getting close to being done. We are currently taking down the last damaged bin, which will be replaced with a new one. We are also going to add a 15,000 bushel hopper bottom bin to the system, which we hope will help us use the storage we have at the bin site more efficiently. Once those two things are done, the bin site will be at it’s new normal. We are very happy to have that behind us and are already looking forward to harvest when we will get to run everything!
Thanks again for taking the time to check out the website and read the blog. I hope you get some time to enjoy the coming spring weather and stay safe!
Seed corn ready to be planted!
Working on upgrading the second planter.