XtremeAg’s Chad Henderson finds more farmable acres on his existing land, while Lee Lubbers hopes his existing acres are farmable come springtime.
CHAD HENDERSON – MADISON, ALABAMA
Chad Henderson is part in a fifth generation farming operation in Madison (Alabama). Henderson Farms has over 8,000 acres in dryland and wetland soybeans, wheat and dryland/irrigated double-crop soybeans. Chad is a Henderson Racing drag racer, and when he’s not farming, he can be found continuing another family tradition.
Farming is a learning experience. For Henderson Farms, the tiling job that we did last year is still teaching us new things about our land every day. Pattern tiling is not very common in our area of the country, but it’s already proving itself on our farm as we are able to open additional acres that up until this year have been essentially un-farmable.
Advanced Drainage Systems is our partner in this project. This project is being done on a large farm. A small portion of it is used for duck impoundment during the winter. It took just 24 hours to drain the impoundment, turn the pump on, and drain the entire field. A week later, we were able get into the field with equipment to work the ground. In the past, we would wait until April before thinking about working the ground. Even then, it was possible that we wouldn’t have been able get into the field.
It is huge for our farm to be able get the water off the field in February and then start working on it in February. It will allow us to plant the entire field simultaneously, which is a huge game changer for us. These days we need to be as efficient as possible and if we can save road time for our planter and combine to be able to plant and harvest with one trip to the farm, not to mention the potential yield benefits, then that’s a no brainer for us.
LEE LUBBERS – GREGORY, SOUTH DAKOTA
Lee Lubbers of Gregory, South Dakota, grew up in the farming tradition, and remembers well using leftover scholarship money as the down payment for his first tractor and rent for 200 acres. Today, he farms more than 17,000 acres of dryland soybeans, corn, and wheat. Lubbers believes that one of the most important aspects of his life is to continue learning and challenging himself in order to build a business and leave a legacy that can be proudly passed on to the next generation.
This winter has been extremely dry so far. While we may occasionally experience a flurry, it is still very dry every morning. It’s not very often when fires are a risk in the wintertime in South Dakota but that’s the situation we are in right now heading into spring.
It’s been a roller coaster of temperatures as well. One day we are at 50° F. and the next day brings below freezing temperatures and -30° F. windchills. It seems like we have not seen a week without consistent temperatures. The extreme temperature swings are bad for wheat, but we seem like we are holding on, just as we did with the beans and corn over a hotter summer. The crown at the ground’s base is still green, which means that the plant is still viable. However, the moisture situation will need to change this spring if this crop is to be successful.
Seems like all our shop work lately consists of either working on a project until it’s done or waiting for a miscellaneous part to arrive before finishing. Our tender trailer project required us to wait 2-3 weeks for basic expanded material to arrive before we could complete our racks. In all our years of farming we’ve never had to wait for expanded metal. It has been a challenge to receive full shipments of steel this year.
We are now ready to bring in our high speed planter and start installing an in-furrow fertilizer from Capstan AG. We are still waiting for the new row cleaners that we ordered in June last year. Yes, June! There are many things to do, including shop projects and tweaking our battle plans. Stay safe everyone.
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Source: Successful Farming
