Corn Field.

A couple of weeks ago, May 15th and 16th to be exact, we had some cold weather come through at night. It got cold enough to cause some frost damage on the corn that was up.

And talk about an upset husband who used to be able to look at some nice green healthy plants, but now sees nothing but a brown mess of dead leaves. Thankfully in the case of our corn the frost came while the corn was only a few leaves tall; about three to four to be exact. This means the growing point on the corn is still below ground level, which means that the ground acted much like a coat for the corn plants.

It has only been about four days since the frost and already you can see the green coming back to the corn. Yea!

It is still too soon however to have a crop insurance adjuster out to look at the damage. As one of those adjusters I thought I’d give you a few points of interest when looking at frost damage.

Frost damage falls into the realms of hail damage we have to wait 7-10 days before we can come out to appraise any affected fields whether it be corn, soybeans, milo or wheat. The reason for this is we have to wait to see what is going to live and what is going to die. Just like it take the corn weeks to dry down in the fall it takes a few days for to true extent of the damage to become apparent on frost/freeze or hail damage.

Some things we look at when we are in the field are if the plants are starting to green back up, meaning they are still alive. We also look to see what size of an area is affected by the damage or if the damage is worse on one portion of the field. The frost we had affected the corn in the lower laying areas since cold sinks closer to the ground. The corn on the higher ground was not dinged at all.

Another thing an adjuster might do is to pull a plant out of the ground and cut it in two. By cutting a plant or two in half we can see the inner most parts of the plant to see if the middle of the plant is still alive (like in the picture). If the interior color or composition of the plant is questionable an adjuster will probably elect to wait longer to make a final appraisal on the field. This will give the plants more time to either come back or to die off. This will lead to a more accurate appraisal on the crop.

This is one week after the frost.

The one thing an adjuster cannot answer is, how will this hurt overall production? There are too many variables to consider, will the weather stay warm, will you get rains at the right time, will you get enough rain to make a difference, will it get to hot and stay too hot for the rest of the year? These questions are some of the unknowns of farming an adjuster just cannot answer.

These are some of the unknowns that all farmers deal with on a day-to-day and year-to-year basis.

I help this explains some things the adjuster is looking at when they inspect your crops.

Later,
Stephanie
The Moderately Involved Kansas Farm Wife

The Rocks.

A simple, quite Sunday was what I had in mind last week. I’d hang out with little man while Daddy was in the tractor planting corn.
This didn’t happen at all but I did get a good bragging picture out of the deal.

It all started with a phone call from my husband, just like most farm jobs, to come over to the field he was in across the road and pick up rocks that had been left behind after some dozer work.

Little man and I changed cloths and got the bale bed cleaned off and off we went to the field. For little man this was a fun job because he got to run around on the freshly tilled ground and up and down the terrace we were working around pointing out rocks that he just wasn’t big enough to pick up.
We were doing well for a while, then my spotter decided it was time for a snack and drink break and left me to the job alone. That was just fine with me since this meant I wasn’t tripping over him anymore.

After his break he came back refreshed and he picked up the small rocks and was throwing them on the back of the truck seeing just how high on the pile he could get them. When he was bored with that he climbed up on the bed of the truck and scaled the mountain of rocks and the back of the truck.
A move of the truck later, and after watching me use the shovel to unearth some of the bigger rocks, little man took it upon himself to pick up the shovel and start unearthing the rocks too. This worked great for me since I didn’t have to fight to get some out of the ground.

All of this was fun and games to him, but what he didn’t realize at the time was the little bits and pieces of lessons of life he was learning.
You’re never too little to pitch in and help in any way you can.

Sometimes in life there are jobs we may not want to do but they need done anyway. If we didn’t pick up these rocks it could mean the senseless tearing up of equipment later; which could be rather expensive.

Completely do the job to the end no matter how tedious it can become. (With the exception of two rocks I left that Daddy will have to use the tractor and loader to retrieve because they were way too big for Mommy to pick up.)

Even a Mommy can do a Daddy’s work. Just because a person is a female doesn’t mean they can’t do the things a man can do.

There is a payoff to completing a tough job. The mental fortitude to know you can do more difficult things in the future because you have already built a base to work from.

All of this to me is otherwise known has having a good work ethic; something that can’t be taught in entirety in a classroom and will hopefully live on within him for the rest of his life.

So a few life lessons, two hours at least and at least a ton of rocks later we finished up and gingerly made our way back to the house.
These are the things farm kids grow up seeing and doing. I know my little man does not understand all of these things now but as he grows and matures he will start to see and understand these things. My hope is that he will be willing and able to continue in his father’s footsteps upon the foundation we are building today.

Later,
Stephanie
The Moderately Involved Kansas Farm Wife