Formo appreciates warm, dry weather for fall work Farm and Ranch Guide: Producer Reports

LITCHVILLE, N.D. - The recent spell of warm and dry weather is ideal for the row crops remaining to be harvested, according to Mark Formo, who still has a lot of soybean and corn acres to get over this fall.

“This weather is doing wonders for the beans and the corn,” he said. “If this weather continues probably by the end of next week we'll try a field of our early maturing beans.”

Mark said the beans have matured and are drying down a little more every day. He added the corn is maturing pretty fast as well and will continue to if the weather cooperates.

The soybean fields around the Litchville area aren't looking as good now as they were earlier. During our last visit Mark had mentioned that some growers were saying the high winds around Labor Day had taken its toll on the top pods. Since then he has had a chance to walk through several of his soybean fields and has noticed damage to those tops pods.

“Those strong winds we had over Labor Day really took a toll on the soybeans,” he said. “Now you can start to see that some of those top pods aborted the beans they had started, so there is nothing in them. On many of the plants the top three or four pods have nothing in them. I think the strong winds were just too much for them as they were being whipped around.

“And from the soybean fields I have been in, it appears the beans might be a little smaller than normal this year, but I guess we won't know for sure until we get them in the hopper.”

Mark continues to haul grain from the earlier wheat crop in order to make room for the rapidly approaching soybean and corn harvest.

“We've got about four more bins we have to clean out and then we should be pretty much ready,” he said.

They had hauled some grain down to Enderlin and the elevator employees there said they took in some new soybeans Sept. 18. The beans came from the Sheldon area, where the soil is a little sandy, Mark said those at the elevator didn't know how the crop was running, but that athe beans were down to 10 moisture, Mark said that is a little bit dry, since they tend to crack going through the combine when they are that dry.

“We have a few farmers around here that have planted some 06 maturity varieties and they are talking about giving it a try this weekend,” he said.

Mark has also been doing some fall tillage. They have been chisel plowing the ground that they will plant to corn next spring and spraying all of the barley ground where the no-till soybeans will be seeded next year. Prior to the spraying operation they had run their Salford over those acres.

“That chops up the straw pretty good and we set the drags so they are pretty aggressive so the straw will get dragged out for the no-tilling next year,” he said.

Since our last visit the Litchville area has received just over three inches of rain, which Mark said was very welcome.

“The rain came down so nice that we don't have any potholes,” he said. “We needed the rain; it really helped the chisel plowing. I don't know if it would have worked very well without it.”

Mark was able to get away from the farm for a few days during the last two weeks. He spent a couple of days at Big Iron, and also took in a few more plot tours, and this past weekend he went on a motorcycle rally.

The motorcycle riders in the Litchville Fire Department teamed up with those from other fire departments in the area for their annual Red Knights International Firefighters Motorcycle Club in a 9/11 memorial ride on Sunday, Sept. 14. The ride is made in honor of the 343 firefighters who lost their lives in the line of duty during the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

The group gathered at Valley City and rode through Fingal, Nome, Fort Ransom, Verona, LaMoure, Litchville and Sanborn before returning to Valley City, where they enjoyed a dinner at the Eagles Club.

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