NEIA Farms (Lantzky Farms)

Producing quality grain and livestock to the world in a safe and environmentally responsible manner from northeast Iowa.

2011


 I attempt to provide a brief explaination of what is happening on our operation on a regular basis. Click on the links at left to see the previous year's history. Below is a history of our operation for 2011: December 31st: Today wraps up the 2011 year. To say that it was a wonderful year would be an understatement. The year started off with plenty of snow and cold. March and April continued to be rather cold. Once the weather warmed up, we were able to get the crops planted in good shape. The weather was nice with plenty of moisture through July. The middle of July we traveled 2,500 over a 10 day period and had a wonderful trip out to Yellowstone National Park. During that timeframe, the crop really started to suffer. Luckily we caught a 3" rain and made the crop. School started in August with Trey starting in the new Waverly Middle School. We started to learn how to transition to Junior High. Trey had a wonderful time playing football and Natalie had a good fall playing soccer. Trey started piano lessons and it was apparent very quickly that we needed to upgrade to a piano from a keyboard. He has definitely found his talent. We started to harvest corn sooner than many other producers (September 18th). The main reason was due to a large basis premium for delivering corn before October 1st. This allowed us to get close to 30% of harvest complete by October 1st. This year also saw us purchase the other 120 acres that ajoined us near the Basset Pork site. Ground prices continue to skyrocket higher. We also upgrade quite a bit of our equipment over the past year. The biggest purchase was trading our 9500 combine in for a 9650 combine. The main reason we did this was when we started to combine with the 9500, we could only go 3 MPH when we were combining 200 bushel corn with a 6 row head. The new combine has an 8 row head that can now go 4 MPH in 200 bushel corn. This significantly improved out capacity. The last couple of months have been extremely dry and have been warmer than normal. This has caused many people to question if 2012 will be a drought year. We have all of the ground worked up for 100% corn crop next year. November and December has been used to clean fence rows and water ways of various farms. Crop prices were historically higher and as a result we were able to pay many of our landlords who are on a "flex" lease close to $100 per acre rent bonus. A final thanks goes out to the following suppliers and purchasers of our grain: •Schnieders Milling (Providing fertilizer and chemicals) •Fredricksburg Farmers Coop (Fertilizer and purchasing soybeans) •Hoffman Brothers Seed (Dekalb seed) •Mummelthei Seed (LG seed) •Steve Merfeld (Pioneer seed) •Five Star Coop (Purchase grain) •Inovative Ag Services (Purchase grain) •Tres M (Manure pumping) •Garden Avenue Hauling (Manure hauling)


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December 11th: Today was an extremely busy day. We had the annual Christmas program at our church. Trey played the piano for the Prelude and Natalie was a townsperson. Trey recieved many complements on his piano playing ability. This afternoon Grandpa and Grandma Lantzky came down. Natalie and Grandma made cookies while Grandpa, Trey, Leasa and I played cards. I also was able to finish painting Natalie's room a great "blue" color. Grandpa brought down a trail camera to show us the photos that were on it. We are going to utilize this to keep track of what is happening at various farms. The following photo is a shot of our kittens: As for the farm, we are finishing the delivery of 25,000 bushels of corn, working on finishing up our year end calculations for tax work and cashflow projections for the upcoming year. The corn market continues to be rather soft and we are working at establishing a floor on our 2012 crop. We have very little of our 2011 crop left and have been able to sell the majority of this before the recent price drop. We have not had any snow as of yet. Last weekend we were just on the edge of a 5" snowfall. We did recieve close to 1" of rain from that event. Unfortunately we were in Mason City at Natalie's first basketball tournament when the snow was coming down in buckets when we left town. By the time we were back to Charles City, it was a steady rainstorm. The first game of the tournament was definitely a "first game" for many of the girls on her team. We had a tournament in Waverly this weekend and the improvement was amazing. It is still 4th grade basketball, but they are slowly beginning to understand the basics. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

November 25th: Happy Thanksgiving!!! Today we celebrated our wonderful blessings today. We had a wonderful meal at Mom and Dad's house. Brandon, Angela and his my Grandma Heideman came to join us. My Mom and Dad also invited a couple of from China that they met at Mayo in Rochester along with their mother. It was very interesting to hear their stories of what it was like back in China. Their mother is from a rural area of China. They farmed a total of 2 acres completely by hand and raised one pig annually. They were truly amazed with the 2000 head finishing barn, how the pigs are provided a steady supply of feed and how the building was kept at a constant 72 degrees. They had many questions about the different pieces of equipment and the grain bins. Their visit really made me realize how many blessings have been bestowed upon our family. We have a wonderful family, country that we live in that has afforded us the freedoms we enjoy and our good health. The weather continues to be dry and above normal for tempatures. Yesterday we tore out about 1 mile of fenceline on a rented farm. This will improve the ability for us to keep brush down only the edge of the field and the yield on the rows will now have the benefit of a full moisture profile and not be short due to brush robbing the moisture. The following video is of the excavator crossing the small creek that he was cleaning for us. See if he gets stuck!! ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

November 11th: Harvest Progress: (1410 of 1410 acres (100%) Sorry for the delay in updates. Since the last update we have finished harvest, fall tillage is starting to wrap up and all of the manure has been hauled. We are currently working at cleaning out some waterways and fencerows. Today is Veterans Day! Thank you to all of the Veterans, past and current, who have served our country and for those who have paid the ultimate price to help preserve our freedom. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

October 15th: Harvest Progress: (705 of 1410 acres (50%) We are right at 50% completion of harvest. The last 12 days have been a bit slower as the storage bins are currently full and we are required to haul the grain into town. The corn has dried down very quickly with corn going from 25% on October 1st to 16% currently. We would be farther along with harvest, but the local coop was unable to give us a couple of trucks to load right out of the field. They are currently being used to haul beans from area branches. We may have some available this coming week. We have not started the beans as the moisture last week was close to 8% (instead of the targeted 13%). We only have 250 acres and will probably take them out this week. We had just over 1 inch of rain this last Thursday. This will have added enough moisture to bring it back to 13%. By waiting, this could add close to 5 bushels per acre to the yield of 50 bushels beans with the additional moisture. We were able to work late Thursday as AgVantage FS in Charles City stayed open late to let us get some grain into town. Friday, I had to attend an Alumni Board meeting at Wartburg College. I was recently chosen for this board and had additional responsibilities for Wartburg's Homecoming this weekend. Leasa and I also took in the Iowa-Northwestern football game on Saturday evening. Iowa finally beat Northwestern after loosing to them the last 4 years (41-31). Then today, Roger and Deb had a picnic that they attended in Rochester, MN. So, the last few days were spent combining the corn and then hauling the corn into town. Hopefully this week will see us keep the combine moving since I will be there to keep the trucks moving. The yields in the Floyd county farms are a bit lower that we had hoped. The ground that was tiled earlier this spring showed the stress of compaction, heat stress on the 100 day corn that was planted during pollination. The yields are still close to 175 bushel per acre and the average yield so far would be close to 185. The "Summit Ground" has been officially listed with Hertz Farm Management (www.hfmgt.com) and Farmers National (www.farmersnational.com) has 865 acres that will be auctioned on October 28th. Please take a look at our "Farms for Sale" page to get additional information or check out the websites of the companies for additional information. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

October 3rd: Harvest Progress: (350 of 1410 acres (25+%) Harvest continues to progress very well. We delivered over 61,000 bushels in the month of September to the Five Star Coop. We had an 80,000 bushel contract that paid of a $.45 premium for September delivery over October delivery. This premium basically paid for the drying of the corn and allowed us to get a good head start on harvest. We still have 20,000 contracted bushels to deliver this month. Corn yields have been a pleasant surprise with our average yield being 191 bushels per acre so far. Many producers in the area have started on beans, but with the dry weather, the moisture has dropped below 10% (13% being ideal). We do have 200 acres of beans to harvest, but have chosen to stay with corn until the beans put some moisture back into them (they soak up moisture in a rain). The next 10 days are showing dry weather, so it looks like we will be going at corn for a while. The corn moisture has started to drop with the warm weather. Trey and Natalie were up at the farm this weekend. Trey helped with combining by running the grain cart. He did an excellent job and I was really proud of him. It allowed the combine to keep moving. Grandpa was chopping stalks during this time. It appears that Trey has advanced to the next level of farm jobs (He even got to run the combine with dad's watchful eye). The grain market continues to get hammered. The USDA came out with a stocks report this Friday that showed an additional 300 million bushels of corn than expected. This coupled with global economic concerns and better than expected yields have pushed corn prices $1.80 lower over the past couple of weeks. We feel rather fortunate in that we have all of our guaranteed bushels priced and own $7.00 put options on the rest of the bushels. We have also hedged close to 80% of our 2012 corn crop. The biggest news of the week is a land holder in the area that owns 2,100 acres has decided to sell this ground. They have listed 10 seperate parcels and will auction off an additional 8 parcels on October 28th. Please look under the "Farms for Sale" tab for additional information. These parcels are located within 1 to 5 miles of ground we already farm and would love to farm these additional parcels. We will pay top dollar in rent and would provide an excellent return for your investment. I will try to get some additional photos up shortly. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

September 24th: Harvest Progress: (140 of 1410 acres (10+%) Last night was a great night. The Go-Hawks beat Waukon for the homecoming football game and Trey had his first Junior High Dance that he allowed me to chaperone. It was held at St. Pauls by the local youth ministers from the different churches in the community. There must have been 150 kids that showed up and for the most part all of them were dancing. When you have that many kids moving in a smaller room, boy did it get warm in there. Trey and his friends had an awesome time and can't believe he is growing up so fast. The last couple of days, Leasa and Natalie have been making applesauce and dehydrating apples from a bushel that she picked up at a neighbor's house. The applesauce is great along with all the salsa and pickles that my mom has made lately, we are eating well. Today was a very productive day. We hit the 10% complete level. The new combine was delivered and we have the grain dryer cranked up and working well. I know that a few comments back I said that we were going to be delivering wet corn to the elevator and they are paying for the drying, but it is still so early in the season that they are closed on the weekend. We will dry this and have them pick it up later this week before October 1st. The new 9650 combine was delivered today. I have to admit that even though it was a bit frustrating how long it took to get the combine and head ready to go, I am glad that they technicians from Bodensteiner Implement went over the machine with a fine tooth comb. The first delay was trying to figure out how to configure the new combine with duals to use a 6 row head and not run the outside rows down. We finally decided the best thing to do was purchase a 12 row cornhead as this is the same size as our planter. When we found out the hydralics were not large enough to support the 12 row head, to switch to the 8 row head. We will just have to be off of the rows every third pass. The next delay was having to convert the cornhead from a single point hookup to a traditional hookup. Then when they were calabrating the combine, they ran into electrical problems and had to replace an expensive piece. Finally yesterday they called and brought the combine out around 11 a.m. The next 3 hours were spent as follows: Uploading the correct software in the yield monitor so that it will automatically know what variety corn we are combining based off of our recorded information when we were planting. 30 Feet into the first pass a gathering chain on the head broke and all of the gathering chains were replaced. It is now working like a top and it is amazing how much more corn we can combine. The old combine could only go 3 MPH in 200+ bushel corn with a 6 row head. The new combine can go 4 MPH with an 8 row head. It is going to make the truck driver's job that much more important because keeping grain away from this machine will be a test. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

September 15th: Harvest Progress: (25 of 1410 acres (1+%) We officially began harvest on the 14th. We scouted some early varieties of corn and found them at 25% moisture. This is dry enough to allow us to start harvest. The corn is also located on lighter ground next to some public hunting ground. If we did not harvest this now, the deer would continue to knock down the crop. The yield on this lighter ground was disappointing at only 130 bushels, but the endrows around the rest of the field where the soil was heavier was yielding closer to 200 bushels per acre. We plan on harvesting full time later this week. We have 80,000 bushels that is priced at a premium for September delivery. This premium will pay for the drying of 25% corn and will allow us to make good progress on harvest before October 1st. We recently stopped into the John Deere Implement dealer for parts and the saleman gave us a great offer on a "new" used combine. He originally was trying to sell us this combine earlier this summer, but we felt that 1) the crop was not made and 2) we just bought a planter. The price on the combine $25,000 off of the summer price. I believe that the combine was just about to go off their floorplan and they wanted to get it sold through the dealership instead of at a wholesale auction. We traded in our 1993 9500 combine for a 2000 9650 combine. The new combine has 1200 seperator hours vs. 2900 seperator hours, is 7 years newer and has much more harvesting capacity than our old combine. The following is a photo of our old 9500. She did us well for the past 5 years and still has a lot left in her. We had to make a move up due to the corn yielding so sell. In the heaviest corn, we were only able to go 3 MPH with a 6 row head in order to not throw corn out the back. This new combine will have an 8 row head and should be able to go 5.5 MPH. Thanks for the memories!!!! We also put new pigs in at our Bassett site. This group came in as 30 lb feeder pigs. They are now from the same source as our Chickasaw Farms site. This will help control disease with one source of pigs and we will now have new pigs coming in during December and June of the year. Since our last update, we found a piano for Trey. This is a wonderful addition to our home. He has played it for hours on end. He has utilized his Ipad from school and searched for videos that show how to play different songs. I continue to be truly amazed at how these Ipads are being used to expand the learning circle for these kids. I originally thought that they would only be surfing the web in their free time, but Trey is actually using it to continue to expand his area of interest. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

September 1st: Since the last update, we have been blessed to have a couple of 1"+ rainfalls. This will help finish off the corn crop in good fashion and the bean crop will have adequate moisture to finish off the crop. The past couple of weeks has seen us preparing equipment for harvest and moving grain around in order to be ready to harvest. We did decide to trade in our old 510 disc ripper and 530 DMI Ripper for a new John Deere 2700 5 shank Ripper. The old ripper was worn enough that we had to keep a very close eye on the stress points because of it's age. We also finished loading out at Bassett. We will now bring in feeder pigs on September 15th and will have the same source as our Chickasaw site. School started on August 23rd. Trey started in the new 5-8 school and every student has been given an Ipad to use as an additional learning resource. Natalie has started her last year of school at Carey Elementary. Trey has started football and is playing soccer this fall. Nataile has started soccer. Even though this may seem like enough, we are also trying to find a piano for Trey. He taught himself how to play on the keyboard and has really taken off, so we are trying to get him an piano. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


August 15th: The August crop report showed a crop in the national crop corn yield from 158 to 153 bushels per acre. The heat stress has really been tough on all of the corn out there. This resulted in a $.25 rally in the corn market, but we have not been able to punch through the $7.20 area on the December futures. The corn is coming along fast. My crop scout took the following photos of the corn from different corn fields that I farm. The amount of tip back is there, but compared to other areas it could be much worse. We are also starting to get dry. We have had a couple of .2" rains, but would love to see a good 1 or 2 inch rain. We are also starting to load out market hogs at our Bassett site. Although the weather has been hot, they continued to grow very well this summer due to the power ventilated building. This building provided sprinklers and pulled air through the building which allowed the heat of the animals to be pulled out. We are also hauling the last of our 2010 corn crop to town in preparation for the upcoming crop. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


August 8th: Returned from Korean KAMP this past week. This is an annual Korean Culture Camp that we have all attended as a family for the past 7 years. This year was a bit different as the normal location in Cedar Falls was double booked, so the board did an excellent job of shifting at the last minute to Stoney Creek Inn in Des Moines. Natalie loves to do the Korean Fan Dance and Trey really enjoys hanging out with his friends. Leasa and I also enjoy getting to catch up with some of our closest friends. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

August 1st: We made a cash sale of close to 40% of our expected corn crop today. This percentage is equal to what we are not able to store. The main reason we are selling such a large portion in a single sale is due to the terms that Five Star Coop gave us. The corn market is providing a large premium for corn delivered in the month of September. The terms of this sale allow us to deliver corn the first half of September and receive a $.65 premium over October delivery. If the total contract is not delivered the 1st half of September, we will receive a $.49 premium over October for the 2nd half of September and if we still can't get everything delivered in September, we will receive the current October basis that is narrow. This was somewhat a no brainer as there is no penalty if we do not have corn that is ready to combine the 1st half of September. With drying costs at $.05 per point in excess of 15%, we will be able to start combining corn at 28% delivered directly to the Coop and still receive the same revenue as we would in October if we allowed the corn to dry down naturally. This will also allow us to begin harvest earlier and hopefully finish earlier. It will also allow us to load the corn right out of the field, only handle it once and eliminate the potential for overdrying our corn when it is run through our dryer. The airplanes are flying fast and furious. We are applying fungicide on all of our corn acres. Last year we saw a 10-20 bushel per acre improvement on the acres which we applied the fungicide. This spraying helps control the disease in the crop. This helps keep the corn plant healthy and allows the corn plant to maximize it's potential. We brought the combine back from the implement dealer this week. Last fall, they went through the combine and made the needed repairs. Then they stored it in their combine shed. We also took both tractors up for an inspection prior to harvest. We will also take the semis up for their annual inspection before we begin harvest. We always look to keep our equipment in the best condition as possible and these annual inspections give us an idea of repairs that are needed, as well as when to consider potential equipment trades. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

July 28th: This past week was hot indeed. We had tempatures close to 100 and the humidity had the heat index up around 115 degrees. The corn was pollinating well thanks to the rain storm that came last Friday. Chickasaw Farms had 2,000 head of weaner pigs come in from Nebraska. The showed up with a tempature of 98 degrees and a heat index of 115 degrees. We did end up loosing 19 pigs during the transportation, but all things considered, the trucker did a great job of keeping so many alive. The nights have been so warm, we did not even need to light the supplemental brooder heaters. The pigs at Bassett are close to market weight and are having the large fans on constantly. We are also needing to keep the sprinklers on these pigs to help keep them cool. The sprinklers run for 2 minutes and off for 5 minutes. This has helped keep all of these pigs cool in the extreme heat. The following at the bottom are from some of the storms that we had last week.

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July 21th: 2,800 total miles in 8 days!! This was the total miles covered by the Lantzky family on our trip to Yellowstone. We traveled out to Rapid City in our truck and exchaned it for a 25' RV. This was an excellent way to travel and see the massive national park. As we traveled about, if we needed to stop and eat, we just pulled over and had lunch. The following photo is from lunch in front of Grand Teton at Teton National Park: I will finish giving you an update a bit later. We saw a great landscapes, wildlife and wildflowers. Please be sure to look at that photos from the trip under the pictures page. The weather this past week has been extremely hot. Prior to the start of our Yellowstone trip, we did not have a good rain for a couple of weeks. During our trip, I was not able to get much information regarding rains in Iowa. I was able to find out that we were scheduled to have 95+ degree tempatures during pollination. Unfortunately, the rain chances were minimal. Needless to say, I was stressing out about the upcoming pollination on such a short amount of rain. On Friday, as we were returning, we pulled into the KOA at Mt. Rushmore. As I was waiting to check in, I saw the regional radars on a major storm that was coming across Chickasaw County. Things were looking up. I called Roger after checking in and found out that they were in the middle of a downpour. I found out that they had received .2" on Sunday and another .5" on Monday. He informed me that we had anywhere from 2" to 3.5" in the rain guage. This should really put pollination in good shape even with the high tempatures. The following photos are of Roger and Deb setting our fuel barrel inside a protective fuel protector. July 7th: I started this as a weekend update, but the post ended up reporting on multiple things I forgot in previous reports!! Back from a wonderful 4th of July weekend. We started out by going to Lost Island Waterpark in Waterloo. This is an annual trip and the kids really wore us out this year. Had a hard time keeping up. The balance of the weekend consisted of going to my brother's house in Clarion for dinner on Sunday which included seeing my little nephew. They are expecting a second addition to their family in the next couple of weeks. Then on the 4th, Natalie and I made the annual trek up to Clear Lake to a cookout of another adoptive family. Leasa had to work and Trey was sore from Lost Island and choose not to go. We did make it back in time for the fireworks in Shell Rock. The past couple of weeks we have had a local contractor wrapping our house windows in aluminum as well as doing some siding repair work. The are now finished and the house looks great with bright white windows and new shutters. The corn market had a very negative reaction to the June 30th acreage report. Not only did the government report 1.5 million acres of additional corn that the trade was estimating, but they also found an additional 350 million bushels of corn that is currently available through reduced demand. This has caused corn prices to drop $1.20 per bushel from thier high in early June. The additional acres may only be a short term deal because the announced an hour after the report was released that they will be resurveying Minnesota, Montana and the Dakotas. The odd thing about this report was an increase in acres for both Dakotas and Ohio. If you have followed the weather this spring, you would realize that it is hard to plant additional acres compared to last year when it has been excessively wet in these states. The acres reported are what they are and we have to deal with them accordingly. The price of corn right off the combine is still close to $5.50 and we have protected a good portion of our crop with put options and should have excellent revenue per acre. Other items that have been happening include the finish of rock (and stick) picking season. The corn finally is to tall. We were able to go over the 20 acres that was put back into production and pick up all the sticks, roots and discarded iron (rake heads, fork heads, bolts, old hand tools and crushed milk cans). The following is a picture of the high schoolers that helped clean this mess up. The picture is just one of the two piles that we picked off that field and is the size of a double car garage. This we as great job to finish and we are extremely grateful for their help. We are currently loading pigs out at Chickasaw Farms and will have new ones arriving the week of July 20th. I placed an order for a new planter for the upcoming season. The new planter will be a 16 row unit (vs. 12 row current). The new planter will have adjustable downpressure which should help ensure even emergence. It will also have automatic swath control where every row can shut off when it is on an area that has already been planted. Acreage reports have all been turned in and it appears that everyone in our area got their crop in the ground in good shape. The final item of note is we are planning our major trip to Yellowstone later this month. We will be driving out the Rapid City and renting an RV for the balance of the trip. I am really looking forward to spending some time with the family and no I have not seen the move "RV". ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

June 24th: This week was spent trying to determine what happen to our Airport farm. When I sidedressed the field, it looked perfect. My crop scout called me today and said that the corn appeared to have a herbicide drift burn. The odd part about it, is there are three fields on this farm (West, Middle and North). Normally you would spray from the West to the Middle and then the North field. The south 120' and some of the west endrows of the West field appear to have it the worst. The Middle field is perfect with no ill affects and the North field has the east 70 feet of rows showing burn signs. The north field has corn accross the road and the West field has beans accross the road. I spoke with the owner of the beans (also a crop insurance customer) and he only used a glyphosate on the beans (which my corn is resistant too) so that crosses out his field having drift. The difference in widths in the two fields coupled with the fact that the middle field looks excellent and the west field does not show the same burn affect around the outside leads me to believe that it is also not the sprayers fault. The affected area is only 6 acres, but the yield potential in that area is probably 100 bu vs 200 bushel on the balance of the field. Roger has been busy mowing waterways and doing some touch up spraying of roundup on areas that the second application of herbicide missed on the corn ground. The corn is really starting to strech with many areas being at chest high. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

June 17: I found this rock when we were out. I did not set this shot up. I can think of many different captions for this photo: 1: I know the seed salesman claimed their corn had strong emergence, but this is crazy 2: Never Give Up! 3: What will the combine look like once this stalk goes through it 4: With corn like this, who needs crop insurance If you can think of some more please email me and I will include them. Not a whole lot happening this week. We are having the windows on our house wrapped in aluminum so we don't have to paint them. The contactor arrived to do this project. We have been getting rain on and off. The crop is really looking excellent. The market has really noticed as well. The stock and use report came out last Friday and showed a much smaller carryout for next year. With that report, the markets rallied $.20 per bushel. But since then it has been nothing but lower. Since the high last Friday, we have taken $.90 off the price of corn. We have protected ourselves with put options so the drop is not as severe, but I have to believe that we are a bit oversold. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

June 12: The past week was spent picking up rocks and the remaining branches on the 20 acres that was brought back into production. Sidedressing has been completed and things are starting to look very good. We did have a chance to get away yesterday and go for a fishing trip. Roger, Trey and I went to Clarion to pickup my brother, Brandon and my nephew, Silas. We caught a total of 7 fish on a lake north of Clarion. Silas caught his first fish before noon. The litle guy finally gave out around noon and we took them back to Clarion and headed to Clear Lake. Needless to say, the fish were not biting. It was still a great trip and made a lot of memories. This past week we loaded out 2 loads of hogs on Tuesday at 5 p.m. The tempature was 95 degrees, but there was a 25 mph wind. We took our time and they were loaded without any incident. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

June 5th: We are very close to completing side dress application of nitrogen. There are many different ways to apply the total amount of nitrogen that is needed for the corn crop. One way to accomplish this is to apply all of the nitrogen in the fall as anhydrous or to apply all of the the nitrogen in the spring before the crop emerges. We choose to apply 2/3 of the needed nitrogen with the pre emerge application of herbicide and then come back with the corn is approximately 6" tall with the remaining 1/3 of the nitrogen. The advantage of this style of application is if there is a wet spring, the nitrogen does not leech away from the corn roots. We apply the nitrogen with the crop is needed. This is the applicator that was used to apply nitrogen. Sidedressed Corn (Notice the line inbetween the corn rows where the nitrogen was applied) This weekend was the Cedar Valley Cup. Both Natalie and Trey played games on Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday. We watched a total of 7 games. Natalie's team had a record of 2-1-1 and finished 3rd in the tournament. Trey's team finished 1-2 and 5th place in the tournament. His team played very well on Saturday evening and won 12-6. They did so well that the team they were going to play on Sunday forfeited. Natalie's Soccer Team (Green Geckos) I really appreciate that Roger helped keep that application of nitrogen going on Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday. He was able to get 450 of the 1,166 acres done while I was able to watch soccer games. We had a couple of fields that are suffering from yellowing. These are corn on corn fields. One of the potential problems is a shortage of sulfer. The corn ground that had manure applied has an adequate amount of sulfer in the manure. One downfall of the reduction in acid rain, is that the rain has less sulfer and therefore less sulfer is being applied to the ground. In order to offset this shortage, we are applying 15 pounds of liquid sulfer in addition to the remaining nitrogen when we are sidedressing. This product is called Ammonia Theo Sulfate (ATS). A big thanks goes out to Andy Scharnhorst at the Fredricksburg Farmers Coop. They were able to supply enough of this product for us to apply as we desired. My normal supplier did not have it on had and was reluctant to bring in a semi load as the product does not keep during the winter. Andy was able to locate another producer that used the remaining portion of the semi in order for us to take delivery. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

May 30th: 18 years ago today, I started out on the great journey of life with a wonderful partner. Leasa and I have been through many things over the years, but she is my solid foundation. She is a perfect complement to me and we have a wonderful relationship. Through 5 different moves, 9 different jobs and the growth of a farming operation, she has always been there beside me. Although I have not gotten her out into the fields to help with field work (she tried it once when we were first starting out and did not like driving the tractor and wagons down the road), she does help with rock picking and is alway supportive of decisions regarding the farm. Yesterday was Natalie's 9th birthday. She is growing up so fast. It seems like just yesterday that I recieved a phone call from Holt telling me that we had a little girl. She has me wrapped around her little finger and I wouldn't have it any other way. This weekend we also had a graduation celebration of my cousin, Jon Kingsley. It was held in Lookout Park in Cedar Falls and had a wonderful day to have a graduation. After the party, Natalie was able to talk us into bringing Rachel and Olivia (my 8 and 5 year old cousins) back to our house to play for a while. Rachel riding my old pedal tractor Not much was happening on the farm this week. The crop is continuing to come along well, but is not quite tall enough to begin sidedressing. We will probably be looking to start next week. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

May 23rd: We have officially completed the planting season. We will now complete with the planting and have cleaned up the planter and taken the duals off the planting tractor. The fertilizer applicator has been delivered and we are waiting to start sidedressing nitrogen to the corn. This week was a treat when Trey's school presented the "Wizard of Oz". Trey was part of the lollipop guild and did a great job. The whole production was amazing. May 16th: (Crop Progress: Lantzky Farms: 100%, Iowa: 84%, 5 Yr Average 92%) We are officially finished with corn planting and have a couple of days of soybean planting to finish the season. Everything went well and the 20 acres that we brought into production has worked up very well. The weather has really cooperated during the past week and allowed us to complete planting. We did decide to "roll" a couple of our corn-on-corn fields. This provides a firm soil profile for the corn plant and pushes smaller rocks back into the ground. This means we don't need as many kids to cover all of the acres and pick up as many rocks. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

May 9th: (Crop Progress: Lantzky Farms:69%, Iowa: 69%, 5 Yr Average: 69%) Last year at this time, we were close to 100% complete on planting and the state of Iowa was at 92%. We made quite a bit of progress this past week. We completed 878 acres of the planned 1215 acres of corn. This would have been a bit higher, but we took Mother's Day off. There are certain things that are more important that planting corn and Mother's Day was one of them. Today I turned 40 years old. I had many people wish me a happy birthday, but the best present was Trey playing a solo at his Jazz Band Concert tonight. I am really proud of him. Regarding the planting progress, the ground was working up so well that we decided to hire a roller that basically packed down the ground and rocks on corn ground. This was done before we planted the corn crop. This also broke up all of the root balls from last year's corn crop. We plan to roll the bean crop after it is planted and push down the rocks. This will save us from having to hire kids to pick up rocks. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

May 2nd: (Crop Progress: Lantzky Farms:7%, Iowa: 8%, 5 Yr Average: 48%) We finally started to plant corn today. We got 100 acres planted today and the forcast is for a couple of days of dry weather before wet weather is forecast. Soccer has been going well for both the kids, but Trey had to set out this week due to pain in his ankles. He has been doing exercises that will hopefully strengthen his ankles. His teammate really missed him during their game on Saturday. Believe it or not we had another week that had some snow that stuck to the vehicle windows and roof. I hope this is the last day of snow. Natalie is also happy to report that "Dora the Cat" at the farm had kittens. We now have 5 kittens that will need to find homes, so if you need a cat please let me know. We also had some field work this week in the form of manure being pumped from our Bassett site. We used a tractor with a toolbar that pumped the manure 1/2 mile thru a 10" hose. This method of application allows us to apply it in the spring and not compact the soil. The following photos are the pump and tractor in action. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

April 25th: (Crop Progress: Lantzky Farms:0%, Iowa: 3%, 5 Yr Average: 28%) Last year at this time, we were close to 70% complete on planting and the state of Iowa was at 61%. Needless to say we are behind normal on planting. I am getting tired of reporting the weather and including snow. On Wednesday of last week, a winter weather advisory was issued. We actually had "thunder snow" and it was snowing so hard that we had 3" of snow in about 2 hours. The storm caught the Chickasaw County road crew by surprise. On my way back home, the roads in Chickasaw County were not plowed. As soon as I got to Bremer County, the roads were plowed and clear. We had a wonderful Easter yesterday. We were up early to serve breakfast at church, but the weather was wonderful compared to the rest of the week. Leasa and I took a long walk yesterday afternoon and just had a good time together. Today we worked at clearing a fencerow and burning the trees that were in the fence. This is normally a job reserved for late March, but the field is to wet to pick up rocks. We are approximately one day from being able to get into the field, but the forecast is for up to an inch of rain in the next 24 hours. I believe that we will not be in the field until after the 1st of May. Today we installed the auto steer in the 7810. This will allow me to keep an eye on the planter to make sure it is working properly and not having to concentrate on keeping the tractor on track. The computer used GPS to keep the tractor on line. We still have to stop at the endrows as we do not have auto swath control that would turn off the individual row units as the planter goes into an area that has already been planted. We are considering purchasing a new planter next year that would have this option. This would cut down on overplanting and blank spaces on point rows and would allow me to plant through the first 4 rows of the endrows and not have to stop each time at the end of the field. This will allow me to plant additional acres each day. The photos for this week are from Natalie's snow soccer game on April 16th. It is really terrible that we have had so many snow storms in April that I have to put the date of the snowstorm. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

April 18th: (Crop Progress: Lantzky Farms:0%, Iowa: 2%, 5 Yr Average: 6%) The past week was productive. We were able to get rock picked up on 300+ acres and 200+ acres of ground worked ahead of the planter. We did decide to wait with planting this past week even though the ground was working up great. The forecast called for a colder tempatures and the possibility of snow. Thankfully we waited. Saturday morning we woke up to 2" of snow in Waverly. Natalie still had a soccer game that was played in the snow and wind. They did win and the snow was gone by the time Trey had his game in the afternoon. This past week also saw us make the decision to trade our 25' soil finisher for a 38' John Deere field cultivator. The soil finisher was starting to have issues with the disc portion of the finisher and the 8650 is able to pull a 38' field cultivator. Since we started fall tillage with the 510 ripper, we are able to do spring tillage work without needing a disc portion to prepare the soil. Because the new field cultivator is 38' wide, we decided to move the light bar that was currently in planter tractor to the 8650 tillage tractor. We then made the switch from a light bar on the planter tractor to auto steering. The forcast continues to call for cold and wet weather in the coming week. We are working to get everything ready to go in the field once the weather turns around. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

April 11th: Today is the first official day that we are able to plant corn and have it covered for replant coverage. Even though the weekend was wonderful with tempatures in the mid 80's, I will probably wait to start planting corn until next Monday. This week will be spent picking rocks, doing tillage work and getting the planter ready to go. This weekend started soccer games for both the kids. The weather was nice and it was nice to be outside watching them play. Sunday we had a road trip to see Grandma Mary and Grandpa Wellman in northern Missouri. The grass was so green down south and it appears that they have not been having excess rains that have plagued them the last three years during the spring. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

March 27th: Do you ever have the feeling that you have taken 2 steps forward and fall 3 steps back? The last time I wrote an update, the weather was starting to warm up and we were thinking about spring being around the corner. The past couple of weeks have been nothing but cold, rainy and cloudy. Tempatures have been in the mid 30's and has not been very helpful in drying and warming up the soil. We are planning on doing some tiling this spring once it dries out and compaction would be limited. Crop insurance sales were completed on March 15th. The grain market dropped close to $.75 per bushel due to the uncertainty of the Japan earthquake disaster. This past week the grain market recovered all of the $.75 per bushel as the market began to look at the fundamentals again and realized that we need to grow a very good crop. I was able to do some catch up work this past week and the following are photos that were taken over the winter of wildlife that was in our backyard right out the back porch. The deer photo was taken when the snow was deep and they were looking for food. The turkeys are a normal visitor to our backyard. The robins were part of close to 70 robins that were back the first part of March.

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March 6th: Spring has finally arrived. Yesterday we had close to 70 robins in our backyard dining on the berries from a large tree that finally were being dropped. I understand that they need to have their feet in the snow three more times before spring is officially here, but we are getting closer. The Waverly boys basketball team made it to state and will be playing this week. We went to the substate game in Cedar Falls and they played the best game of the year and dismantled Clear Lake, 80-47. The farm has seen us putting new pigs in the Bassett site. The little 10 pound pigs are over $60 per head on the open market. The little pigs are cute and will be ready to go to market at 280 pounds in August. I have been busy with crop insurance sales. The spring price has been set at $6.01 for corn and $13.49 for beans. This will provide a good level of guaranteed revenue for producers. They need to choose which level by the 15th of March. We also needed to purchase a different farm truck for Roger. The old vehicle was a 1999 Chevy with 220,000 miles and has just about had it after replacing the brakes, transmission and other major parts. We found a 1996 Dodge with only 71,000 miles. This will provide a dependable truck for the farm. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

February 22th: Happy New Year!!! Yes, I know that it is midway through February, but I have not felt the need to update you on items that have been happening. Not sure if I just feel that nothing exciting happened or just have not been pushing to make an update. The month of January was very cold and snowy. We had multiple blizzards that hit over that month. I will try to put up some photos to show just how much snow blew into Roger and Deb's yard. The month of January saw a crop report that came out with a carry out that has a stock's to use ratio of 5%. This has continued to push corn higher and higher. The amount of corn that we will have just before the start of the now harvest is down to 700 million bushels which is considered a pipeline supply (it takes this long for end users to recieve the corn). We also were able to secure an additional 40 acre parcel that was for sale between our Bassett site and our Alta Vista farm. This coupled with 20 acres of pasture on a Floyd county farm which is being put back into production will push us up to 1,400 acres this coming year. The pigs at our Bassett site are being marketed and will be empty by February 24th. Once this building is empty, we will have a contractor come in and power wash the building and they will be filing the barn up with 2,480 head of 21 day old pigs. The weather finally broke earlier last week and we had the chance to move pigs that started in our 1,400 head barn at Rog and Deb's to the 600 head building. When the pigs first came in mid-December, we put them in the 1,400 head barn to start them. We normally move 600 of the 2000 head to the smaller barn after 6 weeks, but it was closer to 8 weeks due to the cold weather. We also had to heat the smaller barn that was empty during this time, but we did not want to stress the pigs any more than necessary. February was a month of firsts for Trey. This weekend, we attended the UNI-George Mason basketball game. This was a bracket buster game and on ESPN2. UNI lost after leading most of the game. The previous weekend, we took a confirmation trip to Welch Village in Minnesota to go skiing. This was his first time skiing and did a wonderful job. He figured out how to turn, snowplow and stop. He did have to wipeout a couple of times, but he did a great job. This was my second time skiing and I have to admit that it is much easier to ski when you know how to turn and stop. I stayed up the whole day. Like I mentioned earlier, the weather last week was beautiful with tempatures hitting 60 degrees. This helped melt the large snow pack that we had. There is still snow piles around, but spring is coming. Just not yet, we are having a nice snowfall even as we speak. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________