Jennens finish planting first of corn, nearly 500 acres remain
Published Thursday, May 3, 2007
Each year, as a rule of thumb, Dan Jennen targets April 17 for the start of spring planting. That’s the date when his son, Philip, was born, in 1977. This year, however, their spring planting didn’t get underway until May 1.
“We’ve had later-than-usual spring plantings before, of course, and despite being late we’re in pretty good shape for this year,” Dan Jennen said.
The two Jennens completed the first 80 acres of corn planting late Tuesday afternoon. In all, they will plant 550 acres of corn this year followed by planting of soybeans west of Fergus Falls near County Highway 116.
“You can tell that the ground still is cold, even though the topsoil is blowing around today in this strong wind,” Dan said. “It will take us about five days to complete the spring corn planting. Just when we’ll wrap things up depends on the weather, and potential rainfall, over the next few days.”
Dan and Philip Jennen used their John Deere 1790 Central Commodity System (CCS) Seed Delivery planter and computerized John Deere tractor.
Photo by Tom Hintgen
Pouring in more bags of corn seed are Philip Jennen, left, and his father Dan Jennen.
“Amazing farm equipment these days,” Dan said. “This tractor literally can run by itself; I don’t even need to use the steering wheel until I make a turn.”
Corn seeds for the Jennens on Tuesday averaged 32,000 per acre.
The John Deere CCS Seed Delivery unit, first used in 2003, allows for a 12-row 1790 to carry up to 70 bushels of seed and a 16-row model uses 100 bushels. This new planting system ends the time loss of stopping to refill hopper after hopper on big planters.
When John Deere introduced the 1790 three years ago it marked the biggest change in planters since the introduction of the Max Emerge line in the mid-1970s.
Record-high corn acreage is expected this year in Minnesota and North Dakota. As with some other states, that’s due to favorable prices fueled by increased demand from ethanol producers as well as strong export sales.
Iowa is expected to be the largest corn acreage state with 13.9 million acres, up 1.3 million acres — or 10.3 percent — from 2006.
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