Trip to Kansas City
I just got back from spending about three days in Kansas City. During my time there, I was able to get in about 6 hours of driving a John Deere 9660 combine. It took until about noon for the soybeans to dry up enough to be able to harvest them.
I know when I was growing up that I thought of Kansas being perfectly flat. However, the area around the Missouri river in the Kansas City area has many hills and the farm that I was harvesting on Monday was one of these hilly areas. We kept the combine in first gear most of the afternoon and there were a couple of times where we had to kick in the rear wheel assist to get the combine up the hill.
The beans looked very good for this field. In normal years, the yield would probably be 30 bushels or less, but this year, the yield looked closer to 40 – 45 bushels per the yield monitor.
I also spent some time at the local cafe for breakfast and most of the farmers were looking forward to good yields for corn and beans this year, however, most of them joked that they would be combining corn after Christmas. The weather report called for sunshine on Monday and Tuesday and of course, we woke up to a thunderstorm on Tuesday and no combining.
I think the current weather rally in beans, corn and wheat is a very good time to lock in some good prices for this year and next year’s crop.
All in all, it was great to get to drive the combine, but also nice to get home.
Paul Neiffer is a certified public accountant and business advisor specializing in income taxation, accounting services, and succession planning for farmers and agribusiness processors. Paul is a principal with CliftonLarsonAllen in Walla Walla, Washington, as well as a regular speaker at national conferences and contributor at agweb.com. Raised on a farm in central Washington, he has been immersed in the ag industry his entire life, including the last 30 years professionally. Paul and his wife purchase an 180 acre ranch in 2016 and enjoy keeping it full of animals.
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