Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Happy National Ag Day! #DayinIAag

Today is National Ag Day, so I thought what better to do, then share what we are doing today on the farm:

Joe from Brokaw Precision checking seed meters
We have been busy getting ready for spring planting.  Today is a busy day in the shop, as we are hosting a Planter Clinic.  This is where local farmers come in and get their planter meters checked.  We offer this service to our seed business customers.

Seed meters are part of our precision planting system that controls the seeding rate and population of individual rows on our planter.  Each row has its own meter.  This systems allows us to stop seeding where we don't want to plant, all on the go.  Our seed meters are checked for their efficiency by checking how many skips or double plants the meter has through a test on the meter machine.  Making sure our meters are working properly is one way for us to make sure that our planter is putting seed into the ground accurately, and in the end, increasing our yields.

Doesn't that giant picture of pork ribs
I'm standing in front of look good!
Now, while the guys are busy in the shop, I am actually busy in Des Moines for a social media training at the National Pork Board.  This is a great opportunity to meet other pork farmers from across the country and to discuss #realpigfarming.

Speaking of pigs, our barns are getting ready to go to market.  Soon My Farmer will be turning on the auto-sort feature of our barns to start sorting hogs that are in the ideal weight range into a select pen.  This element not only helps reduce labor, but also reduces stress on both My Farmer and Father-in-Law, and on the pigs.

So there is a little look into our day in Iowa agriculture.  What would you like to know more about?  Remember to Comment for a Cause!

4 comments:

  1. I love learning more about farming and that automatic sorting for the pigs sounds very cool!

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    1. We enjoy the auto-sort feature a lot. When they leave the "food court" in the barn they go through a scale. We put a range of measurements in the scale, so all the pigs in that range get sorted into one pen, and then the others that don't fall in the range, get sorted into another. And then every time they go back into the food court they get sorted back out into those pens again.

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  2. That is so awesome----the sorting must make it much easier for everybody---even the piggies!

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    1. The auto-sort really does help reduce stress on everyone, us and the pigs.

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