OTT_Fall Farm_082821

Fall Farm

Dairy Diversifies See story page 4

• Future of Farming • License to Kill • Record Yields in Illinois

THE TIMES Saturday, August 28, 2021

A publication of est. 1851

Future of farming

The Times - Delivering Your Community • Saturday, August 28, 2021 |

FALL FARM

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Driverless tractor pulls grain cart, synchs with combine during harvest

By Martha Blum

AGRINEWS PUBLICATIONS

FAIRBURY, Ill. — The OMNiDRIVE system gives combine drivers the ability to operate a driverless tractor pulling a grain cart.

AGRINEWS PHOTO/MARTHA BLUM “This will be the future of farming,” A driverless tractor synchs with a combine to unload grain during an Autonomy Demo Day hosted by Jenner Ag. Using the OMNiDRIVE said Bryan Fehr, location manager system, the combine driver operates the tractor from the cab of combine to unload grain and then returns the tractor to a predeterfor Jenner Precision during an Auton- mined unloading area. omy Demo Day, hosted by Jenner Ag. “Today the system is available for 8R Se“The system is based off coverage sion ag specialist with Raven. “There where in the field — a stage point and ries John Deere tractors and by fall we will have it for Case Magnum tractors.” and boundaries,” said Eric Post, preci- are two points you can place any- an unload point.”

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is controlling two machines at the same time.

“We recommend he runs as much autosteer as he can so he can focus on what’s going on with the grain cart and not focused on steering the combine,” he said.

Bruns, who grew up on a small farm in southeastern Minnesota, has been working to develop autonomous machines since 2018.

“I still get goose bumps three years later when I see the tractor synch with the combine,” Bruns said.

“Currently we have over 80 systems committed for this year,” he said.

“Farmers who are interested in a system should get in touch with a dealer as soon as possible.”

Raven is working to develop the OMNiDRIVE system for more tractors.

“In the future we will see additional operations like tillage,” Bruns said.

“But there is a lot of development to do to get to that stage.”

In college, one of Bruns’ agronomy teachers told him that the face of agriculture had changed more in five years than the 20 years that preceded it.

“That was in the late ‘90s and now I think it is changing more in two years than the 20 that preceded it,” he said. “Technology is speeding up the change in agriculture.”

For more information about precision tools, go to www.jennerag.com/ precision.

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AGRINEWS PHOTO/MARTHA BLUM

Eric Post, precision ag specialist with Raven, speaks during Autonomy Demo Day.

Martha Blum can be reached at 815223-2558, ext. 117, or mblum@shawmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at: @AgNews_Blum.

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| The Times - Delivering Your Community • Saturday, August 28, 2021

the roof of the tractor that will display three colors — orange, red or green.

“Green means the system is in bypass and it also means it is safe to approach,” Post said. “Orange indicates it is in autonomous and red is for emergency stop.”

The e-stop is a hand held device that has a big red button.

“When you press that button the tractor will stop and it can’t be controlled by the person in the combine,” Post said. “There is always an e-stop mounted in the combine and you can have as many hand held e-stops as you want.”

Learning to operate the OMNiDRIVE is relatively simple, said Paul Bruns, sales specialist for Raven.

“We are spending from one hour to half a day for training,” he said. “For one guy in Texas, I spent a half hour with him on a simulator and a trainer rode with him for 10 acres and he was running the system on his own.”

Using an autonomous system, Bruns said, helps farming operations reallocate personal.

“It’s how we take someone from a job that has a $20 per hour value and reallocate them to a $100 per hour value that is a more important job like starting tillage or seeding cover crops,” he said. “Or, having another truck driver to eliminate a potential bottleneck in the operation.”

However, Bruns said, there is additional concentration required for the operator of the combine since he

FALL FARM

These points must be within the field boundary and the field coverage which is wherever the combine has harvested.

“The unload point will be where the trucks are going to be, and once the grain cart is full, you can hit the unload button and the tractor will go to the designated area,” Post said.

The combine operator uses a computer tablet to operate the system.

“If there’s a muddy area you don’t want the grain cart to go through, you can set up an inter-boundary,” Fehr said. “Draw a circle around the wet spot and the tractor will not drive through it.”

Components on the tractor include five cameras — a forward-facing camera and four hazard cameras.

“The purpose of the hazard cameras is if anyone is around the tractor and the combine operator tries to control it, they will not allow the system to run,” Post said. “There is also a radar sensor mounted on the front of the tractor to pick up any object that has mass.”

With the synch process, the tractor comes to the combine so the combine can dump into the grain cart.

“As the tractor approaches the combine, the tractor will match the speed of the combine,” Post said. “Once they are in synchronization, there are arrows on the user interface and you can move the tractor three feet forward or backward or one foot left or right.”

There is safety beacon mounted on

The Times - Delivering Your Community • Saturday, August 28, 2021 |

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Dairy diversifies Operation sells milk bottled at farmstead

By Martha Blum

AGRINEWS PUBLICATIONS

FAIRBURY, Ill. — Dairy products made at the Kilgus Farmstead are available for purchase in over 150 locations.

Diversification of the farming operation occurred in 2009 when the family started bottling the milk from the Jersey herd.

“We had more family members coming back into the operation,” explained Matt Kilgus during the Forage Expo held at the farm and sponsored by the Illinois Forage and Grassland Council.

“We thought it was a good niche market because nobody else in Illinois at that time was doing a farmstead bottled milk,” Matt said. “We are doing a non-homogenized milk to differen-

tiate ourselves from other brands on the shelf.”

The first milk was bottled in June 2009.

“We launched the brand and we had about 20 local stores and restaurants interested in our product, so we cut our herd back to 70 cows,” the dairyman said.

About six months later a distributor from Chicago that sold a lot of local products heard about the farm’s product.

“They were interested in carrying our milk, which helped us get into some Chicago markets, and now about half of our business is going up there,” Matt said.

Products made from the Jersey milk include whole, 2%, skim and chocolate milk, heavy cream, half-and-half, and eggnog seasonally, as well as an ice cream mix.

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The compost barn was built on the Kilgus Farmstead several years ago to replace a freestall barn. Paul Kilgus says the compost barn is very compatible to the rotational grazing system, plus the cows stay clean.

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Matt Kilgus explains the milk bottling process during a tour of the Kilgus Farmstead which hosted the Forage Expo. milking with a cultivator,” Paul said.

“We need to till at least 10 inches deep to get aeration.”

Sawdust is added to the barn twice a week, on Tuesday and Friday.

“We add 2 inches of sawdust and it’s like adding fuel to the fire,” Paul explained. “If we till and the compost is not steaming, then it’s time to add more sawdust and the deeper it gets the better it composts.”

Compost is applied to crop fields right after silage chopping is completed.

“We haul out two-thirds and leave one-third of the compost in the barn,” Paul said. “We like about one foot of cover to keep the compost going.”

With the compost barn, Paul said,

the cows stay clean and the mastitis is low.

“The cows run around 60-pound milk average per cow and the Jerseys are very good grazers,” he added.

The rotational grazing system includes 60 acres.

“Our paddocks are 2 3/4 to 3 acres and we move the cows every day,” Paul said.

“We’ve got cows 15 years old and we’re building cow families to sell genetics,” he said. “We sell a fair amount of breeding stock.”

Martha Blum can be reached at 815223-2558, ext. 117, or mblum@shawmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at: @AgNews_Blum.

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| The Times - Delivering Your Community • Saturday, August 28, 2021

grazing their Jersey herd a few years before they started bottling their milk.

“We like rotational grazing for the herd health and when we started bottling it was an excellent marketing tool,” said Paul Kilgus.

The 140-head of registered Jersey cows are fed non-GMO feed.

“That is also one of our marketing tools, so our ration is corn silage, alfalfa baleage, dry hay and earlage,” Paul said. “We feed linseed meal as our protein base because if we feed soybean meal you can pick up the flavors in the milk.”

Several years ago the family built a compost barn for the Jersey herd that replaced a freestall barn.

“When we started rotational grazing, our biggest struggle was the cows would not transition back to the stalls after being on pasture all summer,” Paul explained.

“I would never go back to a freestall barn because the compost barn is very compatible with pasture,” Paul said.

“We get a lot of tours and many of the people have hardly been on a farm, so this barn is a lot more public friendly.”

The cows are milked twice a day.

“During the summer the cows graze 12 hours a day, so after milking in the afternoon they go out and graze until the next morning,” Paul said. “They stay under the fans in the barn during the day.”

For the winter months, the cows stay in the compost barn all day.

“We till the compost after every

FALL FARM

“We went from selling about 700 gallons of milk per week to 6,000 to 6,500 gallons now,” Matt said.

Milk is processed on the farm on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

“We have three to four people working in the plant and we do about 1,500 gallons of milk on Wednesday and Friday and about 2,300 gallons on Monday,” the dairyman said. “Our pasteurizer can do about 600 gallons per hour.”

Visitors to the Kilgus Farmstead Country Store can watch the bottling process through a large window.

“We also opened the store in 2009 and the store traffic grows a little bit each year,” Matt said.

Along with the dairy products, customers at the store also can purchase beef from the Jersey steers, Berkshire pork or Boar goat meat. Additional local products are also available in the store, including cheese, cow’s milk soap, honey, coffee and eggs.

Since the milk is non-homogenized, it has a cream line.

“People who are not educated about this might think it’s bad,” the dairyman said. “But people shopping in health food markets know more specifically what they’re shopping for, so that wasn’t as big of a hurdle.”

Another market that was unfamiliar to the dairymen is the coffee shops.

“We had no idea that market existed, but now over half of our production goes to coffee shops,” Matt said.

The dairymen began rotationally

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The Times - Delivering Your Community • Saturday, August 28, 2021 |

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Black vulture depredation permits OK’d

By Ashley Estes

AGRINEWS PUBLICATIONS

INDIANAPOLIS — After years of working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Indiana Farm Bureau announced its members may now obtain permits that allow legal “takes” of black vultures that are attacking livestock.

Greg Slipher, INFB livestock specialist, said INFB has obtained a statewide depredation permit for black vultures from USFWS. Black vultures, as migratory birds, are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, state laws and regulations.

Therefore, they can’t be killed or destroyed without a migratory bird depredation permit.

INFB has the authority to issue up to 100 total sub-permits per year as a benefit to Farm Bureau members who are experiencing problems with black vultures. The permits cover commercial livestock, which includes cattle, horses, sheep, goats and swine.

The sub-permits will be offered at no-cost to individuals who are INFB

members. Farm Bureaus in Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee have similar programs, Slipher said.

INFB started trying to obtain the permit when a number of farmers in smaller towns asked for help because the cost to obtain the permit put a financial burden on them, he said.

The sub-permits, which are for black vultures only — not turkey vultures or other birds — are good for up to 12 months.

Permits will be issued based on specific criteria.

Approved applicants will be allowed a maximum of five birds, but the exact number will be determined by the application score. Applicants must agree to follow all rules and regulations required by USFWS in the INFB statewide permit.

For more information, visit www.infb. org/blackvultures.

Ashley Estes can be reached at 800426-9438, ext. 192, or aestes@shawmedia.com.

Follow her on Twitter at: @AgNews_Estes.

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By Tom C. Doran

AGRINEWS PUBLICATIONS

WASHINGTON — The first survey-based crop production data of the current growing season projects record corn, soybean and wheat yield averages in Illinois and Indiana, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Crop production data from this report is based primarily on farmer surveys and satellite imagery. Field samples from USDA’s objective survey plots will not be available until the September report.

‘I’ CORN Based on Aug. 1 conditions, the Illinois corn yield is forecast at a record 214 bushels per acre, 22 bushels higher than 2020. The Prairie State’s previous record of 210 was set in 2018. The harvested area is estimated at 11 million acres, 1% lower than 2020. Production is forecast at a record 2.35 billion bushels, up 10% from last year’s production.

Indiana’s average corn yield is forecast at 194 bushels per acre, up 7 bushels from the previous year. If realized, this will top the highest corn yield on record by 5 bushels set in 2018. Total production is forecast at 1.02 billion bushels from 5.25 million acres, unchanged from 2020.

Iowa corn is projected to average 193 bushels per acre, up 15 bushels from last year, according to Aug. 1 conditions.

Harvested area is estimated at 12.65 million acres, down from 12.9 million in 2020. Statewide production is projected at over 2.441 billion bushels compared to 2.296 billion a year ago.

‘I’ SOYBEANS The harvested area in Illinois is forecast at 10.65 million acres, up 4% from 2020. The Illinois soybean yield is forecast at a record 64 bushels per acre, up 5 bushels from 2020 and onehalf bushel above the previous record set in 2018. Production is forecast at a record 682 million bushels, up 13% from 2020.

Indiana’s soybean yield is forecast at 60 bushels per acre, up 2 bushels from the record high in 2020. If realized, this will set a new state record by 2 bushels per acre. Total production is forecast at 341.4 million bushels, up 4% from last year, on harvested area of 5.69 million acres.

USDA forecasts Iowa’s soybean production of nearly 570 million bushels. The yield is forecast at 58

bushels per acre, 5 bushels higher than 2020. Soybean harvested acreage is estimated at 9.82 million acres.

‘I’ WHEAT Harvested Illinois winter wh-eat area in 2021 is forecast at 650,000 acres, up 25% from the previous year.

The winter wheat yield is forecast at a record 80 bushels per acre, up 12 bushels from 2020. Production is forecast at 52 million bushels, 47% higher from last year.

Winter wheat yield in Indiana is estimated at 82 bushels per acre, up 1 bushel from the previous forecast and 12 bushels above last year. If realized, this will also be a state record yield.

Winter wheat production is forecast at 24.6 million bushels from 300,000 harvested acres.

NATIONWIDE The 2021 corn planted area for all purposes is estimated at 92.7 million acres, unchanged from the June estimate, but up 2% from 2020. Area harvested for grain is forecast at 84.5 million acres, unchanged from the previous forecast and up 2% from last year.

At 14.8 billion bushels, 2021 corn production for grain is forecast to be the second highest production on record for the U.S. The forecasted yield, at 174.6 bushels per acre, is up 2% from last year’s final estimate of 172 bushels per acre.

If realized, this would be the third highest corn yield on record for the U.S. Record high yields are also forecast in California, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.

U.S. soybean production is forecast at 4.34 billion bushels, up 5% from last year. Based on conditions as of Aug. 1, yields are expected to average 50 bushels per acre, down 0.2 bushel from last year. Area harvested for soybeans in the U.S. is forecast at 86.7 million acres, unchanged from the previous forecast, but up 5% from 2020.

If realized, the soybean yield forecast also will be record high in Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.

U.S. winter wheat production is forecast at 1.32 billion bushels, down 3% from the previous forecast, but 13% higher than 2020. The U.S. yield is forecast at 51.8 bushels per acre, down 1.8 bushels from last month, but up 0.9 bushels from last year’s average yield of 50.9 bushels per acre. If realized, this will be the third highest U.S. yield on record.

Area expected to be harvested for wheat grain or seed totals 25.4 million acres, unchanged from last month,

but up 11% from last year. Record high yields are also forecast in Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas for 2021.

Tom C. Doran can be reached at 815-780-7894 or tdoran@shawmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at: @ AgNews_Doran.

| The Times - Delivering Your Community • Saturday, August 28, 2021

USDA forecasts historic bushels

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Record yields in Illinois

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