Progressive Farmer Magazine Article

  Last summer, we were fortunate to have Senior Editor Dan Miller from The Progressive Farmer Magazine come all the way up from Alabama to stop by our bin site for a visit. Dan was in charge of covering a story about new agricultural shops recently built here in the Heartland, and we were lucky enough to be chosen as one of his feature articles. We gave him a tour of our facilities and spoke about how our operation is progressing forward into the future, focusing primarily on the new shop we had built the previous summer.

  A few weeks later, photographer Bob Elbert stopped by to take some pictures for the article, and we spent a fun evening setting up different shots, covering various aspects of the shop and some of the equipment we had out. Bob has spent many years photographing a wide array of projects for Iowa State University.

The entire process was really great and both Dan and Bob were wonderful people to get to know. We were also really excited to find out that we landed the magazine's cover image as well for the October, 2014 Edition. To check out more photos or read the full article, click here.

Spring Planting Gallery

Click here to view some images from our spring planting season.

2014 Summer Update

  With our 2014 spring planting season completed, our focus is now turning toward post-crop spraying and additional nitrogen application. The recent warm weather we've had lately has really ignited the corn. Though the conditions are still fairly dry, the forecast is looking like we could potentially be in for a wet couple of weeks ahead.

   In other news, we entered into a "New Farm Shop Contest" in the Progressive Farmer magazine, where they award winners in various categories for new farm shops, focusing on efficient floor plan design, overall appearance, and work-flow effectiveness. We were fortunate enough to be picked as the winner of our category, and sometime in late June one of the magazine's editors will be visiting our farm for some photos and interviews. The related article will be featured in the October 2014 edition of Progressive Farmer magazine, so we'll be sure to update you later this fall to remind everyone to check it out.

2014 Spring Planting Updates

  Once again we find ourselves waiting out the rain in hopes of finishing our planting for 2014. Fortunately, we were able to get all of our corn planted by Wednesday the 7th, which allowed us to then focus primarily on finishing up soybeans. As for the early corn that we planted, we've had good emergence so far, and this past week has shown a lot of progress as far as making the rows standout.

  Aside from washing equipment and fixing minor repairs on the planters, it's been fairly quiet around the farm. It sounds like there are a few minor chances for rain over the next week, but hopefully we'll get enough drying time to get back in the field to finish planting the rest of the beans.

2014 Spring Planting Updates

  I just wanted to give everyone a little update on how our 2014 planting season is going so far. We got off to a good start the weekend of the 19th and 20th. Minus a few mechanical hiccups -- to be expected coming out of such a long winter -- everything has gone quite smoothly so far, and we had nearly a full week of good running before we were delayed by bad weather.

  We've added a few new additions to our operation this spring. Most noticeably is our new sprayer, which now covers a much wider swathe with 120 ft. booms versus the 90 ft. booms we used to use. With the added coverage, Chad is now easily able to stay ahead of the planters, even with the guys spending long hours in the tractor cabs.

  Another key feature we're trying out this year -- which I'm sure most of you have been hearing a lot about lately -- is our new farm drone. Some of you probably saw the video we presented at our annual Rube's event, but for those of you who didn't or weren't able to attend, I've added a video and a couple pictures to the Farm Pics section of this website to give everyone a better idea of how it operates and what it's capable of. As of right now, we're planning on using it mostly for crop scouting and aerial footage, but if you have any further questions about it or it's future applications, please feel free to send me an email and I'd be glad to share more with you on this particular subject.

  As for our current planting situation, this rain has definitely given us all quite a delay, and it's beginning to feel a bit too much like last spring. As I'm sure is the consensus feeling among everyone right now, we're wondering when this cold spell is going to be pushed out and finally get replaced by the warmer weather we're all desiring. The forecast does seem to brighten up next week, so for now have a look at our new drone video and check back in with us within the next week or so for some more planting updates. Hope everyone is doing well.

Harvest Wrap-up

   With harvest over, we're now organizing all of our harvest data, including landowner yield maps. We should have the 2013 yield maps uploaded to the website sometime within the next couple of weeks. If any landowner needs their yield map sooner than that, send me an email at curtismichalek@yahoo.com or call at 641-891-6072 and I can get it to you now. Thanks for your patience.

Harvest is over!

   Our 2013 harvest has officially come to an end. The combines finished up the last of our fields late in the afternoon on Thursday, October the 31st. Our goal at the beginning of harvest was to be finished combining by November 1st and we were able to achieve that goal with a mere seven hours to spare. From start to finish we ran for 49 days, and it's quite a testament to all of our full time and part time employees that we were able to do so with minimal breakdowns and very little downtime.

   We'll now be turning our focus solely onto finishing up the rest of our field work; fixing washouts, repairing waterways, dozer work, anhydrous application, as well as preparing equipment for winterizing. A special thanks to everyone who helped out this fall and put in many long hours in the field. Without the collective efforts of everyone involved, our harvest would surely be far from over. Before we know it, we'll be pulling the planters out and getting them ready for spring. From all of us at Cummings Farms, we hope everyone is doing well, and with the Thanksgiving holidays only a few short weeks away, we're wishing everyone an early happy holidays.

A few updates to take note of

   More picture galleries have been uploaded to the website from this past summer (Summer Pics 2013 and Aerial Helicoper Pics 2013). Our big project of the summer was the addition of a brand new, state of the art shop facility. We're still in the process of moving over from the old shop and getting everything organized, but its otherwise up and running. It probably won't be until late this fall or early winter before everything is completed, but we're all very excited with the new addition.

   We started the combines last Thursday on the 12th at the home field outside of Malcom. Things were a little slow at first as we worked out a few bugs, but for the most part things have gone fairly smoothly. One of the biggest issues the combine operators are having so far is the difference in moisture throughout the fields. As you can see from the aerial helicopter pictures we've added to the Farm Pics Page -- taken two weeks ago on Sep. 5th -- parts of the fields are ready to be picked, while other sections are still fairly green and much higher in moisture. The heavy rains from the spring have also caused quite a few washouts and are making things go much slower than normal.

   Things are sort of touch and go right now with the weather, so we'll keep you up to date when we get back out going full speed.