I regret to inform you...

That A2R Farms has been sold. There is still much to work out, and we don't know what the nature of the new farm or our relationship to it will be. This is the reason for my lack of blog posts over the last few months. I would like to continue this blog in some way moving forward, perhaps as an outlet of information for our company Willamette Seed & Grain. I will provide an update once we know more about the new situation. Thank you all for your readership and support over the past year or two.

-Clint Lindsey

Garbanzo Beans combined

Last week we threshed our crop of garbanzo beans from last year. I know, a long time from harvest to threshing, but this is a totally new thing for us. We used Harry MacCormack's JD 40 combine. Thanks Harry! We ended up with about 2-300 pounds of beans. There are still some stems in the beans. Hopefully we can clean those out with a gravity table. We just tossed huge bundles of the stalks into the header on the combine. The whole process took less than half an hour. Not the most efficient way to harvest garbanzo beans. Hopefully in the future we can combine them directly in the field.

A2R is unable to participate in the Bounty of Benton County Tour

Due to circumstances beyond our control, A2R Farms is regrettably unable to participate in the Bounty of Benton County tour. We apologize for this as we know we are already on the passports. We hope to participate in the tour next year. Thank you!

Final stretch of harvest.

The next week or so should see us finishing up the harvest for this year. Due to the late, wet spring, the flax and oats are taking longer to dry down. We tried combining the flax yesterday, but the moisture was up around 17 percent. Not good for combining. The oats are also largely green. Instead of combining them standing we are windrowing them so they can dry down faster. The oats are probably our best crop this year. They seem to tolerate the wetter springs fairly well. The weeds have not been a big problem in the oats this year either. Not so with the flax. Our biggest flax field has large sections that are chock full of Queen Anne's Lace. The wheat was largely devastated by stripe rust and other fungal diseases. We have a small amount fit for human consumption, but most of our wheat will have to go for animal feed. One of the biggest things we can do to ensure a better yield is regular applications of lime. This is a prime example of what short-term compromise for cash flow costs in the long run.

Untimely Rain...

We have been getting a huge amount of rain for this time of year. We have fields that have been cut that are getting soaked now. I spent the whole morning turning over piles of grass and rows to help dry the grass out, only to have it start raining again as soon as I finished. If this keeps up the grass will start to rot in the field. Bad news...

Harvest is ongoing...

Hello everyone, sorry I have not made any posts for quite some time. We are in the thick of the grass-seed harvest right now. There are several subjects I would like to talk about at length, but now I can't give it the time it deserves. As soon as we get a break I will post my thoughts on several topics that are heavily influencing the way we farm right now. Thanks for reading!

Spring planting complete

We have finished our spring planting. We managed to squeeze in planting in between rainy spells, and now have all the oats, flax, and wheat planted for the year. We ended up planting roughly the same acreage of oats as last year. We increased our flax acreage slightly from last year. We have less red wheat than last year due to the requirements of our crop rotation. We have decided to let several fields lay fallow for the summer so we can let the ground rest and get rid of a rather large weed problem in a few pieces. This season is shaping up to be much like last year, which was a long wet spring that prevented us from planting as early as we would have liked. The longer we have to wait to plant, the lower our yields will be. We may need to look for shorter-season varieties to ensure that we get maximum yields despite the poor spring weather. It's a work-in-progress.