Every year is different on the farm! When I left for work last Thursday, my father-in-law was pulling into the barnyard with the silage cutter. Time to get it ready. We are thinking that sometime next week we'll be in the field harvesting some of our Legend Seeds corn for silage. I always say, silage cutting is the first sign of fall on the farm. After that, it's just a downhill slide to harvest. I love silage cutting, because the trucks are rolling in and out of the barnyard all day long. It's very exciting. I usually make two or three pounds of beef burgers or serve at least a half-dozen cold meat sandwiches during silage harvest.

Timing for silage can vary depending on the amounts of rain and temperatures experienced during a growing season. We had a very dry June and July in eastern South Dakota, which has pushed the crops earlier than usual.

The "normal" timing for harvesting corn silage depends on two key factors:

• When the overall plant moisture has reached the optimum of 65-70 percent moisture.
• When the kernels have reached the half milk line.

For some more in-depth information on determining silage timing, please read our article "When is it time to harvest silage?". Our agronomists rounded up several links from regional Extension Services that cover a variety of topics about silage. Click here to read: http://bit.ly/SilageTiming.

Here's what our agronomist and research team are seeing out in the field this week in Legend land:

Dan Matzek is our Dairy and Livestock Business lead from Wisconsin. He specializes in helping our farmers raise and store high quality forages, from alfalfa to silage. In the Baldwin, Wisconsin Knowledge Plot, some of the silage hybrids tasseled (VT) on July 14, 2016. This means that the predicted silage harvest date for 2016 will be sometime between August 24 and August 31. This is two full weeks earlier than 2015 silage harvest at that plot location, with the same relative planting dates. This just goes to show the wide range of dates that silage can be ready in, given the conditions experienced for the year.

Laura Swointek is our LEAP Research Assistant from Minnesota. She was in late last week at one of our LEAP plot locations in Centerville, South Dakota. They were checking to see if the silage varieties were ready or not. The overall plant moisture on August 24 was at the 70 percent milk line, so the plant had not yet reached the optimal harvest timing. They will check again early this week.

If you're unsure about how to determine if your Legend Seeds silage hybrids are ready for harvest, feel free to contact your Legend representative. They will be happy to meet with you and walk the fields to help determine the best time to harvest your corn.

We're curious. What are you seeing in your fields? Will silage harvest come early on your farm this year, too?