Corn, soybean planting completed for DeKalb County farm

WATERMAN, Ill. — Corn and soybean planting is complete on Wessels’ Family Farm in DeKalb County in northern Illinois, even though planting started a little later than originally planned.

“We like to start planting about April 14, but with it being so cold and wet, we did not have that opportunity, so we started on April 25,” said Brandon Wessels, who is married to Kayla and they are the parents of Rowan and Logan. “We finished our last beans on May 8.”

Brandon farms together with his parents, Rob and Teri Wessels.

“We farm about 1,200 acres and we split everything 50-50,” the fifth-generation farmer said.

In 2013, Brandon graduated from Western Illinois University with a bachelor’s degree in recreation, park and tourism administration.

“During my last year of college, our neighbor was retiring from farming and he asked dad if I had any interest in farming,” he said.

“He offered to help me get my foot in the door, so I finished my last year of college and decided to give it a shot,” Brandon recalled. “I had grown up on the farm and had done the work, but I felt like I was drinking out of a fire hose the first five to seven years. I am still learning every day.”

“We are primarily corn and soybeans and this year we did 40 acres of wheat,” he said.

Wheat was added to the operation to build up organic matter.

“Once we get the wheat off, we’re going to leave the straw out there and put a cover crop in,” Brandon said.

“For several years we had one 160-acre farm we called our research farm,” Rob said. “We did variety, planting date and population trials and gathered tons of information.”

There were times when the Wessels were planting in March and it wasn’t fit to plant, but it was for the sake of the trials.

“It is through these trials that we have convinced ourselves that it pays to plant beans before corn,” Rob said. “When harvest time came, it was amazing what the beans could tolerate.”

Although these trials took time, he said, they learned a lot.

“Every pass we make across the field should be a trial, because we can use the yield monitor and we are always trying to find the right answers,” he said.

The first beans planted were Asgrow seed beans.

“We believe that beans can take colder weather better than corn, especially with the seed treatments now,” Rob said. “We started with beans and then we got rained out.”

During the rain delay, the farmers switched the planter to corn.

“The calendar said it was time to get the corn in,” Rob said. “So, we planted beans first, then we planted the corn and finished up with beans.”

Additional crops grown on the farm include 10 acres of sweet corn and from 10 to 15 acres of fall crops that include 54 varieties of pumpkins, squash and gourds, which are marketed at a farm stand in DeKalb.

The first two plantings of sweet corn have emerged.

“We plant sweet corn roughly 17 times,” Rob said.

“Early on, we wait until we can row the corn and then we do the next planting,” he said. “After it warms up and there are a lot of 80-degree days, we will plant sweet corn every three days.”

The Wessels plant all Pioneer hybrids and varieties. They typically plant 110- to 114-day corn and 2.8 to 3.1 soybeans.

“We stick with a 50-50 rotation of corn and soybeans to reset the disease cycle as best as we can,” Brandon said.

“In a standard year, we put our anhydrous down before we do any planting, plant the soybeans and by the time we are done with soybeans, we can plant the corn,” he explained.

“This year we are tweaking that because with it being so wet and cold we did not have the opportunity to put the anhydrous down first, so we are going to sidedress it,” he said. “And then we will come in with Y drops at V10 to VT to give the corn its last shot of nitrogen.”

The farmers do the spraying of their fields.

“Some of the fields we will variable rate and some we will do a flat rate,” Brandon said. “That way we can give the nitrogen to the crop when it needs it.”

In addition to his work on the farm, he also enjoys providing content to his YouTube channel, FarmerBrando, that he started two years ago.

“Initially I started live streaming from the combine and I have progressed from there to put out videos,” he said.

Brandon’s channel includes educational videos that show what it looks like on the farm, as well as entertaining ones.

“I post anytime something presents itself and there is always something to show,” he said. “Yesterday I put a video out of dad hand-cranking our WD Allis Chalmers tractor.”