We were able to do a little farming and bull dozing on Monday and Tuesday before heavy rainfall Tuesday night and scattered showers for the remainder of the week. Chad decided to plant a few beans Tuesday afternoon and ended up planting 275 acres by 8PM. We will have to see how his decision plays out as we have had 3.5 inches of rainfall and some cool temperatures since he planted. We were also able to spray several fields to terminate rye cover crop, and they are starting to yellow. We were at a track meet in Quincy on Friday which ended up getting rained out part way thru, but not before Jocelyn beat her triple jump record all four jumps and set a new record. Next week the forecast call for a good chance of rain starting on Wednesday for a full 7 days so I don't believe we will get much farming done, other than some spraying maybe. We also have three track meets if they don't get rained out and I have a couple of meeting for the county as well.
Pictures this week are of Chad planting with the 24-row high speed planter, filling the planter and a picture of part of our biggest but not best surprise of the week. It seems copper is bringing $5.00 a pound at area scrap yards, and someone or a group of people decided they needed to remove all the copper wire at our main bin site. They broke electric boxes, cut conduit with a saws-all and stripped out thousands of feet of copper wire of various sizes, leaving us a mess. We had the police come down and do a report for our insurance. So far, we have one bid to repair and replace as needed at just under $40,000! I would estimate the thieves received $1-2 thousand for all their work. By the time we get the OK from our insurance company and get thing rewired, it will be 2-3 weeks, and we still have grain in five out of the six bins at the site! We have a camera at the bin site but they killed the lights first and stayed out of view so we didn't get any good pictures of the thieves, the police believe they know who did this but the way our legal system is now I doubt they can do much about it.
I hope all is well and you have a productive week ahead,
📌 全体概要（EXECUTIVE SUMMARY）
• 米国オーガニック市場は 2025 年に 766 億ドルへ到達（前年比 +6.8%）
→ 「The U.S. organic sector experienced another pivotal growth year in 2025 reaching a new high of $76.6 billion… reflecting a 6.8% increase year-over-year」
• 成長率は総市場（+3.4%）の約2倍
• 牽引役は ミレニアル世代・Z世代（健康・ウェルネス・サステナビリティ志向）
• オーガニック食品：701億ドル（+6.9%）
→ 食品市場全体の成長率（+2.3%）の3倍
• 非食品（テキスタイル・サプリ・HBC・ペット）：65億ドル（+5.9%）
🥦 カテゴリー別ハイライト
🥬 Produce（農産物）
• 226億ドル（+5.3%）
• 市場の約30%を占める最大カテゴリー
• ベリー類：44億ドル（+10.5%）
→ 「the $4.4 billion berry segment… growing at a rate of 10.5%」
• バナナ（+12.6%）、柑橘（+18.1%）が好調
• パッケージサラダは横ばい（-0.5%）
Not a bad week here in Illinois with almost an inch of rainfall Thursday night after a record setting daytime high of 94F followed by a nighttime low of 26F on Saturday morning. Ryan and Chad watched the forecast and decided not to plant any beans this past week and next week looks out of the question as forecast call for 2-4 inches of rainfall and cool after an 80 degree day on Monday.. We did finish up on burndown for fields going to corn, top dressed our wheat with 32% nitrogen and Chad finished up strip tilling a 200-acre farm that we did conservation work on, "dozing and tiling" this winter. We decided to wait to terminate rye until we get a better forecast, the 26F low would make it hard to kill we reasoned. We might go ahead and spray about 500 acres of rye cover crop on Monday as several fields are really starting to "get some legs" or grow quickly. Rye can go from 6 inches in height to several feet tall in a week or two if the weather is right.
We will have to see what next week brings as we have a good chance of rain almost every day with the exception of Monday.
Pictures this week are of Chad applying NH3 with the strip till bar and Jocelyn and family after she took 5th place in the state indoor track meet. Let me explain. Rushville is a small school and only competes in a couple of indoor meets each year as there are not many colleges in our area that even have an indoor track. Last Monday night Rushville competed in Jacksonville, and both the boys and girls team won the 8 team meet. This was her first meet of the year as she was playing volleyball during their first indoor meet a few weeks earlier. Jocelyn's coach wanted her to try the triple jump, an odd-looking jump that I don't really understand. Long story short on her first jump she beat our school record at 10.51 meters and qualified for the state indoor meet in Bloomington on Friday. Each event has the top 15 athletes from around the state. Jocelyn ended up with a fifth-place medal, and there was less than 12 inches separating the top 5 spots, not bad for a freshman! The first outdoor meet is tomorrow evening and we are really looking forward to how Avery, Jocelyn and the Rushville team will do.
I hope all is well and you have a productive week ahead.
