Farm:  Annie grows corn, soybeans, wheat and rye and raises beef cattle with her brother, two sons and niece in Aliceville, Ala. They practice extensive use of cover crops to improve the overall soil health. She and her husband, Ed, have five children, Rachel, Seth, Jesse, Mary and Martha, and five grandchildren. This is Annie’s third year as a USB director.
Annie Dee:

We finished getting our single soybeans planted last week. The weather looks ominous here this week, but we’re going to try to get our combine in the wheat field so we can get that harvested. Then we will plant the double soybean crop behind that. That’s our big goal of the week.
Once we get the wheat harvested, we will use our no-till planter and will plant the soybeans into the wheat stubble. That will help keep the weed pressure down and help preserve the moisture. Leaving the wheat stubble will also build the organic matter. Using that process is beneficial to us in many ways.
Getting the wheat harvested before the rain gets here is probably our biggest challenge this week, though. We had that issue last year. Since it rained continuously once it was time to harvest the wheat, we had to put ruts in the ground to get the wheat out. Because of that, we weren’t able to double crop our soybeans. The ruts here too large and it was too wet to do it. Hopefully we won’t have a repeat of last year.
I would like our international customers to know that, as you can see from the pictures, the soybeans we’ve planted so far are already coming out of the ground and are looking strong and healthy. We’re running full steam ahead!