The Franklin County farmer is a stickler for preparation. He has a lot of equipment going into the field, and does everything possible to make sure things go smoothly.
“We’re pretty spoiled because we run new equipment,” he said. “Our combines are running in their third season.”
Hood grows corn, soybeans and wheat on 7,000 acres in Franklin County. All that acreage requires a lot of iron, and he has it.
His equipment shed is filled with tractors combines, planters, heads and various other machinery.
The key to being ready for harvest is leaving little to chance before heading out to the field, he believes.
A large shop a short distance from the farm houses offices and space for equipment maintenance and repair. It formerly served as a mine equipment repair shop, but like many other such businesses, couldn’t weather the downturn in the coal mining industry in the region.
“The whole farm gets run out of here,” Hood said. “This keeps it away from the house, which is nice. I bought this thing on the courthouse steps on a foreclosure, and we built a shop. We do all of our maintenance work here.”
Hood and his employees keep his combines running throughout the harvest season largely because they take care of everything during the time between harvest and planting.
“We went through the equipment completely for the winter,” he said.
“We cleaned, polished and waxed them. We’ve got 1,000 acres of wheat. We can cut it in a day and a half, then we put it back in the barn and they’re ready to go. We really do all our maintenance in the winter.”
The Hood farm is self-operated; he doesn’t depend on any custom work. Besides the planters and combines, the farm runs four semis to the grain elevators.
“We do 100 percent farming,” Hood said. “We spread all our own fertilizer, do all of our own spraying and do all of our own trucking. It’s all in-house. That keeps us busy.”
Before moving into the fields, the crew checks tires and brakes on vehicles and makes sure the grain haulers satisfy Department of Transportation regulations. Combines don’t generally require last-minute fixes.
“Every morning we go over everything,” Hood said. “There’s always something, like a loose bolt. Not really much goes wrong. If something does go wrong with a corn head, it’s usually operator error, where it’s run into something, or gets into a ditch.”
Any problems that occur in the field are usually taken care of immediately.
A fully stocked service truck follows combines into the field. In the spring, it carries tractor and planter parts; in the fall, it is equipped with parts for combines, grain buggies and haulers. A mobile air compressor is also on board.
“With a flat tire, we usually fix those right in the field,” Hood said. “It’s hard to get anybody to come out and work on them anymore.”
Prevention is key. There is nearly always something being worked on in the shop. Because of his experience, Hood often joins in.
“I spent several years as an iron worker, so I get to weld,” he said. “That’s not a fun job. I’d rather be doing something else and let someone else weld.”
Hood, who just celebrated his 51st birthday, has been farming since he was 16. That means decades of trial and error.
“You just learn over the years by your mistakes,” he said.
“We’re just now cleaning out the last of our grain out of the bins for hauling our corn off. We have to spray those bins for bugs. They’ll destroy a bin in a hurry. If you stay on top of it, you won’t have a problem.”
After harvest, maintenance begins all over again.
“We have a 24-row corn planter,” Hood said.
“It’s greased, put away and ready to go. I don’t like to put something up that needs to be worked on. Sure as the world, you’ll pull it out next spring and a mouse will have chewed up a wire or something. It will break down sitting there in the building.”
Nat Williams writes for Illinois Farmer Today, a Lee Enterprises sister publication of The Southern Illinoisan.
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