Hillebo Family Farms

06/09/2026

The strip tilled corn into 30” wheat cover crop is rocking and rolling! What a beautiful site!

06/04/2026

Hagie has been a big part of our history the last 20ish years. Pretty neat to learn the story of a great Iowa company.

How did the world’s first self-propelled sprayer change modern agriculture?

Farm4Profit sits down with Kevin Marshall to explore the history of Hagie Manufacturing Company, from Ray Hagie’s first self-propelled sprayer in 1947 to the evolution of today’s high-clearance machines. The conversation covers front-mounted booms, hydrostatic drive technology, surviving the 1980s farm crisis, and Hagie’s partnership with John Deere.

For anyone interested in ag innovation, equipment history, and modern spraying technology, this conversation offers a fascinating look at one of farming’s most influential machinery brands.

05/30/2026

Today seemed like another laid back nice Friday. BUT it was so much more. We got to put a brand new technology to work from John Deere. Diesel has been the main source of fuel for a long time in ag. Deere brought us their prototype ethanol tractor that runs on E98 ethanol straight from the ethanol plant. A fuel that we produce right here. Some quick facts.

You burn 1.72gal of ethanol to equal a similar amount of energy as 1 gallon of diesel.

You can purchase ethanol for less than $1/gal right now. And with died diesel in the mid $4 range it’s a pretty remarkable savings.

It handled the 25k-30k lb roller with no problems.

We are a long ways from this ever becoming a production unit but it is clear that it’s worth continuing down the path of experimentation.

If you have more questions we will be running it this weekend and will get them answered!

Oh and the tracker wanted to look majestic as well.

05/14/2026

is done. We limped to the finish with forced and unforced errors. Glad we waited to plant corn last as the conditions were fantastic.

05/09/2026

Unscheduled pit stop this morning. Broke reverse thread stud bolt for a disk opener. Weld washer to stud, bolt to washer and it backed right out and saved us having to replace the whole shank. Hopefully back up and running in under 2 hour pit stop.

04/29/2026

Rain delay continues but we have plenty to do and sometimes we accidentally make more work for ourselves. Hopefully after a couple more days of drying we can get rolling on planting.

04/05/2026

Wishing you a bright and joyful Easter! ☀️

03/27/2026

This week in the field. Finally back in the field! Rock harvest, seeding waterways, strip tilling. is just around the corner.

02/07/2026

Saturday morning bacon delivery! 🥓 Beautiful crisp winter morning!

11/16/2025

Don’t get me wrong we’d rather be doing something fun off the farm spending time with family but farming on the weekends when you have to is peaceful. No 9-5 industry people bugging you constantly, no market distractions, just farming and your thoughts.