Field Trip: Estes spent six decades as full-time farmer
Mack Estes spent six decades farming full-time in eastern Daviess County.
Estes, 78, retired this year, making this the first time since 1963 that he didn’t have to worry about if the weather would cooperate or not.
But retirement hasn’t kept him totally out of the fields for this year’s planting and harvest.
“It’s hard to step back,” Estes said. “Some things you enjoy not having to do and some things you really miss. When you’ve been doing it all your life, you’re gonna miss what you did a whole lot.”
The time he has spent in the fields has been helping his longtime friend Gary Cecil and his son, Ryan, of Cecil Farms.
Estes said he had a couple farmers who helped him when they retired, so he’s now returning the favor to someone else.
“They took over a lot of my operation,” Estes said.
“… I helped them during planting and now I’m driving a combine for them during harvest,” he said.
Estes is a third generation grower who began farming after graduating high school.
“My great-granddad started it, but it was my dad who gave me the opportunity to farm,” Estes said. “I was in a partnership with my brother, but he had a farming accident so I went on by myself.”
Estes leased farmland until he purchased his own land, growing corn, soybeans and tobacco in the Daviess County communities of Thruston and Maceo. He also expanded into Hancock County.
“We had a lot of tobacco until the buyout (in 2004) came along,” Estes said. “I quit raising tobacco with the (U.S) government buyout. I went to straight row crop then.”
Before Estes retired, he was planting 2,200 acres of combined corn and soybeans.
Estes said corn yields have drastically increased since he began, with more than 200 bushels an acre that once seemed unreachable.
“We were getting into the 200 bushel range a couple years ago,” said Estes, attributing fungicide and technology to the higher yields. “Technology has really changed so much in how people fertilize and the way they take care of their crop.”
During his time farming, Estes served on various ag committees and boards, such as the Kentucky Young Farmers Association, Daviess County Farm Bureau board and a founding member of the Kentucky Corn Promotion Council.
And earlier this year, the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce named Mack Estes Farms winner of the Rick Kamuf Agribusiness of the Year.
“I was really surprised; I know there are a lot of good people out there,” said Estes about receiving the award. “I’ve worked with the Chamber for years by getting involved with the Farm-City Breakfast. It was one of my favorite things I liked doing with the Chamber.”