HyMark High Spots

Atrazine In Drinking Water

2012-02-02T07:13:00.000-08:00

Atrazine is in our local news again. A routine EPA water analysis of the Blanchester Pubic Affairs drinking water revealed a rolling average of 4 PPB, over the maximum 3 PPB. Is one part per billion going to kill you or make a difference?

They have to set the benchmark somewhere. Scientists looked at toxicology tests over a period of time determined that anything over 3 PPB was excessive, not 4 or 5 or whatever.

The first thing I thought was, that's what happens when corn goes to $6. The land in the watershed is usually planted to soybeans more than corn. But with the increased price of corn being offered, farmers planted more corn and applied more atrazine to control the weeds.

Then I thought, look at the record rainfall the area has received in the last 13 months. Most farms have received around 70 inches of rainfall in that time period. Atrazine easily attaches to water and gets moved off target.

Probably both had something to do with this finding. The big thing is we do need to protect our water supply and we normally do a good job. The finding isn't big enough to say we are dong a poor job or did the wrong thing in our agricultural practices. It just happened, and we need to take precaution to not let it happen again.

There are lots of alternatives to atrazine, but it is still the cheapest and easiest way to kill grass and other weeds in corn for 50 years. Nothing controls weeds as cheaply, safely and effectively as atrazine.

A sister chemical is cyanazine. It was the best weed killer in corn we have ever had in this region. It moved even more than atrazine and DuPont gave up fighting to relabel it over 10 years ago. It breaks down into cyanide and atrazine a little too easily. I think we could have safely kept it with more regulation but DuPont decided it wasn't worth it.

So what's in your drinking water? I am sure I am drinking a part per billion of atrazine and other chemicals in my Highland County Water but I can safely produce enough food for 155 people like every other farmer in this country does.

Atrazine is a great herbicide but it won't kill the wild bluegrass or poa annua in this area. That grass is resistant to every herbicide I have applied to it including Round Up, Ignite, and Gramoxone.

Ed

Community Service

2012-02-01T08:59:00.000-08:00

This may be a big assumption, but I assume every one of you have participated in community service sometime in your life. I don't mean the kind the judge makes you serve for a criminal act but one for the greater good of mankind and to give back some of what you have been given.

As a teacher and a parent I take pride in seeing my children and my students performs acts of community service. I noticed one last Saturday when I attended the auction in Clermont County and enjoyed the Farmers Share Breakfast with former students.

I posted his picture as Farm Bureau president on Facebook where many of his classmates are my so-called "friends." Not a one of them pushed the Like button or left a comment! That kind of befuddled me. Are they jealous or too lazy to perform community service like him? Has the days of giving back turned to me, me, me?

I gave all I had and trying to pay forward before my death. I can't do too much for all the good that has been done for me. I served on the school board like my dad and grandpa did. Like them, I was asked to run, did so, got elected and served. It wasn't easy. In fact it was very hard balancing work and family and community service. My family suffered for it some, I don't know how much. But, working together we accomplished great things. Three of my former students now serve on that same board.

I do take great pride in their accomplishments and tell them so. One building was just recognized as one of the very best schools in the United States at a ceremony with the President. I remember fighting for the choice of principals and two of my board members did not agree with my support for him. It was petty politics in my mind but better minds prevailed and look what happened many years later from doing the right thing.

In FFA, advisors train students to think and perform "the right way." FFA will always be one of my favorite charities for all the great work they do. I like working with those kids from picking up trash along the road to seeing them win a trophy at the Annual Parent Member Banquet.

I always took John F. Kennedy's challenge, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country," very seriously. These young people dying in our military with no declared war take it extremely seriously.

Are we afraid of a little community service?

Ed Winkle

Grid Sampling of Soil

2012-01-31T05:21:00.000-08:00

Grid soil sampling evolved after GPS became available to find your spot in the field over and over again. 2.5 acres quickly became the standard for a grid which is ten rectangles in a 50 acre field. Since most 50 acre fields aren't square, you have some larger than others, but you get the concept.

For us gardeners, most of our gardens are less than 2.5 acres so we are farming very tiny grids. Our 40 by 50 garden is only 2000 square feet, a tiny patch of ground compared 4,360 square feet in one acre. We can sample very accurately and get fairly reliable results and recommendations from our soil test.

I said "fairly reliable" because even a scientific soil test can seem to be a "a shot in the dark" as to what is really going on in a soil profile to cause plants to thrive or struggle. It's the best idea man has come up with in the last 100 years of farming so we start there.

Larger acreages are much more complex. Many farmers cover 2,000 acres in a year to make a living for a family of four. Some still make a living on a few hundred acres and it takes some many more thousands to make it. My subject today is why or why not grids?

I do not use grids. I still pull about one sample per acre and an 80 acre field that can be farmed by breaking it into 2 or 3 distinct soil types and yield levels can be treated as separate fields inside one boundary. Many farmers were sold or chose to grid sample their farms in an effort to increase yields and/or decrease costs. I have not seen it to do either very often, if at all.

Still the subject comes up often and my friend Joe Nester, owner of Nester Ag Consulting in Bryan, Ohio made a great post that explains one man's quest to prove grids right or wrong.

"I've been working with soil tests and trying to figure out the best way to be representative, so you can make good nutrient decisions for over 35 years. Grid sampling came out when GPS was made public, before yield monitors. Although we thought we were collecting lots of good data, turned out we were just collecting lots of data that was not very representative. It is actually point sampling, in most cases, 6 or 8 probes taken at the center of the grid. When the data is returned from the lab, it fills the boundary of the grid. Then most software divide each grid into 50' x 50' cells for application, and using mathematical equations, (several theories to chose from), the P & K is varied in each cell based on the theoretical value, that was determined by the theoretical values of the cells next to it. This system creates more variability than was normally present in the field to begin with. Over 97% of the data for 50' application cells is estimated in a 2.5 acre grid. You only sampled 1 of them. When it first came out, it was in conjunction with the invention of the Ag-Chem Soilection machine, and was used to sell the service of that equipment and differentiate from competitors that did not have it.

Even during that time, we were also using hand drawn maps, separating high ground from low ground, sands from clays, and high exchange soils from low exchange soils. We were having farmers spot treat for lime, even without VRT(Variable Rate Transfer) equipment. Then came Windows CE units, then iPac's, and handheld computers that we could hook GPS to. We started driving boundaries, and driving the lines that separated the soil type zones in the field, using the irregular shaped zones to sample and make recommendations, and spreading lime by those maps. Then came the yield monitor and digitized soil surveys, and these were fantastic additions to soils management.

Now- we can combine information from the crop, even normalize yields from different crops, and let the crop tell us where the soil changes. The digitized soil survey is decent information for how they were developed, but it is black and white- you're either in a soil type, or cross the line, and you're in a different soil type. It really doesn't happen that way in the field- there are transition zones where 1 soil type blends to another, and well calibrated yield maps show that.

So having had the opportunity to work with all the above, on lots of acres and lots of soil types, my #1 choice is zones developed from yield maps (well calibrated maps so they show accurate variation in yield), with input from the farmer, and input from the practicing agronomist. If you don't have a yield monitor, use digitized soil surveys, elevation data, and perhaps aerial imagery in crop, and veris data. (But think strongly about a yield monitor, because it can give you some very valuable data about your farm and your practices.)

Precision ag has had a different rate of adoption across the corn belt, with some hot spots having much more experience than others. Those early adopters have moved on from grid sampling to management zone development, and the NRCS and most land grant universities are even agreeing with them. You will seldom find an independent consultant that uses grid sampling anymore. Unfortunately, grid is totally driven by the computer, and does not include input from the farmer, the agronomist, or the crop being raised on the soils.

Yield zone management will be driven by the 2 most important factors in raising a crop: soil type and water holding capacity of those soils. A great blueprint to manage nutrients, lime, and plant populations by. I would also sample at least every other year- it's not exact and you need to keep building representative data. That was another pitfall of grid- so much was spent in one year that farmers tried to live 4 to 5 years off 1 testing cycle. With yield-zone management, and evaluating fields of progressive farmers, you will find that the lower yielding areas have the highest P & K. This is due to non-removal of blanket applications, and the real yield drop is more than likely due to drainage or lime needs. When those areas are found, corrections can be made if possible, and then you can harvest the P & K that is already present in those zones, and have dollars to spend elsewhere."

There you have it. I much agree with Joe's post on Crop Talk. What do you think?

Ed
Winkle

Gorges' Grouse

2012-01-30T07:58:00.000-08:00

To my new Gorges' Grouse friends, greetings! Isn't it funny how one little post can intertwine us all together? The marvels and mystery of the Internet is amazing!

For those of you who haven't read, I am 62 years old and married to LuAnn who was raised on a farm in New York and raised her family on a farm there. We met thanks to Agriculture Online where I was posting on the Crop Scouting page in the mid nineties.

I am a retired teacher of agriculture and served seven years as a county extension agent. I started HyMark Consulting in 1994 when my boys needed a Supervised Agricultural Experience Program in their FFA Chapter and LuAnn and I have operated it as an LLC in Ohio since 2000.

We bought a farm in 2004 which became my farming and experiment location while she works as CEO of a local non profit that helps ex-offenders get back into the world of work. We love to travel and we lead very interesting lives. Our love for life through no-till farming has taken us to Europe and New Zealand and across the states. We have camped in the lower 48 and part of Canada and will soon visit our 50th state together, Hawaii.

If you browse my blogs from the last three years, you can see the gardening, farming and travel stories we found. I am quick to test new farming methods before I recommend them to others.

One I have learned over my life is the Albrecht soil testing method. I would recommend all my farming and gardening readers to read this link at your leisure. I sample my soils like it is described here. It is good to start here with any gardening or farming project so we can get a "snapshot" of what your soil looks like in order to formulate a plan to grow better crops.

Readers from all over the country send me their analyses to get my opinion. I do this for a fee for farmers and larger tracts but usually just give advice to someone who sends their labs analysis or recommend someone else they can talk to solve a problem or increase production and quality. The ones out of the country are a little challenging to equate from Metric to English!

So let's start there, you have plenty of reading to do in the links and my past blogs on many different subjects. Many of them have to do with gardening, farming or travel, so read and ask away!

To Gorges', thanks for asking my question and giving me some answers. As Budde pointed out, my blog is written more ilke my old Extension Newsletters I used to write and don't necessarily question the reader to comment. Blogspot did have a comment problem last week which seems to have been fixed temporarily, at least.

Welcome to all my new readers and let's help each other live a better life through our Internet exchange!

Sincerely,

Ed Winkle

Comments on Traveling

2012-01-29T05:00:00.000-08:00

My friend Lucas(I have been to his farm) posted his observations on traveling in the Cafe and I thought it would be good to share here today.

"Three weeks ago we traveled to the Notill conference in St. Louis. We flew. You get there early so you can be demoralized by a metal detector and no drinks through the check point because they are connected with all the food joints inside so they throw away what they can so you have to buy a 5 dollar drink , $2 pack of gum, $5 sandwich. Because what else can you do but eat when you are there two hours early. Oh then you can't have a direct flight you have to go for a 40 minute ride to the next feed trough (airport) and another 1 and half wait. Heck might as well buy another $5 dollar drink oh and there is all those danishes and cinnabuns. Finally get to the last flight . Takes all day to travel by plane.

Then I did it all over again this past week to Des Moines to go to Ames Iowa For some Agleader training so I got to add the joy of a rental car which I picked a compact because it was cheapest. I get there I was concerned I am 6' 3" all I could see was some little toy, I ended up with a Chevy Impala so not to bad. I was there for five days last training day wasn't over till 5 Thursday so I get to pull my hair out cause I couldn't get a flight back east until Friday morning. Did I mention I had my fill of flying for awhile."

Another friend Omar(he has been to our home) replied "I've got to the point where my cutoff point for driving is 15 hours. In other words, a full day. That's because a flight to almost anywhere is going to cost me a day anyway. For exactly the reasons you stated.

It takes me under an hour to get to Toronto, but I have to allow for two in case the traffic is bad. Then, I'm supposed to be there 3 hours ahead for international flights. Usually, you sail through, so that's 2 hours plus the remainder of the driving time I didn't use to kill. Or, you don't sail through so you have a couple hours of stress worrying whether you'll make your flight. So you are up to four or five hours and the plane hasn't even left the ground. I may technically have saved a bit of time flying, but there's really nothing else I'd be able to do on the travel day anyway. I might as well be driving and seeing a bit of country.

Since you can't carry anything on (say shaving supplies) unless you pay for the mini-sized containers ahead of time (assuming you remembered to buy them), you end up checking stuff in, but now you have to pay extra per bag to do that.

If you do make it through easily, there's that challenge of what to do. Sit in a bar? Well, you could browse the internet, but most airports nail you for 10 bucks for a 24 hour login to the internet. Knowing I'll only be there for a couple hours, that just doesn't match my idea of good value.

My stress level is way down when I drive. It's amazing how far a person can get with a full day of driving."

My observations were "Very good observations, Lucas, I agree. Just reading that makes me see why I don't like to fly, doesn't fit my farmer mold. But I do love to travel and meet new people and see new things so it's put up with or find something much slower.

I am sure the seasoned traveler doesn't like it much better and the airport is a center of angst and frustration, just ripe for a blow up like we see on TV news. Homeland Security is a joke to me, padding down some old lady who would like to blow the person up doing it and letting some suspiscious character walk on by who looks like they intend to. But no that's racial profiling or whatever. What a joke, no common sense.

This modern travel shows the epitome of society, mixing all these people together from everywhere and every possible background.

Cruising is in the news but it's probably safer than walking down some city streets, definitely safer than automobile or plane and statistics show that. That captain might really be a hero or really lucky(blessed) because he almost sent 4000 people to the bottom of that drink. That ship teetering over that 600 feet deep ledge has been something to watch. Geraldo was pretty intertesting on the subject last night, we never watch him and it was so melodramatic it was sickening but it was very interesting.

You are right though, nothing like getting home and walking around on your own farm."

What are your recent observations from traveling?

Ed

Farmer's Share

2012-01-28T09:14:00.000-08:00

I went to a Farmer's Share breakfast this morning where breakfast is served for the cost of what the farmer gets from the production of the raw products in the meal. This is usually sponsored by a Farm Bureau group in our state and it was this morning, too, the Clermont County Farm Bureau.

Pancakes, sausage, scrambled eggs, milk, juice and coffee cost 50 cents. That is about what the farmer get's as his share from the sales of farm produced commodities that are shipped, processed and prepared for our meals.

They had little paper towers of information about farming in Ohio. Ohio has 4 million hogs raised by 3700 farmers. We are number two in egg production and in the top ten states of just about every category of grain and livestock production. Ohio has always been a prominent farming state although the message has been lost over my lifetime.

There are about 45,000 farming operations in Ohio producing about nine million acres of grain and other crops. Ohio almost always has more acres planted to soybeans than to corn. The last time there were more corn acres than soybeans was 1986. The last time Ohio had over a million acres of wheat was just 2008 and there were still 3 times more corn or soybean acres than wheat.

Acres of oats, grapes, potatoes, and tobacco continue to decline over time. Other states have more suitable weather and soils for those crops except tobacco which has declined from health concerns. US production of tobacco has declined form 2 billion pounds in 1975 to 1.2 billion pounds in 2001, or 42%. Ohio reflects that, too.

Ohio is 11th in the number of farms so that goes with it being in the top ten states in production of most agricultural commodities.

Agriculture is still the backbone of Ohio's and the country's economies which makes farming activities very important but one that is easy to take for granted.

What would my 50 cent breakfast cost in your neighborhood? Here it would be $5-10 plus tax and tip.

Ed

Flood

2012-01-27T08:26:00.000-08:00

This is what U.S. Grant's birthplace looked like during the Great Flood of 1937 near Point Pleasant, Ohio.

In 1937, it started raining in southern Ohio and never stopped for 30 days. By around this date 75 years ago, the Ohio River crested near 82 feet at Coney Island near New Richmond, Ohio and we still marvel at that marker way in the air whenever we visit Coney Island today.

I thought it would be a good time to call Uncle Roy and see how he is doing so I called yesterday. I emailed this message to my family last night.

"I called Uncle Roy today to see how he was doing. I asked him if he knew what he was doing this day 75 years ago?

He would have been 8 years old then, living on the farm in Sardinia. I gave him a hint on the Great Flood and he said it flooded almost every year there but he remembers the water was over the Slab Camp bridge on Hamer Road and you couldn't get to the Stevens Farm on Stevens Road.

He told me the floods in 34 and 36 were nearly as big and the one in 36 was bigger in Pittsburgh. The flood of 37 crested around 81 feet in Cincinnati and a million homes were lost from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Illinois.

He said after the water went down some, Grandpa took them on a ride to Ripley where they saw a house that was washed off its foundation and sitting on its roof when the flood went down! We wished we had a picture of that and Winnie took all the pictures then but he didn't think they got one of it.

He said the flu was going through the house about that time and he and his sisters were in bed, ill from it. He said they listened to the big radio and kept the fire going and that was about it.

I asked if it was hard to feed the livestock? Dad was 22 then and a middle child with 4 older sisters and 3 younger sisters and Roy. We agreed nothing was that easy then, dry or wet."

I try to read the blogs you will find under my profile. I probably read The Lazy Farmer the most, George's Grouse, and Ralph Goff's and many others whenever I can. George's Grouse is from West Virginia and had a good blog on the '37 Flood.

Lots of people have been talking about it this week as it's been on the local news and it is so wet here it makes you wonder if we would have the same thing without the flood controls put in with WPA in the Great Depression. This area has seen up to 75 inches of rain in the last 13 months so the tributaries haven't been dry for a long time.

Uncle Roy devoted his career to soil and water conservation and flood projects that have kept our area "high and dry" compared to the '37 Flood.

I know it is drier west of Cairo, Illinois and I hope you find yourself "high and dry" today but get the water when you need it this year.

Ed Winkle

Am I An Introvert?

2012-01-26T06:28:00.001-08:00

I saw a piece on the news talking about Susan Cain's new book called Quiet. It's about the traits introverts and extroverts exhibit and great leaders who lean one way or the other.

I have always seen myself as an introvert, basically was a shy kid who was taught and learned to live outside that shell to function and be happy. I've taken the Myers Briggs Personality Test and it shows about the same thing. I took this test I found this morning and the way I answered the questions, it rated me as 45% extrovert which it called "balanced." That's pretty good for me today.

My mood affects how I feel and thus how I answer questions. The rain is quite depressing again today but I guess it isn't bothering me that much. There is nothing I can do about it, anyway.

The news piece showed the President, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul as introverted and Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum as extroverted. It showed Pope John Paul and Benedict as introverted and how that can be used for quiet but very strong leadership.

I would assume most farmers lean to introvert behavior but I can think of a few pretty social, loud and boisterous ones, too. Job success doesn't necessarily link to personality traits but they don't hurt and sure can help. You can picture a rancher or a cowboy as being pretty introverted to the point of being a "loner." A fellow who loves to drive tractor all day just uses a different type of horse!

So are you an introvert or extrovert or pretty well balanced?

Ed

Planter Clinics

2012-01-25T05:16:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Jennings County Indiana Soil and Water Conservation District called to see if I would teach two planter clinics in their county, one February 22 and one the next day. I said yes and both clinics will be in farm shops with planters inside.

I have done these many times before but they always make me a little bit edgy as I am probably the worst mechanic in the room-I have the least mechanical aptitude, just ask my wife who assembles all the stuff we buy.

I know the theory pretty well and have done clinics from Maine to Alaska to New Zealand. It's a good thing my friend Andy Vance was doing an article on the subject so I have a recent base to work from.

Here is what Andy wrote:

Corn & Soybean Digest – January 2012

Gearing Up For Planting

“It all comes down to the planter. If you don’t get it in the ground right the first time, nothing else matters.”

That simple philosophy is at the heart of what crop consultant Bill Lehmkuhl says is one of the most important parts of the crop cycle: getting ready for planting season. While farmers in many parts of the Corn Belt planted the 2011 crop later than ever, and subsequently shelled corn well into December, he says getting ready to plant the next crop should never be far from top of mind.

“Be aware that accurate spacing and the planter is where it starts,” he advises his clients across western Ohio. “Yield is not a function of plant population, but of ear count. That final ear count is what drives yield. If you plant 32,000 seeds, you’d better have 32,000 ears.”

He says the process starts by inspecting the planter “from hitch pin to closing wheels.” Some aspects of a thorough tune-up can easily be done in the shop, e.g., checking for wear items like parallel arms, lines and hoses, but some work will need to be done in field, like ensuring the planter is level while in motion.

The key concept behind planter maintenance, from Lehmkuhl’s perspective, is creating the ideal seed trench. That includes checking for proper contact on disc openers (anywhere from 1 to 2.5 inches, depending on planter model), keeping uniform down pressure on each row unit, and having the proper attachments in place.

“I don’t care what scenario you’re in tillage-wise, row cleaners on the planter are a must from the standpoint of smoothing the ride out for that row unit and seed meter by moving that residue aside,” he explains. “When it comes to emergence, I want to see everything up in that field within 48 hours. The first time you see corn spiking up through, I want it all up within a day or so, and you need uniform seed depth and placement to make that happen.”

Rain Makes Grain, but Too Much of a Good Thing…

Because many parts of the Corn Belt received excess precipitation during the 2011 planting and harvest seasons, a high percentage of fields will be in rough shape when the time comes for planters to start rolling this Spring. The temptation toward what one agricultural engineer calls “recreational tillage” could make a bad situation even worse.

“Many farmers were unable to get back in the field after harvest because of the rains,” says Randall Reeder, an associate professor emeritus in Ohio State University’s Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering. “Even long-term no-tillers had ruts and compaction issues this year.”

Comparing soil conditions to those seen in 2009, Reeder cautions that the best course of action when it comes to tillage this year may be no action at all. “You don’t want to make a bad situation worse by performing deep tillage on wet soils because it destroys the soil structure,” he explains. “If you do tillage you have a looser soil structure, and if we see more rains this spring, that will allow even more compaction issues.”

The cumulative effect is that tillage begets tillage, meaning that by attempting to correct ruts and compaction issues too quickly, farmers could unintentionally create even more rutting and compaction issues later.

Emphasizing the benefits of controlled traffic, Reeder recommends farmers use overly wet conditions as a learning opportunity, and to consider the benefits of continuous no-till, which can include strip-till ahead of corn.

“Do the least amount of tillage necessary to get the ground ready for planting,” he advises. “Often a light, shallow tillage operation can smooth out ruts and create a surface ideal, or at least acceptable, for planting.”

Accept Murphy’s Law, and Prepare a “Plan B”

For Paul Reed of Washington, Iowa, the best way to prep for planting season is to figure out what can go wrong, and have a game plan in place that assumes if it can go wrong, it will go wrong at some point.

“Along with going through all the nuts and bolts things, we follow a simple management rule: figure out the three worst things that can happen,” Reed says. “We always have a Plan B so that if we lose a system or monitor we can continue planting and aren’t stuck on the end rows waiting to get on the phone with a service tech. As our equipment has gotten more complex, so have our problems.”

As one example, Reed says that while his operation relies on GPS and automatic steering, each planter still has mechanical markers in the eventuality that the GPS system goes down. Planting can continue using markers, rather than stalling while a technological solution is found.

The Reed family keeps detailed notes on problems or challenges uncovered during the planting season, and incorporates those records into the preparation for the next season. By focusing on what did go wrong, they improve planning for what might go wrong in the future.

“The name of the game is to keep the wheels turning to take advantage of a limited planting window,” Reed says. “Crops yield by planting date, so you have to take advantage of the planting days available. If you have only 10 or 12 days in an ideal planting window, being able to keep rolling is a big deal.”

He advises systematically checking each system on the planter, from hydraulic and air pressure systems to fertilizer and seed delivery components, looking for wear items that need replaced prior to planting. While conducting that basic planter maintenance, take stock of what parts, systems or monitors are likely to go down at some point during planting, and have replacements on hand.

“Every one of those systems can and will have something go wrong,” Reed says. “How well and how quickly you can overcome those problems is paramount to keep planting.”

-30-

SIDE BAR

Making a List and Checking It Twice

Christmas may be over, but Ohio-based crop consultant and blogger Ed Winkle advises taking Santa’s advice when it comes to planter preparations.

“Tear apart the planter today,” he says. “We tore our planter apart three times during all the rain last year, and we found something every time. We knew the planter so well that as soon as we had a breakdown, we knew where it was and how to fix it with no down time. The worst thing you can do is drag the planter out of the barn and try to go plant.”

With that in mind, Winkle shares his planter-prep checklist:

Go through each row unit piece by piece.
Go through the seeding mechanism, and match the planter to the seed size you are getting.
Go over all stress parts, as well as the frame, wheels and bearings. “You think the part isn’t worn out, but it is. Replace it. You can’t afford to stretch parts too far anymore.”
Go through hydraulics with books and gauges.
Go through 12-volt system front to back.
Go through electronics, including GPS-related modules and monitors.

What do you think, O Ye planter wizards and wannabe's? The planter in the picture is a modified Kinze after one of my talks ten years ago and still ticks like a clock after years of maintenance and thousands in profits.

Thanks,

Ed Winkle

Erosion

2012-01-24T05:49:00.000-08:00

There are SO many topics we could discuss today. We are discussing nutrients on Crop Talk, I brought in row width and plant feeding and inoculating and then my friend Andy in Indiana sent me this picture. Erosion!

"In nature, tillage is a catastrophic event." That is is the first quote I learned from Dr. Dwayne Beck I won't forget. It makes me think of the nature trail I took my students to behind Clermont Northeastern High School where we walked from a class II and III flat soil with poor internal drainage across, true class II-VI soils to Class XIII, more than 35% slope down to the creek.

Most called it a ravine or severe gully but it's a 100 foot drop off to the creek below. I had all eight land classes right in my backyard! I taught soils all the way to the creek and all the way back with lots of good woodland to talk about on the barked paths. There was plenty of weed identification, too!

Tillage is a catastrophic event for me and I gave it up in 1976 when we bought our first White 5100 6 row, 30 inch notill planter. I've spent a lifetime learning how to make that work.

Even with notill, we get erosion on one percent slopes here so cover crops became necessary to hold the soil in place when there isn't a cash crop holding it there. With 70 inches of rainfall in this region, there has been too much erosion even where we tried hard to prevent.

If we had a good spring, we could spend it moving soil back into place, reparing tile and installing new tile. With trying to plant a cover crop after each harvest, it's very difficult to get this done.

I see a lot of erosion on our farms I want to repair but it's small compared to many fields I see and I should feel pretty good with what I do have in place. I have lots of dead and living roots holding soil in place, ready for the next crop.

As long as there's man, there is going to be erosion. The glaciers that formed these beautiful midwest soils were massive movements so even if man is not here, erosion always is.

Our job is to figure out how to minimize it while making a living off the land. We have all the tools we need today. So I hope you find this blog your source for ag information today in answer to yesterday's question.

Have a great day,

Ed Winkle

Where Do You Go For Ag Information?

2012-01-23T10:45:00.000-08:00

I have always credited my dad and the Extension Service for starting my love for farming and finding answers to how things grow. Soil Life just posted an interesting question on Crop Talk. Where do you go for agricultural related information?

1. Farm Magazines

2. seed catalogs, seed company meetings. Your seed dealer, DSM

3. Your State Agronomy Guide.

4. Purdue University Internet sites. One of the best. or the OSU Ag crop report.

5. Your Local Extension service office.

6. Visiting co-op meetings

7. Working with your crop scout and or your Private consulting Persons.

8. Reading Documented University Agronomy studies. available in most every state.

9. Visiting state University research farms consistently for current updates.

10. Reading Ag Talk

11. or other internet sites

12. YOUR, On the Farm plot work over the years. side by sides. trial by error or success. On your farm.

13. RFD TV ?

14. your accountant

15. your banker

16. your farm management company

17. your soil testing laboratory. Laboratory personnel.

18. Independent web sites, Blogs.

19. all of the above.

My answer is all of the above, although the rankings have changed somewhat. After teaching and farming 40 years I get more questions so I learn by digging out the answers. I use all of those categories to find answers. Any system of farming develops over time and my base knowledge is from my dad and his teachers, the Extension Service.

I wanted to be an Extension Agent among many other things and got my chance in 1987. The pay wasn't as good as classroom teaching so I went back to the classroom before retirement in 2002. Knowledge is wonderful but it doesn't mean much unless you can put it into practice. I have been blessed to be able to do that since I was born.

Farm magazines and Extension have fallen from top sources for information for many farmers as they adopt and learn the Internet. As you know, the Internet has totally changed my life but all of the 18 sources has impact on what I do.

Where do you go for agricultural information? Here's another thanks to Dad and Jim Wells and Al Rhonemus for a job well done!

Ed Winkle

Keep It Simple

2012-01-22T09:35:00.000-08:00

The wisdom from my Sunday Morning Sunshine group and from church today was Keep It Simple! This is a daily task I attempt in 24 hour segments as I am a complicated person living a complicated life in a complicated world!

It's just like teaching and learning, I have to break every day down into simple segments. Get up with thanksgiving and if I can't, start over! Eat a little at around 8 AM, noon and 5 PM. Make a list and do the things on my list one thing at a time. I am one to have two to ten projects all going on at the same time. Complicated me.

If I catch myself thinking the wrong thing or a bad thing, I need to correct it and don't utter it, let alone practice it. Rigorous honesty in everything I think, say and do, that is the key for daily success.

In working on taxes and yearly summaries, I see all my mistakes. Some were out of control when I did them or I didn't have full knowledge to make the right decision right then. I can't change that, I can only change right now. Each second passes quickly and before I know it, minutes, hours and days have passed. It's less than 10 days until February, the shortest month of the year and soon the year will be one sixth gone!

I read a few lines on crop talk this morning and saw all the complicated ways we as farmers face to raise the best crop we can economically. No one agrees how to do that although we really farm pretty similarly. It's the little things that make the difference.

If I keep it simple and break complex things down into basic components, I can manage them more easily.

At the end of the day I can go to bed knowing I did the best I could given the circumstances and wake up the next morning without any emotional baggage from what I did or didn't do.

Have a great week and keep it simple.

Ed

Crop(and other typesof) Scouting

2012-01-21T07:19:00.000-08:00

Around this time in August, I found my first bacterial wilt on Prairie Road, just east of Wilmington. There began my search on what causes bacterial wilt's in corn like Goss's Wilt, that reduced U.S. corn yields so much this year.

Today is a poor day for crop scouting, even if you were looking for maple trees to tap for syrup. It is cold, windy, the ground is white and the north windows are covered with ice to the top. It's a moderately cold, blustery day in southwest Ohio.

Some guy ran out of gas between the house and the barn last night. He sat there and sat there and I finally saw a little flashlight shining up the sidewalk. I opened the door and he timidly asked if he could call for help. The answer was yes of course but the immediate thought went through our head, he doesn't even have a cell phone? Everyone has a cell phone thanks to our government!

He was my heighth and even bigger than me, a stout looking young man, guess around 30or more. I quickly noticed he had a navy blue work tee shirt and jeans and shoes, all full of holes. A rough looking character he was with thick dark hair and a very timid voice. I always wonder if such people are "God sent" and it was hard for me to imagine he was.

He made us both very uneasy and LuAnn was thankful it wasn't a week ago when I was in St. Louis. Sable didn't throw a fit over him so that added to the discernment. She thought I should have handed a phone to him on the porch but I invited him in to the kitchen where he called someone who showed up in another ragged old truck 15 mintues later or so. He had plenty of time to "case the joint" but was so timid and staring down I wasn't too worried.

He was out of gas he said and I told him I had just poured my last gallon into the log splitter. His buddy came and they got it running and off he went while the buddy just had to drive our circle drive in the barnyard and got stuck trying to get back on Martinsville Road. He finally burned his way out and was gone.

Back to crop scouting, the question was raised in the Cafe "how did you find AgTalk?" A couple of posters said "Ed emailed me about it" and half or so were renegades from agriculture.com. I found the Crop Scouting page about this time in 1995 and that even changed my life forever. How I farm, what I teach, who I talk to and live with all came from that modest beginning.

By 2000 the forum was full of growing pains and broadband was not here in the country yet. Meredith Publishing decided to put banner ads on agriculture.com and that made the forum useless to us in the country on dial up connections. I won the NoTill Innovator of the year which was presented in Des Moines so I picked up Tim Reinhart from the University of Illinois and we drove to the conference. We met with John Walter, still editor of agriculture.com and begged him to take the banner ads down.

If they didn't we were going to start our own forum. Neither one of us really wanted that so he said he would meet with the company and get back to us. He did, and the answer was NO. So David Orr, of near Circleville, Ohio, volunteered to put up the first page and it was in June, 2000.

Lots has happened in over 11 years but agriculture.com is still here and now NewAgTalk is the number one farm forum in the world.

Ed

Hydraulic Soils

2012-01-20T06:18:00.001-08:00

I had to do some reading for today's blog. A good friend in Pennsylvania posted a really serious question entitled "hydraulic soils" on Crop Talk.

He is referring to the ability of soil to absorb water, or hydraulic conductivy of soil. Each soil has a natural hydraulic conductivity to move water through it. This conductivity has been greatly altered since man started tilling the soil for food production.

k is the coefficient for hydraulic conductivity, not potassium and usually written as ks. Darcy's Law states that J=Ki.

Where I live, I have two distinct soil formation types. The old Illinoian Glacial Till which is considered to be about 100,000 years old since the Illinoian Glacier created this soil and the Wisconsin Glacial Till which is considered to be about 10,000 years old since that glacial event formed it.

The natural conductivity of the two major soil formation types are quite different. The hydraulic conductivity of the older soil is much less, making it more poorly drained. The newer soil conducts water much more easily, making it moderately drained in most cases.

We have a situation where 60-70 inches of water fell on these soil this past year. Water is both a blessing and a curse. Six feet of water is a lot of weight! One inch of rain on one acre is 27,000 gallons and weighs 13 tons per inch. 72 inches times 13 tons is approaching a thousand tons of weight that fell on one acre this year.

Basically, most soils are not able to conduct all of this water and weight and are damaged by it. Farmers struggled to get the crop out this fall and we still have corn and beans unharvested in Ohio. The best we did on this farm was leave cleat marks the depth of the cleat of the tires. That is compaction.

Some fields are so rutted they look like you could lay tile in the ruts but they are pretty crooked as the farmer fought to keep the combine straight. How do we handle these situations?

No one has an answer but after 60 years of observing, I know for me the least amount of tillage I can do to get the next crop in the better. The soil will have to naturally heal and I have to understand those ruts will probably never fully heal in my lifetime.

Some farmers will try to rip below the depth of the rut but I don't see enough dry weather in our forecast before planting to allow that to happen. You may do more harm than good. Ideally we might take those fields out of production this year and start rebuilding them for notill. Economics is not going to allow that to happen so some tillage will be needed.

Other farmers will try to catch the soil in such condition they can blade or fill the ruts, lightly work and plant the next crop. Each farmer will have his own solution to the problem but none of them will be ideal. Some will just be better than others.

Increased tile installation and cover cropping will help as much as anything in my experience. Gypsum may improve conductivity on these soils, contact an expert before you use that as your only solution. No one thing is going to heal these damaged, disrupted soils.

It's a hard question today but one many farmers face at one time or another. Weather remains a hot topic on the farm every day because it controls our efforts and often our destiny.

Ed

Engaged in Government

2012-01-19T04:54:00.000-08:00

OK, Roy F., I took my one crazy pill this morning before writing this as you suggested I might do every day! LuAnn and I read our daily readings as usual this morning (on her BIRTHDAY so drop her a HAPPY BIRTHDAY at lwinkle@frontier.com)! Fox News was muted and I saw a piece about Karen Moreau, an attorney in upstate New York talking about how the lack of developing mineral rights is killing many small farms.

New York has a moratorium on horizontal fracking which has brought Pennsylvanis, Ohio and North Dakota communities alive with oil exploration. She is pushing the Governor and Legislature to allow this fracking so New York can see the boom neighboring states have.

Then I saw a piece from Freedom Works to contact my legislators to support the Keystone XL Pipeline from Canada to Texas. I support this and was not surprised to see our President not support it yesterday so I wrote three letters and will call their offices today.

Next I saw Google's plea to contact the same legislators to vote against PIPA and SOPA that would regulate the Internet more in America. I don't know about you but I like my Internet just like it is! Regulation is killing our country, no wonder we are in debt highter than our GDP for social programs as we continue to kill job creation!

Wake Up, America! Are you readers engaged in government? Thankfully I was taught at a young age that a sincere, personal hand written letter written to a legislator represents the feelings of several hundred voters. I bet a dollar you don't believe that. Even if you did, do you prove it by acting on it?

Write and call today! That is what I am doing. It's time for me to be more engaged in government and you can bet I am going to vote every chance I get after studying the issues and seeking out every piece of dirt I can find on a candidate or position. Then I will vote accordingly.

I didn't work this hard and this long to see my country go down the path it is for the future of my children and grandchildren and generations unseen.

Get to work!

Ed

Dead Soil

2012-01-18T05:24:00.000-08:00

I saw a story on MSN about America's Poorest Counties. I never realized so many are in South Dakota.

Thre redistribution of wealth in this country has been amazing. Education has always seemed to be a key to earning income. Farmers were always known as "asset rich but cash poor" but now have bid up to $20,000 per acre for farmland.

Why are those counties so poor? Is it education? Is it laziness, bad luck or what is it? Does our government system encourage and reward poverty now?

I saw in another article that the gasoline price in 1980 is the same as it is today taking inflation into account.

You may have seen that food safety was in the news again last week. A fungicide not approved in the U.S. is used in Brazil, now a major source for orange juice in America. The news blurb showed how COOL or country of origin labeling was kind of working but you need a magnifying glass to read the labels!

Salmonella outbreaks have been linked to South American food also and I looked on our little vine of tomatoes in the fresh fruit and vegetable bowl that sits on our kitchen counter and sure enough, those tomatoes read "product of Mexico." Many are sold by U.S. companies so you see the U.S. name larger and it may even say product of the U.S. produced in Mexico or wherever. That is pretty tricky but it is there.

Our garden is our main source for fresh vegetables most of the year. The freezer is now half gone but we still have pork from RemmPork in Nebraska and our fresh veggies and fruits. Last night we had filet mignon, Idaho bakers, green beans and I sauteed a beautiful onion from our friend Brian in Oregon. "It was to die for!" Thanks, Brian!

Have you ordered your garden seed yet? Need help on your soil test? Email or call and I will be glad to help. I read a lot of soil tests in St. Louis last week and over email so far this year.

I am trying to help one young man and his field calls for 100 lbs of AMS, 200 lbs MonoAmmonium Phosphate, 200 lbs Potash, 20 lbs of 10% Boron, 40 lbs of 10% Managanes Sulfate, 50 lbs of 10% zinc phosphate! He has soybean cyst nematodes on that farm and his special molybdenum test only showed .21 PPM. Moly on his inoculant alone could have made him an extra 5 bushels of soybeans per acre at a very low investment.

The biggest thing I noticed was his soil sample was dead. There is little living life in it. I should have really pushed him to sow a cover crop this fall with some of this fertilizer recommendation in it to get his soils perking before spring.

If he doesn't do something like this, his farm will continue to be one of the poorest in the county. Traditional NPK on barren soil isn't going to cut it!

Ed

Vacation!

2012-01-17T06:20:00.000-08:00

It took me 40 years to even start to understand what vacation really means. All I ever knew to do was how to work.

Someone posted Take A Vacation in the Cafe. That's the difference between LuAnn and I and our parents generation. We want to see this big beautiful world God created!

"I posted earlier about something learned on vacation and someone replied"what's a vacation?".

To that person and others that don't have time to take a vacation:

Dad worked hard on the farm and Mom had an off farm job. They rarely did anything else. They did get a couple of trips in over the years. Dad finally decided to slow down so they could travel some more as Mom had plenty of vacation time she never used. They were both 70 at the time.

He got sick and Mom spent 12 years careing for Him and still working for the health insurance benefits to keep him in the nursing home. After he died Mom was going to travel. She had a spill and broke her neck. She's been in a nursing home for three years. She can barely lift a spoon. When I leave after visiting her she often says"take a vacation". Don't spend all your life working to get something and miss what you have."

We sure agree. Dating LuAnn was a vacation to New York every weekend or her coming to Ohio. Not long after we met we went to Vancouver and soon after that, Maine.

We have camped in the 48 states and will soon see our 50th together! We have seen almost all of Canada and every stinkin' Carribean island! We have been to New Zealand and most of Europe. I got to see China in 1985 but there is so much more to see!

Australia
South America
Africa
Sweden
Norway
Denmark
England
Scotland
Ireland

The list goes on and on and we could visit every place we have already been again! We are going to be halfway to Australia and New Zealand so that is going to be really tempting!

We are blessed to be born in the age of travel.

We love it!

Ed

Soil Cores

2012-01-16T05:10:00.000-08:00

Soil coring is used extensively in soil classification and the teaching of soils and properties. Terry Taylor of Geff, Illinois brought a few soil cores from his farm to the notill conference to aid the discussion of his presentation on how cover crops have improved his farm.

Terry's soil is similar to the soil at the bottom of the hills of my rolling farms that lay on the glacial moraine between the Illinoian and Wisconsin Glacial Till. The soil is darker on top and blue to gray underneath. Those color show a lack of oxygen in the subsoil and tend to be acidic and anaerobic, not good for crops. Just think of the little roots sizzling in acid very slowly. They don't grow very much or very far.

With notill and cover crops, Terry and many of us have been able to increase the productivity of these soils a little more each year. Building richer soil on top of these subsoils increases productivity over time. In dry years the crops reach deeper into the soil profile for moisture and their decay increases the organic matter where they grew.

John Aeschliman of Washington state was impressed with Terry's soil cores and commented to me, wouldn't it be neat if we all brought a soil core from our farm to the conference? I agreed and wrote the idea down and gave it to the notill staff to consider for next year. We can bring them whether they adopt the idea or not but it is a good one.

I could bring in my best soil and a troublesome one I am working with to discuss. Terry was able to pull cores the week of the conference which was very unusual. We would have to time it before a heavy freeze sometime this fall. It is easier if you have a soil opened up to repair tile or just dig up the soil profile for easier coring. I think Terry just pounded a long 3 inch PVC pipe into the ground to get his cores but I will get more information on that.

One farmer asked me why all the interest in soil profiles and how each soil was formed and I said as we learn more about improving yields we have to get down to the core of it! Soil cores can help us see what we have and what we need to do to improve them.

I have a reply the last two days I can't read. Can anyone else read them and send them to me? Blogspot locks up when I click on those two comments.

Thanks,

Ed

Goss's Wilt

2012-01-15T10:14:00.000-08:00

A bacterial wilt named Goss's Wilt cost many US corn farmers 75 to 125 bushels per acre last year. My friend Amy Bandy, a scout from Iowa City gave a presentation about her findings near the Ballpark at St. Louis yesterday.

The first thing she said is what I have been saying all along- WALK YOUR FIELDS weekly! Those that didn't had those huge losses per acre. We had 500 bushel potential in the bag, as soon as we opened the bag we probably were looking at 300 bushels. I can tell you some local farmers achieved that this trying year and many came close, just look at the National Corn Growers results to verify!

She showed fields where farmers lost the first 25 bushels or more by not applying a little liquid food grade phosphorous right on the seed. When you maximize zein protein early, you maximize the number of kernels around on the cob. The 270 bushel fields I walked had maximum girth and all the other fields were a little smaller in diameter.

There are two major differences in seed corn genetics:
1. Vitreous protein corn is more orange, pearly shaped endosperm and kernels with more zein protein and found in the workhorse hybrids you can plant thick. They need more nitrogen early.

2. Floury endosperm corn is found in the pink cobbed race horse hybrids that have a lot of flex but more protein and less test weight and usually much lighter in color and weight. These corns are 15% more digestible so animal farmers like them.

The floury endosperm corn found in the race horse hybrids appears more susceptible to bacterial wilts like Goss's and the pearly kernaled, pearly endosperm corn found in work horse hybrids appears less susceptible.

The next advantage goes to notill. Microbes are happy at a soil temperature of 68 to 78 degrees Fahrenheit and leave the premises when temps get higher. This is when Clavorbacter Nebraskanis or Goss's Wilt takes over. It is a slimy bacteria, not a big healthy robust looking fungi. Trying to protect your crop with a fungicide can open the cells up to invasions by these slimy fungi.

Keith Schlapkohl and Jeff Littrell went on a country wide tour of the corn belt and found pink leaves from sick corn every where they went. The bacteria is now everywhere across the area where corn is grown and future farmers meet. It invaded the seed corn inbreds so hard it is now in our SEED!

So some of us will be planting this dreaded bacteria right into our fields this spring. What we can do now is walk our fields weekly and when we find that second ear dying, look for why it is and if we have Goss's Wilt apply:

2 gallons of 21-1-0 per acre with
1 quart of 42 PHI copper
6 ounces of Safe Strike
2 ounces of Procidic(citric acid) some insecticide e.g. half rate Warrior
1 quart of Defender G4

This is what they used to halt Goss's Wilt last year. It worked pretty good. Never heard of it? Contact BRT Ag.

There is a meeting at Sauder Village early Thursday morning near Archbold, Ohio if any of you are interested.

Ed

Master of Manure

2012-01-14T16:23:00.000-08:00

I was appointed Master of Manure this week. No one else would take the job. Too many people thought I was most qualified! You know BS, MS, and Piled Higher and Deeper? I halted my professional educational program before the piled higher and deeper!

I couldn't wait to apply my education and make more money. I did my master's while teaching and I learned more that way than just studying for my baccalaureate.

Seriously, I moderated the manure round table today and I got the group thinking about green manure versus animal manure. We talked about the differences in manure and how it is a rare commodity now in many states like Ohio. When I was a young boy on the farm, manure was our most important fertilizer and when we ran out of it, we planted green manures. Today they are known as cover crops.

Cover crops were big at the conference, everyone was talking about them. Terry Taylor brought in soil cores from his tight southern Illinois soils and the change in them with notill and cover crops for many years were dramatic. It caught a lot of attention. The young farmers don't understand that is all some of us old timers had when we were little.

I made a decision on the way home after thinking and talking to many smart people. I have known it for some time but I have decided to try and never plant a genetically modified seed on my farm again. The risk is just too great. I should have known when my tissue tests were low in micronutrients that glyphosate was chelating the minerals in my soil. It took me a few years to figure it out because I have been almost 100% non GMO since we moved here.

I have been boning up on my other chemistry's to control my weeds with other chemicals and cover crops.

I think that will work much better in the long run.

Then I won't have to be Master of Manure. My radishes in growing soybeans did catch some attention though.

Ed

The Power of Radish and Rye

2012-01-13T07:16:00.000-08:00

Did I scare you with yesterday's blog? If I didn't, you better go back and read it again. I quoted what I heard and I don't deny the evidence. It is pretty scary. If I believed it I would never use glyphosate or plant genetically modified seed again.

Several more farmers have asked my opinion on the subject since I wrote that blog. It's amazing to me how many of you are following the convention through my eyes and ears. I had over 100 page views overnight from Wednesday's blog and more since.

Last night we heard a good talk by Mike Plumer from Illinois. I have quoted him in past blogs over the years. He showed how he has changed his southern Illinois soils so much that they don't meet the original soil classifications! A soil scientist friend of his told Mike after studying lots of root and soil pits "I am not going to reclassify all these soils you have screwed up!"

I thought that was a pretty good line. That is the power of notill and cover crops. If you can figure out how to make a living while developing your system you can very much leave your soil better than you found it. I know I am doing that after only 2-8 years on the fields we own and farm.

Mike's friend Terry Taylor just showed how he is doing that on his farm, Jeff Martin is showing how they strip till continuous corn on the flat black Illinois soils south of Decatur and Bob Yanda is doing a great job on soil biology and how amendments affect it. I see why I like high calcium lime, AMS, trychaderma, and inoculants.

Fred Yanda of Midwest Biologicals gave a really good presentation of how plants and soils work chemically and biological and how certain biologicals fit in to give a good return on investment. The biggest advancement has been in the new strains of soybean inoculants that compete for a site on the root to survive and in the process of doing so, make more nitrogen that increases nutrient uptake, health, and yield.

There are 336 first time attendees at the conference and I almost feel sorry for them. You almost have to have attended past conferences or be an experienced notiller to understand the implications of the presentations of the varied subjects.

The crowd is near 900 farmers and others who work with farmers and the hotel is maxxed out. As one farmer said, "I don't know what we would do if 200 more showed up."

Ed

Healthy Soils

2012-01-12T18:08:00.000-08:00

Day 2 of the National NoTill Conference started with the annual Syngenta breakfast early this morning. The panel of Syngenta reps talked about their products and answered questions from resistant corn borers and root worms to resistant weed strategies.

Ray Archuleta of NRCS in North Carolina started the morning off with a bang talking about soil health and cover crop diversity. He gave demonstrations of long term notill soils, vegetable production soils and and conventional tillage soils reacted to water.

The vegetable soil failed the first test quickly with the entire cylinder of water turning red after a clump of dried soil was dropped into it. The conventional tillage soil from Indiana fell apart next but the long term notill soil held together and the water stayed clear in the cylinder.

Ray did a good job of holding the audience's attention while showing the advantages of healthy soil and how to do it with notill and cover crops. The session made me want to never till again. It reaffirmed my belief in notill and "keep the soil covered."

After lunch Dr. Don Huber demonstrated "the signals that show a need to use glyphosate more judiciously." The showed how the strong chelation of glyphosate and glufosinate tie up Boron, Calcium, Cobalt, Copper, Iron, Potassium, Magnesium, Manganee, Nickel and Zinc.

Stauffer Chemical introduced it as cleaner in 1964 and Monsanto licensed it as a herbicide in 1974. Check my dates on that. The higher the pH and clay content of soil the more absorption soil holds glyphosate. Glyphosate desorbs Phosphorous causing more problems. "Glyphosate has become the most abused chemical in history."

Goss's Wilt is tied to GM corn and glyphsate in the soil and cost US farmers one billion dollars last year, according to Dr. Huber. Take-all disease in cereals and head scab adds millions of dollars of loss.

Farmers are noting "my crop is not as vigorous as it used to be." As minerals are chelated, diseases increase, plant color, yield and quality goes down. I have mentioned here many times the sick look of soybeans after applications of glyphosate. It's getting national and world attention now as farmers and scientists tackle these problems.

Abnormalities in animals and humans are showing up. Many pictures of diseased organs were showed on the screen. Autism has increased 800% since 2002 and colonoscopies show malfunctioning organs and tissues. Soybean milk has been substituted for mammal milk and they come from GM soybeans so allergies and disease don't improve. Botulism is increasing in dairy herds. Seedsman note that rats and mice eat the non GMO corn seed first and leave the GM corn alone.

By this time the room is dead silent. My friend Jeff from Minnesota has heard Dr. Huber 27 times and he said every meeting was the same. Farmers are speechless.

So farmers come to me and ask me what I think. I tell them I can't dispute the evidence he shows and that I didn't spray glyphosate this year. That is simply because it doesn't control my weeds anymore. I also explain we have used just enough glyphosate with other chemistry's in crop rotation to not fully see these problems in our farms or families yet. But the evidence is mounting and every farmer has to make his own decision.

This goes along well with the 100 or so surveys I have had farmers complete this winter. Only 2 farmers have told me they don't have resistance on their farm yet but they are concerned about it because the neighbors do. Both farmers have been extreme in their spray programs in crop rotations. The other 98 farmers admitted they have resistance on their farm.

Ken Ferrie said in Farm Jounal "if you have weed resistance on your farm, your farm is not safe! Appoint a pesticide boss in charge of overseeing the scouting, spraying and evaluating of your pesticide program. I think that makes great sense.

Soil health and lack of it has dominated the conversation at this conference. We lightened up awhile ago and talked about how the Iowa Caucuses work and which candidates were most supported. It was a great discussion.

We are not even half finished yet and my brain is approaching overload. So much to think about. It's a great conference and I am among friends.

Ed

NNTC

2012-01-11T20:42:00.000-08:00

I drove through rain most of the morning to get to St. Louis. Traffic was highest around Cincinnati and other than that it wasn't too bad. Downtown St. Louis was rather empty at noon.

OnStar didn't recognize the Hilton at the Ball Park so it took me to one two blocks down the street. When I tried to get my room, they had no reservation so we figured out I was at the wrong hotel. I called OnStar back to make sure they don't route other attendees that way.

A farmer from North Dakota explained how cover crops saved his farm after 4 years of no crop in the 90's. He said God through Mother Nature made him completely change the way he farmed to survive. He showed more diversity of crop mixes than anyone I have ever listened to and he took Dr. Dwayne Beck's comments to the max or past it! He grew corn for $1.10 per bushel this year so it was quite impressive.

Warren Dick then spoke an hour on gypsum, reciting many of the things I have been teaching the past 11 years but he explained some chemically I had not heard. A ton of gypsum for a couple of years will really improve almost every farm I know of before we back off the rate because we won't need as much. He proved to me why it works.

Then the Australian NoTillBill (Twitter) Crabtree showed what he had learned around the world. He bought 4,000 acres of unproductive land for $100 an acre to prove what he had learned. He had very good wheat crops this year on hardly any rain.

The AgTalk crowd met at a nearby restaurant for dinner. I met Laurent Lorre from France and a group of Ontario farmers asked if they could tour our farms this summer. We had a lively group with lively conversation. Check out was a bit of hassle for host Adam Lemler when they brought the $500 bill and he thought they were billing each of us separately! They turned to me for help and I said NO, it was not my deal as I am not good at collecting money and I know I would have gotten stuck with part of the tab. It all worked out for the good.

Dr. Lloyd Murdock talked about forms of nitrogen in his University of Kentucky plots. It was quite interesting. I know not to use the cheapest form of nitrogen this year, urea, without imcorporating it or getting a rain in 48 hours. The third day bad things start to happen.

A fellow from Kansas went over proper phosphorous use as it is a big topic across the country. The following speaker, Joe Nester, showed how green Lake Erie was December 11 and it was worse January 4 last week. The lake will support a can of beer in some places! Divers found algae 65 feet deep!

Joe did a really good job explaining the need for soil testing but how we can totally miss the boat using it. He had me laughing on the reasons why VRT do not work. I have to get his big points and share them here. They are really good.

It's bedtime so I will sign off and report back tomorrow. We have the annual Syngenta breakfast first thing in the morning and then a very full day of discussions.

Ed

Western Ohio Agronomy Day

2012-01-10T07:24:00.001-08:00

I attended the Western Ohio Agronomy Day yesterday in Ft. Loramie, Ohio, a little town on the west side of Shelby County. The place was packed and it was good to see some of my old friends in the large attendance.

The topics varied from soil microbes to resistant weeds to crop insects. The presentations were good and they were timely. I really didn't learn a thing I didn't already know but I got my attention focused to a few important things.

Probably the simplest but one of the most important topics was about the qualities of our spray water. I didn't care for Dr. Whitford's teaching style, but he sure had good information. He was in your face, calling you out to answer questions which I found quite annoying but it did keep people attentive.

The answer is most pesticides work best in a pH of 4-7 and most water is 7-9. It pays to acidify your water, which I do. The exception is DuPont herbicides in the sulfonylurea class that work best in high pH's, just like the herbicide does in the soil. In fact the better your soil pH is for growing crops, the longer those herbicides last in your soil. Carryover becomes a concern.

I've shared more about weed resistance on these blogs than you would have learned yesterday but the message is timely, it is good, and it is important. More farms are having more resistant weeds each year. That is except for one, I met my first farmer who could truthfully say he doesn't have any resistant weeds on his farm! He is also one of the best consultants in the state and practices what he preaches. He sprays winter, spring, summer and fall. He has no weeds!

Corn borers and rootworms resistant to genetic events were discussed so that VT3 you have been planting may also need a complete soil insecticide just as if you were growing non GMO or conventional corn 20 years ago. Nature adapts quickly. Like my friend with no weeds I have no need for GM corn because I have none of these bugs, I rotate my crops in an area most farmers do the same thing.

The meeting was held at a beautiful Catholic Church and those are prominent in Western Ohio. It was almost too nice to be indoors but it was a good meeting.

Ed

Misconceptions

2012-01-10T04:26:00.000-08:00

Grow posted this article on misconceptions by U.S. citizens in the Boiler Room where political debate runs wild. Since I saw that I have been guilty of saying these misconceptions, I thought I would post them here.

"3 misconceptions that need to die.

Morgan Housel, Motley Fool, 25 October 2011

At a conference in Philadelphia earlier this month, a Wharton professor noted that one of the country's biggest economic problems is a tsunami of misinformation.

Here are three misconceptions that need to be put to rest.

Misconception:
Most of what Americans spend their money on is made in China.

Fact:
Just 2.7% of personal consumption expenditures go to Chinese-made goods and services.
88.5% of U.S. consumer spending is on American-made goods and services.

I used that statistic in an article last week, and the response from readers was overwhelming: Hogwash. People just didn't believe it. The figure comes from a Federal Reserve report.

Misconception:
We owe most of our debt to China

Fact: China owns 7.8% of U.S. government debt outstanding.

As of August, China owned $1.14 trillion of Treasuries. Government debt stood at $14.6 trillion that month. That's 7.8%.

Who owns the rest? The largest holder of U.S. debt is the federal government itself. Various government trust funds like the Social Security trust fund own about $4.4 trillion.

Misconception:
We get most of our oil from the Middle East

Fact:
Just 9.2% of oil consumed in the U.S. comes from the Middle East.

According the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the U.S. consumes 19.2 million barrels of petroleum products per day. Of that amount, a net 49% is produced domestically. The rest is imported."

So most of us are guilty of over emphasizing and exaggerating our economic situation. It's good to have the facts so we can work on what to do about them.

Which candidate follows your beliefs more closely? Take this survey, the answers are revealing but I must admit I didn't know which of the answers is best for the country as they are very detailed and when you choose one, it closely aligns your position with the stated position of a candidate.

Can anyone guess which candidate's platform aligned with Ed's quick answers to the survey? I don't support the one it chose and the one I have agreed with most lately came in third.

Ed

Technology

2012-01-09T03:25:00.000-08:00

It's getting challenging keeping up with all this technology. I accidentally ran my cell phone through the washer yesterday. Why does that always happen when you need it most? A trip to the Verizon store ended up with an early birthday present of a Droid Xyboard tablet, our first tablet sized computer.

After using the kids Ipads and other devices, it seemed like a logical next move. It is even faster than the Droid smart phone LuAnn uses and every other device we own.

I tried to compare the Kindle Fire to the IPad2 to the new Droid before Christmas. I just couldn't "wrap my head around" the differences between the three. I am glad I waited until she could use it and ask questions before I purchased it.

I was impressed with the young man at Verizon. I mentioned what Dustin had showed me and when the sale was ready to be completed, he handed it over to Dustin to get the credit for the sale. I was very impressed. I would want that young man on my team, he definitely showed he is a team player.

I asked about the IPad 3 and it looks like the 2 will come down $100 when the 3 is released. I figured it couldn't be that much better than new Droid and the Droid will always have features the Apple doesn't and vice versa.

The worst thing is another $30 a month to connect to the G3 or G4 network, it works on both. It has it's own separate phone number so with the house and the OnStar, that's 4 phone numbers between us. You have to wonder if that's too much technology but we use them all.

I really could justify a dedicated line for the fax machine as much as I have been using it but that will go down soon. I haven't went to a smart phone yet, I can barely keep up with what I have. I am a sit down and think keyboard person morning or night and don't want to do that during the day. The cell phone is aggravation enough.

Ed

Radio

2012-01-08T10:19:00.000-08:00

This is a good piece to share on a quiet Sunday afternoon. Enjoy!

CAR RADIO, AN INTERESTING TRUE QUINCY STORY

CAR TUNES
Radios are so much a part of the driving experience, it seems like cars have always had them. But they didn’t. Here’s the story.

SUNDOWN
One evening in 1929 two young men named William Lear and Elmer Wavering drove their girlfriends to a lookout point high above the
Mississippi River town of Quincy, Illinois, to watch the sunset. It was a romantic night to be sure, but one of the women observed that it would be even nicer if they could listen to music in the car.

Lear and Wavering liked the idea. Both men had tinkered with radios – Lear had served as a radio operator in the U. S. Navy during World War I – and it wasn’t long before they were taking apart a home radio and trying to get it to work in a car. But it wasn’t as easy as it sounds: automobiles have ignition switches, generators, spark plugs, and other electrical equipment that generate noisy static interference, making it nearly impossible to listen to the radio when the engine was running.

SIGNING ON
One by one, Lear and Wavering identified and eliminated each source of electrical interference. When they finally got their radio to work, they took it to a radio convention in Chicago . There they met Paul Galvin, owner of Galvin Manufacturing Corporation. He made a product called a “battery eliminator” a device that allowed battery-powered radios to run on household AC current. But as more homes were wired for electricity, more radio manufacturers made AC-powered radios. Galvin needed a new product to manufacture. When he met Lear and Wavering at the radio convention, he found it. He believed that mass-produced, affordable car radios had the potential to become a huge business.

Lear and Wavering set up shop in Galvin’s factory, and when they perfected their first radio, they installed it in his Studebaker. Then Galvin went to a local banker to apply for a loan. Thinking it might sweeten the deal, he had his men install a radio in the banker’s Packard. Good idea, but it didn’t work – half an hour after the installation, the banker’s Packard caught on fire. (They didn’t get the loan.) Galvin didn’t give up. He drove his Studebaker nearly 800 miles to Atlantic City to show off the radio at the 1930 Radio Manufacturers Association convention. Too broke to afford a booth, he parked the car outside the convention hall and cranked up the radio so that passing conventioneers could hear it. That idea worked – he got enough orders to put the radio into production.

WHAT’S IN A NAME
That first production model was called the 5T71. Galvin decided he needed to come up with something a little catchier. In those days many companies in the phonograph and radio businesses used the suffix “ola” for their names – Radiola, Columbiola, and Victrola were three of the biggest. Galvin decided to do the same thing, and since his radio was intended for use in a motor vehicle, he decided to call it the Motorola.

But even with the name change, the radio still had problems:
When Motorola went on sale in 1930, it cost about $110 uninstalled, at a time when you could buy a brand-new car for $650, and the country was sliding into the Great Depression. (By that measure, a radio for a new car would cost about $3,000 today.) In 1930 it took two men several days to put in a car radio – the dashboard had to be taken apart so that the receiver and a single speaker could be installed, and the ceiling had to be cut open to install the antenna. These early radios ran on their own batteries, not on the car battery, so holes had to be cut into the floorboard to accommodate them. The installation manual had eight complete diagrams and 28 pages of instructions.

HIT THE ROAD
Selling complicated car radios that cost 20 percent of the price of a brand-new car wouldn’t have been easy in the best of times, let alone during the Great Depression – Galvin lost money in 1930 and struggled for a couple of years after that. But things picked up in 1933 when Ford began offering Motorola's pre-installed at the factory. In 1934 they got another boost when Galvin struck a deal with B. F. Goodrich tire company to sell and install them in its chain of tire stores. By then the price of the radio, installation included, had dropped to $55. The Motorola car radio was off and running. (The name of the company would be officially changed from Galvin Manufacturing to “Motorola” in 1947.) In the meantime, Galvin continued to develop new uses for car radios. In 1936, the same year that it introduced push-button tuning, it also introduced the Motorola Police Cruiser, a standard car radio that was factory preset to a single frequency to pick up police broadcasts. In 1940 he developed with the first handheld two-way radio – the Handie-Talkie – for the U. S. Army.

A lot of the communications technologies that we take for granted today were born in Motorola labs in the years that followed World War II. In 1947 they came out with the first television to sell under $200. In 1956 the company introduced the world’s first pager; in 1969 it supplied the radio and television equipment that was used to televise Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the Moon. In 1973 it invented the world’s first handheld cellular phone. Today Motorola is one of the second-largest cell phone manufacturer in the world. And it all started with the car radio.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO….
The two men who installed the first radio in Paul Galvin’s car, Elmer Wavering and William Lear, ended up taking very different paths in life. Wavering stayed with Motorola. In the 1950’s he helped change the automobile experience again when he developed the first automotive alternator, replacing inefficient and unreliable generators. The invention lead to such luxuries as power windows, power seats, and, eventually, air-conditioning.

Lear also continued inventing. He holds more than 150 patents. Remember eight-track tape players? Lear invented that. But what he’s really famous for are his contributions to the field of aviation. He invented radio direction finders for planes, aided in the invention of the autopilot, designed the first fully automatic aircraft landing system, and in 1963 introduced his most famous invention of all, the Lear Jet, the world’s first mass-produced, affordable business jet. (Not bad for a guy who dropped out of school after the eighth grade.)

Some of us have been fortunate to have met both of these gentlemen and they were - gentlemen."

"It is time for everyone to accept responsibility for their own actions and stop waiting for someone else to take the blame & come to your rescue!"

Ed Winkle

Liberty

2012-01-08T03:15:00.000-08:00

Someone at Bayer threw a kink into our Liberty Link plans this week.

"January 04, 2012 15:45 ET

Bayer CropScience Announces Liberty Herbicide to Replace Ignite Herbicide for LibertyLink Crops

ORLANDO, FL--(Marketwire - Jan 4, 2012) - Bayer CropScience announced today during a media briefing at the 2012 Beltwide Cotton Conferences (#BWCC12) that the global brand Liberty® herbicide will replace the Ignite® herbicide brand for use on LibertyLink® crops in the U.S. market starting in the 2012 crop season.

"Globally, the use of the LibertyLink system is experiencing rapid adoption due to growing weed resistance to glyphosate and the excellent germplasm performance, which in turn is increasing the demand for a non-selective herbicide," said Al Luke, head of broad acre crop marketing for Bayer CropScience. "Bayer is investing to increase the global production of Liberty herbicide and help ensure adequate supplies, especially in the rapidly expanding U.S. market."

Weed resistance is a growing problem and the LibertyLink system with Liberty herbicide is the most reliable and powerful in-crop or non-selective weed management solution available to battle glyphosate-resistant weeds. Using the LibertyLink system allows for the rotation of crops, traits and herbicides to preserve the utility of herbicide-tolerant technology.

"Liberty herbicide still offers the same benefits and levels of performance as the former Ignite herbicide, including the new 65 ounce seasonal maximum for soybeans," Luke said. "And Liberty herbicide should be applied according to label directions. Liberty herbicide is the most reliable and powerful in-crop weed management solution available to battle glyphosate-resistant weeds."

Luke added, "In addition, the change of the brand name to Liberty will focus and more closely link the herbicide with LibertyLink crops, including FiberMax and Stoneville cotton, InVigor canola and many corn and soybean brands."

For additional information and background on weed resistance issues, please visit the Bayer CropScience YouTube channel and Twitter handle. To learn more about Bayer CropScience, visit www.bayercropscience.us or contact your local sales representative for product information.

About Bayer CropScience
Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the fields of health care, nutrition and high-tech materials. Bayer CropScience, a subgroup of Bayer AG with annual sales of EUR 6.830 billion (2010), is one of the world's leading innovative crop science companies in the areas of crop protection, non-agricultural pest control, seeds and traits. The company offers an outstanding range of products and extensive service backup for modern, sustainable agriculture and for non-agricultural applications. Bayer CropScience has a global workforce of 20,700 and is represented in more than 120 countries. This and further news is available at: www.press.bayercropscience.com.

This left lots of farmers and dealers sratching their heads this week. We are awaiting more information as many farmers have their Liberty Link seed bought but do not have their Ignite purchased to apply on these resistant seeds.

Ed

Grain

2012-01-07T06:03:00.000-08:00

My friend Harlan Payne in Southern Illinois posted a good question I found out about yesterday. He asks why grain buyers are offering PL contracts now? By PL he means price later as for example, Delayed Price where the farmer gives up ownership of the grain by moving it and pricing it later in hopes of higher prices.

There are other forms of PL like various forms of hedge contracts or receiving 70% of the price today by delivering the grain and pricing from the board of trade later. It gets very complicated very quickly.

I responded "CGB(Consolidated Grain and Barge) has free DP through March, many took basis contracts this week as the flow of grain was steady down SR 28 to the river.

With all the bin building and moving and repairing, more grain is in farmers hands than ever. That alone has changed in the 8 years I have been here.

"Lots of hot bins already" with the warm temps and fall harvest conditions from southern Illinois clear through the east. Our corn hasn't dried much as the fans run continuously and we watch and smell and keep moving it out on price rises or as we have time to truck it. The price is strong enough to keep selling a little at a time.

The buyers do whatever they can and need to do to keep grain moving and flowing. That is the system.

This sounds like symptoms of a shorter crop than demand or at least a location problem. It's on farms if it is there at all. We have two bins empty and that is early for us this time of the year but it is a different year and we sold more grain than ever for fall delivery. We simply had enough to fill the bins too. We would have made more money if they were all empty and we had sold it all but that didn't happen here.

I was thinking this week my little 60,000 bu set up has moved over a half million bushels of grain in the 8 years we have been here. Probably half beans, half corn over those years, maybe a little more corn. But if average price was $4 on corn and $8 on beans, think of how much money flowed through one little farm in 8 years.

It astounds me.

Another farmer posted that Bayer is changing the formulation of Ignite back to Liberty and raising the price of it. That through several farmers in a tizzy real quickly.

I will post more about that as it becomes news as it impacts me and a lot of farmers using Ignite and/or the Liberty Link seed system.

Ed

NNTC

2012-01-06T05:08:00.000-08:00

NNTC stand for the National NoTillage Conference. The conference is held the second week of January each year at Cincinnati, Des Moines or this year, St. Louis. It draws nearly 1000 farmers who represent some of the most innovative notill farms in America, Canada and other countries.

I accidentally found it in the 90's when it was in St. Louis and I was in town for another conference. It was love at first sight. A few years later, I was nominated as a NoTill Innovator of the year and accepted the award in Des Moines with men more notable than me, like Jon Kinzenbaw, found of famous Kinze Manufacturing.

It's a great conference because it lets me "rub shoulders" with people who forgot more than I will ever know. Many of the them have not missed a conference in 20 years and hundreds have been in attendance 10 years or more like myself.

I now serve on their board and work hard at nominating the best, most thought provoking speakers I and my friends can find. We try to make the conference better each year with really timely topics and information you can't find anywhere else. We have been very successful at doing this as each conference feeds on the last one.

I can highly recommend almost every speaker this year and that in itself is quite an accomplishment. This year a young lady who scouts fields in Iowa and whom I respect will speak on the nemesis of 2011, Goss's Wilt. Goss's Wilt caused billions of dollars of income loss due to sick corn across the midwest.

I really harped on getting more on this topic of "what glyphosate does to soils" and the conference was able to get Dr. Don Huber, Professor Emeritus from Purdue share his reasearch on the subject. I have friends who will not spray glyphosate on their farm and I have seen contracts where Round Up Ready systems are not allowed to be used on rented farms. Right or wrong, it is that serious.

These topics will help farmers get to the crux of the matter. LuAnn asked who of your buddies will be there? I drew a blank and couldn't name names. They are ALL my buddies! NNTC is truly family.

You can learn more there next week than any place I know of so if you are not super busy, you ought to make the effort to come visit. But be prepared, your brain will hurt after all the discussion!

Ed Winkle

1967

2012-01-05T04:20:00.000-08:00

A fellow posted corn seed prices of $2.50 for DeKalb hybrid corn seed and about the same for soybean prices received from 1967 on Crop Talk. I thought that would be a decent topic today.

I was in the 11th grade, going to be a senior at Eastern Brown. The Viet Nam War was escalating and I would turn 18 late that year. Gas was pennies per gallon, not dollars and two dollars was a good wage for me. Farms were much smaller and we had over twice as many farmers back then.

All of the farms around here had livestock, now basically none of them do. Grain farming was only to feed your stock which was all of our farm income. We rarely sold grain or hay and had to buy them both in short years. We baled every stem we could find so we rarely ran short on hay. If you had more grain, you fed it, if you had more hay you fed that. Life and the economy were very different.

Livestock meant you stayed close to home and daily chores were mainstay. The 60's were hard on our farm with depressed prices and floods and droughts. We had two major floods in that decade that nearly wiped us out. Farming was no easier than today, it was a lot busier.

This morning I am waiting on two young college men near my age in 1967 to help clean out bin number 3. There is only Sable to feed so the chores center around grain, not livestock and they aren't as mandatory as caring for livestock. Livestock is life or death every day, grain farming is do it when the sun shines.

Two dollars won't pay for many minutes of work and soybeans are six times higher than we were back then. Gas is probably over ten times higher so it's hard to compare that year to today but we do have some numbers. I wonder how many of you were even born by 1967?

30 bushels per acre was probably a good yield for soybeans in 1967 so we have doubled that production but corn has over tripled in yield per acre. We plowed everything in 1967 and now we don't plow one bit except for maybe this garden we have built in a few years.

Lots of things have changed in 44 years. If I wanted to talk to you it would have been by letter and my communication was amateur radio back then. People were leaving the farm that year and now health care, education and agriculture are the three top fields to study for a career.

What goes around comes back around but it never comes back quite the same. I found a neat story but it is 1951, not 1967, but since I experienced both years, I used it for my picture today.

Things have surely changed.

Ed

Back To Land Prices

2012-01-04T04:33:00.000-08:00

Harry Smith was smart enough to see the big picture in Iowa last week. It wasn't the Iowa Caucus, it was Iowa land prices!

Click on the video even if you have watched it once or twice. It is a really good piece worth studying. It reflects the sentiment of the handful of farmers in this country who are healed and optimistic enough to bid these kind of crazy prices for farmland!

Just last week the local news was "Stertiz Farm Sells For $14 Million." Just think of the economic difference of farming Illinoian Glacial Till in Southern Ohio versus those prime prairie soils of Northern Iowa for 3, 4 and 5 times more investment per acre! It kinda blows my mind that ecnomically depressed Ohio farmland could be that much cheaper than Iowa farmland. The difference has never been any greater in my lifetime.

Our farmland in southern Ohio may be 10 times older, according to soil history, but the yields aren't 3, 4 or 5 times less. They probably can't double our yield in a ten year time frame so what gives? Is Iowa land really that much more valuable than Ohio land?

I don't think so. I think the family near Columbus who bought the Highland County farm is better off than the fellows who are paying these outrageous prices for Iowa farm ground, but who am I to judge?

It just so happens that Iowa farmers are in a position to bid these prices for farmland. I think people are realizing the value of land more than they ever have when everything else seems to turn to dust. It's ironic that "dirt" is now worth more than other assets that quickly turn to dust.

This is the news. Farmland is the bright focus in 2012 where we find the world population at six billion people and the US population at nearly 313 million. America is at the forefront of providing food and fiber for those booming populations and demand has never been greater.

It is an interesting time to be living, that is for sure!

Ed

Why Is Monsanto Viewed So Negatively?

2012-01-03T04:13:00.000-08:00

A scientist posted this question on Crop Talk this morning. I haven't met the gentleman but hope to next month.

Why is Monsanto viewed so negatively? I think it is because how they brought genetically modified seed to the marketplace. I don't see any other way they could have done it, either.

They were able to convince our government to change the PVPA or Plant Variety Protection Act by making genetically modified seed intellectual property and retaining all rights to the germplasm with royalties and penalties for use and misuse of the seed.

This changed the old practice of farmers saving their own seed. This not saving seed had already happened naturally in hybrid corn for 60 years or more but this amendment keeps farmers from saving their own soybean, wheat and other varietal seed.

Farmers are not going to breed their own hybrid corn but they could have kept their own genetically modified soybean without this amendment. This totally changed the seed markets and Monsanto put up the money to enforce these new laws.

The fear of "Pinkerton's" on farms and in seed houses became rampant as Monsanto prosecuted one lead after another of farmers and seedsmen who didn't get the message. More fear ran across the barnyard than across tree hugger's dinner plates who screamed GM food is Frankenfood.

Almost 20 years later Monsanto has the US and some world seed business locked up and the farmer pays a large tech fee for planting their genetially modified seed. All other seed companies had to take a stance and play the game too to get their royalties to stay in business.

bT corn and RR soybeans must work, don't they or why would farmers choose them over non genetically modified seed?

Monsanto has become a powerful life science company that has changed how we farm and what we eat. Some people are never going to agree how they did that.

Ed Winkle

Wisdom

2012-01-02T03:19:00.000-08:00

Wisdom is a rare gift and it seems to usually only come with years of experience. There have been some words of wisdom for crop farmers on the Crop Talk forum.

This thread on Profit per acre is one of them.

Here is what came to mind and how I responded:

"That varies greatly from farm to farm as I know families that make a good living on a few hundred acres and others that farm thousands of acres to make a living, all with with none to various enterprises of off farm income.

This gets at the crux of entrepreneurship and Return On Investment of figuring out how to make more on less and how to expand a profitable enterprise with profits and borrowed money. Borrowed money is the trick to make your labor more profitable per hour and per acre to pay off the loan with interest.

Corn ran away with profit per acre in my neighborhood this year as the farmers who gambled on planting it the first week of June, the first week we could plant in Ohio past the insurance planting date of June 5. Much of the corn around here made over 200 bushels per acre and some sold part of it for $7.00. I know one young farmer who sold 140 bu per acre at $7.11 and I encouraged him to go for it to build his profits from his first big year in farming. Now he has money to pay the bills and expand even more this year.

That's an exception to the rule this year but it did happen. Other sage old farmers planted soybeans and didn't control their resistant weeds and got 40 bushel soybeans and didn't sell them the day they were $14.22 a bushel, about the time that corn was worth $7.11. This is where knowledge and network ruled King and doing what worked in the past did not work well this year. I sold beans for $12 this week because I didn't sell enough at higher prices earlier so I was somewhere in the middle.

Cost of production varies greatly from ownerships, rents, and price shopping. You read tons of threads about that on here. It's easy to bend over and lose a dollar out of your pocket trying to pick up a hundred dollar bill, kinda like what grandpa taught dad and I.

Some pretty well healed farmers here had high dollar crop insurance and took PP on their corn and planted them to radishes and or peas. They are set to grow a profitable crop next year which starts tomorrow!

You ask a deep, thought provoking question that has taken me a life time to learn much about."

One has to be smart enough to recognize these gold nuggets when they appear. The message is that profit varies greatly from farmer to farmer and field to field. Farmers are lumped together as a group but how they farm and what they make varies so much it is really difficult to compare apples to apples.

Final corn yields here varied 100 bushels per acre. Soybean production varied at least 30 bushels per acre. Corn was sold at up to $3 per bushel difference and the same for soybeans. Multiply those out and you get huge swings in income per acre. All that matters to the farmer is the total gross income minus the total gross expense to calculate profit per acre.

As we close the books on 2011 and plan for 2012, we take the last few years trends to plan a program that will be profitable this year.

There are many little details in the plan but this is the wisest thing I can do today. My goal is to have a lot of fields looking like the picture about the end of June.

Ed

Good Bye 2011

2012-01-01T10:54:00.000-08:00

The field behind the house looks the same today as it did one year ago.

Some will say good riddance to 2011, it was a tumulutuous year in many ways. We watched our wheat die in the rains, couldn't care for it right and the yields proved it. We fought to plant corn and soybeans late, fought to get them sprayed timely and fought hard to get them harvested.

Many fields in Ohio are still not harvested and it is apparent some will never be. The last crop report I saw as Ohio was 82% harvested on corn, not a good place to be on January 1. Everyone wonders what the USDA Report will show January 12. I will be at the NoTill Conference and it seems like every year I have been there the market makes a gigantic move up or down around that date.

The weather man is calling for some cold temps this week but I am not sure it will freeze the ground enough to get machinery over it. I really doubt it but we all hope it will. He is also predicting these same weather patterns through March. I noticed today it is mild across the entire United States.

It was a challenging year personally. I had to stop a month and really work on my physical and spiritual condition. It has paid off well. I can't believe how much more consulting and farming I have been able to happily do since.

My health insurance kicked in and I haven't had to pay a doctor's bill since May because I paid all of my deductible and the insurance picked up the rest. It's not the way I would have chosen to do it all but it was there and it worked.

We added the ninth grandchild to our family and now are expecting our tenth. Those children have grown so much in a postitve manner this year it is really rewarding to watch and participate every chance we get.

We were sound asleep at midnight when some neighbors decided to shoot up the neighborhood. I don't know if they were using AK-47's or not but it sounded like someone knocking on the door which woke Sable up and she started barking which woke us up and we said Happy New Year to each other. I told Sable, good job, it is OK, you can go back to sleep and she did.

We did too. Happy New Year, everyone, we wish the best for all.

Ed and LuAnn

Epiphany

2011-12-31T04:50:00.001-08:00

LuAnn would agree this has been the best and most meaningful Christmas in our lives. We haven't been too distracted by all the shopping days and commercialization of Christmas to live the true meaning of Christmas this year.

Christmas has been more of an Epiphany for us this season as we have worked hard at our spiritual program all year. The dividends have been great.

It started during Lent and has carried over through today! I never made a post or answered an email for the month of April. I never read the Internet that month. Our Christmas tree is still up and I am enjoying today as another day of Christmas even though it is the last tax day for 2011.

"Epiphany, (Koine Greek: ἐπιφάνεια, epiphaneia, "manifestation", "striking appearance"[1]) or Theophany, (Ancient Greek (ἡ) Θεοφάνεια, Τheophaneia) meaning "vision of God",[2] which falls on January 6, is a Christian feast day that celebrates the revelation of God the Son as a human being in Jesus Christ. Western Christians commemorate principally (but not solely) the visitation of the Biblical Magi to the Baby Jesus, and thus Jesus' physical manifestation to the Gentiles. Eastern Christians commemorate the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River, seen as his manifestation to the world as the Son of God.[3]

Eastern Churches following the Julian Calendar observe the Theophany feast on January 19[4] because of the 13-day difference today between that calendar and the generally used Gregorian calendar.[5] For Roman Catholics in many countries, the feast is celebrated on the Sunday that falls between January 2 and January 8.[6][7]

Alternative names for the feast include (τα) Θεοφάνια, Theophany as neuter plural rather than feminine singular, η Ημέρα των Φώτων, i Imera ton Foton (modern Greek pronuntiation), he hemera ton photon (restituted classic pronuntiation), "The Day of the Lights", and τα Φώτα, ta Fota, "The Lights".

We think the whole country would be in better moral shape if we all just tried to integrate more of this thinking into our daily lives. We are not alone in this and it has been a revitalization of our spiritual lives into our daily lives this year.

I hope this year has been more like that for you this year, too but we can start on next year today!

Ed

Local Farm Sells For $14 Million

2011-12-30T03:41:00.000-08:00

The headline news in the county to the south and east of us today is "Local Farm Sells for $14Million. That's big news in Highland County or just about anywhere around here.

I got to know the Steritz family as a young man. The Steritz boys all farmed but David grew the largest farm operation in the region which brought a lot of notarity. The farm lays just south of Lynchburg, Ohio and west of Hillsboro on mostly glacial till of the Illinoian period or what we call crawldad ground.

He was the first I know to use a dozer to pull large homemade tillage tools 40 years ago. Around 12 years ago he wanted a larger farm and traded it for around 10,000 acre on the Mississipi in Arkansas. I have never seen them since and not visited the new farm but others here have. I still buy seed and scout fields on a brother's farm nearby so I get updated now and then.

The firm that made the trade out of West Lafayette, Indiana leased the farm to the Stahl Family in Clermont County. I taught some of the Stahl children and their cousins when I finished my career at Clermont Northeastern.

Names on deeds and who farms the land has really changed here the last 10 years as the last generation passes on to the next. If a large farmer dies and doesn't have a plan for his children or workers to keep farming the operation, the non-farming heirs often turn the asset into cash for other uses.

The recent land price explosion has fueled that to some extent and this farm may seem cheap to you compared to the $20,000 per acre record for 80 acres in Iowa but this isn't Iowa and that is one big chunk of cash. It is rare to read details of the financing like this article but the writer went to the courthouse and looked up public record and reported it.

Many years 30 bushel soybean and 100 bushel corn was all that farm produced but I am sure it has broken 200 bushel corn and 50 bushel beans at the hands of the Stahl's in better years. Yields have steadily risen 40 years with the accepted "bumps in the road." That farm is not all tillable, either and there used to be some pretty rough reclaimed fields on it.

"Somebody farmed it before they got there and somebody is farming it when their gone." The circle of life and farming keeps revolving.

Ed

Seed

2011-12-29T03:09:00.000-08:00

It's that time of the year to close the books on 2011 and get my seed ordered. I deal with several local companies that take good care of my needs.

Doing a little shopping, I went to the Seed Consultants Chemical Days. It is held in the sales room above the main office and there were three sales agronomists sitting there with their computers and prices and they go over your seed and chemical needs and questions.

I found out the same of what I have been hearing in the industry. Their top GMO hybrids are pretty much sold out. They had plenty of one main number but not the 3-5 diverse genetics I would like for my farm. They said that the popular 115 day hybrid was sold out and it was their highest yielder. They had two entries of that seed make the NCGA Contest Finals.

I saw the first chemical price sheet I have seen all winter. Looks like chemical prices from a wholesale-retailer was about 5 percent above last year. 4 pound glyphosate was $9.46 a gallon and 5 pound equivalent was $11.46. I also got a copy of the first inoculant prices I have seen this year and they were also up a little.

They are offering ABM Excalibre and Sabrex, Vault and Optimize, the major products in the inoculant industry. You can have them put on your seed with your Bayer or Syngenta chemical fungicide and/or insecticide products of Poncho or Cruiser packages or split them up. There are so many options today we didn't have three years ago.

My trucker didn't get my load of beans to Cincinnati Tuesday morning. I found out he had lost his wallet at WalMart Monday night and it had all his driving licenses and permits in it. I said let's pray to Saint Anthony to get help to find them becaue it works for me and I usually find the lost article in an hour. We said our prayer and amens and within 30 minuts WalMart called him, they had found his billfold!

I woke up this morning smiling, giving thanks for another day. I trust this will be a good one for you and I as we wrap up the last days of 2011.

What a year!

Ed Winkle

Garden Seed

2011-12-28T04:21:00.001-08:00

The J. W. Jung seed catalog came last night and I was looking it over. That is only the second catalog we have received since we haven't been buying a lot of seed from catalogs lately, we have been buying local like Grant's Farm or Steve Boehm's Good Seed Farm in Adams County.

Their note on genetically modified seed caught my attention. "Our company does not agree with the use of genetic engineering solely for economic gain, be we are concerned about the overuse of pesticides in the battle to feed the ever increasing populations of the world. Though we are not certain any genetically engineered products pose a health risk, we believe that more testing needs to be done, especially where food allergies could be a concern. To our knowledge, none of our products have been developed through the mechanical transfer of genetic material between genera, families or kingdoms. We will continue to look at each potential new item on a case by case basis and can assure that we would not add any product to our catalog which we did not consider safe. As always, we will strive to supply what we consider the best varieties and we will encourage our customers to be good stewards of the soil."

That is a very good philosophy I agree with as a farmer. They have a very nice catalog full of varieties I know and trust and are a good supplier of garden seed. I am sure that can be said of most garden and other seed companies but their statement impressed me.

They also recommend something I recommend and that is inoculation of legume seeds like peas and green beans. I will order some of their inoculant for me legume seeds as I get a great increase of yield and quality from it. I have written several blogs on inoculation you can read from my archives.

They have two full pages each of corn and beans, staples in the American garden. They have a facebook page and an online site.

The picture is one of my favorite this summer looking across our garden spot to the Hollingsworth's next door.

Ed

Family

2011-12-27T04:07:00.000-08:00

LuAnn and I were strongly reminded what our greateste gift is. It's family! In this day and age it is hard to find but here we are blessed with it after a lifetime of struggles and trying to do the next best thing.

We had our Winkle family Christmas yesterday and it was more than wonderful, it was one that tugged at our heartstrings. Each child is so well behaved LuAnn kept saying can you believe we have a housefull of grandkids? It was so quiet sometimes you wondered what they all were doing and when you looked you found them interacting and just having a great time together.

The reading of the birth of Christ in the Bible was most special and quiet as Erik read the infancy narrative from Luke. Every knee bowed and tongue confessed and it was humbling yet joyous. My heart about burst from pride watching my family as we shared the scripture.

At the end of the day LuAnn didn't want it to end and I know why. It was just too rewarding to let go of.

Each child and adult received a special gift from us that LuAnn had carefully chosen. On many of those gifts we talked about the best idea and the best place to buy it and she did it all and cooked a great meal on top of it! Even the kids were appreciative and asked if it was too much for her as they could see all that she had done. You have to really care and know and work hard to make that kind of thing happen!

So this morning I type with thanks to LuAnn and all that made December 26 such a special day, one we will never forget.

I hope you found that, too.

Ed

Batteries

2011-12-26T04:56:00.001-08:00

Lots of farm batteries only get used a few times a year. Here is a really good thread on batteries I want to save so I am posting it here.

Hagen Brothers farms,Goodrich ND "Does it use a conventional lead acid battery ? If so, a float charger / maintainer will do the job.

I use a pair of charger / maintainer / desulphators to maintain the batteries on all my seasonal use equipment. The desulphator function will remove sulphation formed when a battery sets a long time and is partially discharged.

Here is the link to Northern Tools .

"I"m getting better battery life with the minders. Wallyworld charges $20 for one that seems to do me just fine. Probably could be rotated amongst a collection of batteries, a few days each battery, as long as a week out of each month.

Batteries are made differently than they used to be long ago. But then poor voltage regulators tended to abuse them. 30 40 or more years ago the lead was alloyed with antimony for mechanical strength, unfortunately the antimony was discovered (first in a telephone office with a building full of batteries by stibene gas in the air) to producing local action and speeding up self discharge. Then the battery world went to calcium (its a metal in its pure form with the carbonate of limestone removed, highly reactive to water and air) which cured the local action problem but the resulting plates are weaker. And makers have refined the manufacturing process to reduce the materials in the battery. With the weaker grids, deep discharge cycles are close to fatal if done once, almost sure fatal by the 5th time. Since the active materials swell on discharge they either get dislodged from the grids or warp the grids. And that warping flexes the grids where they are grouped in a lead block and they snap off.

Then batteries are made without filling holes which can keep electrolyte in if not overcharged, but prevents adding distilled water when needed. Or knowing added water is needed.

Used to a battery store, like Sears, would keep all the batteries in the battery room with trickle chargers on them so they were fresh when sold. Now everybody lets them set on the shelf for 6 months or a year, being careful to keep the old stock out front. If you can get to the back of the battery rack and learn the maker's date coding (which is often very clear) or buy the day the rack is filled up after your particular battery has been restocked, you probably can get a battery made in the past 3 or 4 weeks and it will give you much better service. One local farm store has a sign on the rack now to take the battery to the automotive repair desk where they will do a load check and then engrave the sold date. I saw some 6 month old batteries on that rack, but I was able to pick one from the back with Jun 2011 data of manufacture. It also tested good, but I put a charger on it before starting the tractor with it.

Then there are stamped brass battery post connectors that eventually corrode and crack. Cost me a battery in my pickup last month. And it was a special from Ford with two grounded wires wandering off. I changed things around a lot with a lead battery post to side terminal adapter and with the remains of the brass clip converted to a simple lug. Long ago, battery posts were cast in place and thoroughly plugged their hole in the top of the battery. So fumes didn't leak out there, Today the plastic and the posts are molded separately and much of the battery venting is right against the connector, so the little felt washers are a benefit. It would be more benefit to use hot glue or epoxy to seal the posts to the battery case top. Then posts have always needed cleaning annually for 12 volt and every three months for 6 volt systems. The battery cleaning brushes are marginal, I learned from my dad long ago that using a sturdy knife and scraping until shiny soft lead was exposed made for better connection longevity, then covered with grease or battery post paint made the connections last better."

Gerald J.in Iowa.

Ed

December 25

2011-12-25T07:13:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday, Corbin! Five years old already, you and your cousins are growing up fast! Merry Christmas to you and your parents and all your aunts and uncles and cousins. You have all given LuAnn and I a big wonderful family.

We went to cousin Sheila's last night, a Christmas tradition for me and my family. Most of my cousins and their families were there. Since we are so close to Cincinnati the cross town shoot out debacle was a discussion point as it made national news and each one of us has an opinion about how it was handled.

It's good to have family you can talk about controversial things with and just have a normal discussion because we all know our health and our well being is more important than any other issue. We care about each other.

One new boy friend of a cousin's daughter reminded me of the physicists on Big Bang Theory and he was very interesting to talk to. He is studying bioscience so we had a lot in common and I could explain my application of bioscience to food production.

Then I opened up Crop Talk this morning and there was Moboy again spewing his pro Monsanto BS about superiority of genetically modified corn and he made the point of picking on my friend soil life. So I called him out and defended soil life and the whole thing wasn't very Christmassy.

He provoked my ire. I let him do that and responded on the page I helped develop and have devoted 11 years to now. It wasn't the best thing to do first thing Christmas morning but I did it.

I didn't waste much time there and went to reading aloud with LuAnn and sharing our gifts to each other. I got new Carrhart clothes to wear and she got a new home made purse and scarf and pearl ear rings to match her pearl necklaces.

She gave me a new Catechism of the Catholic Church and we are reading it aloud now. It adds to our spiritual and religious beliefs, the real meaning of Christmas this December 25.

Merry Christmas to all, whoever you are and wherever you are and I hope this morning finds you well and looking forward to a profitable New Year.

Ed Winkle

Holiday Cheer

2011-12-24T07:24:00.000-08:00

Do you have your holiday cheer? I am working on it. It's been a tough week with lots of hard decisions and discussions. There is only one tax week left in this calendar year and so many decisions affect each farms tax status for 2011 and 2012.

The big news is the double to triple land taxes we will have to pay in this county. It will eventually get to all of Ohio's 88 counties. I see why my one landlord was so ticklish to work with all summer, he got his notice early.

Yesterday the road were crowded around here as people did their last minute preparations for business and holiday. One man commented he never saw so much traffic on Rombach Avenue, the main drag east of Wilmington which is US 22-3. LuAnn said Hillsboro was the same thing.

I didn't get a load of beans to market by Friday noon when they closed so I need to get that done first thing Tuesday morning when they re-open. I need to make some phone calls to make sure I get this done. The markets have increased from their low a week or two ago but could go back down at any world news event. That event is usually connected to European debt lately.

So back to this holiday cheer. I always felt like most people miss the reason for the season and if I let myself get caught up in that I can miss the real reason myself.

It's time to say Merry Christmas and really mean it and understand it's full implications.

Merry Christmas!

Ed Winkle

Home

2011-12-23T02:02:00.000-08:00

A young farmer posed a good question on the Cafe.

" We have been planning to "eventually" build a new house. We're actually three year past our ten year plan to replace our small, inadequate farmhouse (It's fifteen minutes from our main farm facilities as well}. Figure we need to get it done before the economy turns around. However, we can't seem to get excited about it. After months of telling ourselves we need to get with it the thought occurs to us.... Why not buy a very nice house in town? An older home would cost less per square foot and have so much more character and charm for the money invested. We also have some very
nice wooded neighborhoods to choose from. It's 15-20 minutes to the farm base fom town.
So we started wondering... Will a used quarter million dollar home be a good investment when CD's, stocks and bonds are so-so??? How does appreciation/depreciation of new homes compare to used? I could ask a realtor but they may be a bit biased. I know there's good and bad points to the choice of rural and city living. I just never considered that I could possibly "make" money buying an expensive home. Any hard earned experience or a life-time of learning to share??
Thanks. Dan"

This is how I responded:

"That is a very personal question. We can't read your happiness from any decision or failing to act on it from afar.

I am in the 4th house I have owned in a lifetime. I never looked at any of them as just a financial investment. Where I lived affected who I met, dollar and time cost to work, how I felt, how I slept, the whole shebang.

First one was a nice brick ranch on 2 acres at the edge of town, lived there ten years. It was an easy drive to dad's farm or work or Cincinnati. I made it cheap to heat and cool. All my kids were born there and we were happy there. It had a blacktop drive on a hill that was a bear in winter and dangerous. Good windbreak all around it. Cost 31,500, was worth 60,000 in ten years. Rented it out to a nice couple for ten years and got all my money back and then some.

Second one was an old Sear's and Roebuck house on 50 acres "in the sticks" 10 miles northeast. Bought it because it was in the school district we wanted our first child to attend school at. It was flat land, higher wind and storm area but best garden spot I ever had except maybe this one. It had poor well water and was hard to heat and cool. I never could buy land around it so we only lived there 4 years.

Third one I lived at was at the edge of Blanchester and lived there 17 years. It was archectect designed for a wealthy retirement couple and super designed for that purpose, not a young family but we made do. It was also cheap to heat and cool but flat and windy. Easy drive to north Cincinnati, Dayton and Columbus. Paid 96,000 for it and sold seven years ago for 162,500. We had all the graduation parties there and it was the last home most our children lived in.

Then we bought this home and farm for a huge price. I doubt it would sell for what we have in it. It is really windy here and we have had one tornado and Hurricane Ike about destroy the place. We have it affordable to heat and cool but it's taken seven years, not bad for an 1880 house though.

They have all been home to me but I never liked the second one and liked the first and third one better. This one grows on you but in my later years it's getting harder for us to keep it up. I have been guilty of calling it a money pit but it is a very desirable place to live in a good location. Location sure is important.

I have seen the markets soar and crash but home is home. Buy it for all the esthetic reasons unless you just want a place to sleep and resell. Your job and partner are the keys to your happiness but your home is probably number 3 for me.

Good Luck,

Ed Winkle

Presents

2011-12-22T04:42:00.000-08:00

It's time to get those Christmas presents finished. I hope I have enough, I know I got some surprises, not the big one that really caught her off guard last year.

With nine little grandchildren, LuAnn has been in shopping mode for two months. Here is my public pronouncement of the great thanks I have for her for doing all that shopping! We discussed each present with care and of course, price comparison! That's why they call it shopping!

Actually the best gift I can give today, tomorrow, Christmas day and every day is me, sane and happy and doing things no one notices. The kind of things they won't notice until you are gone.

I really care about people, especially my dear family and everything God as given me. Being human, I don't show that every day! So I work on me, sticking to a routine that keeps me a supportive, caring person.

The best gift is one that really surprises you and you have to stop and think who did that and why did they do this? That is really hard for me to do! But, it is so rewarding when we do.

The presents are all wrapped and placed with care, in hopes that Saint Nicholas soon would be there! I know most of us adults are beyond the gift giving, it's the though that counts but it all makes you think.

What is the best present you ever got?

I have so many over 62 years I have to stop and think about that awhile...

Ed

Farmer Meeting

2011-12-21T02:20:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to the best farmer meeting I have been to all year. My friend Philip Huffman put on his annual Christmas Appreciation Dinner for his customers. He saved me a lot of money on my chemicals this year. I have been wanting to go the last several years so this time I went.

Everyone was in a good mood but went home happy, smiling, laughing and better informed than when they came. Golden Corral put on a pretty good meal off Interstate 75 just south of Interstate 70. I had Bourbon Chicken on rice and vegetables for my main course but the meat loaf tasted home made.

They had a produce section of fresh vegetables on a slant just like our Kroger store behind the bar where where the workers pick from for the salads and cooked vegetables. It looked fresh and tasted very good.

A man from Direct Enterprises explained all the products they provide Philip and other seed dealers with and how they independantly tested all the combinations to come up with a set of recommendations. You wouldn't believe all the chemical and bilogical choices for seed this year!

I can order any combination of treatments on my seed for my particular farms. The Rancona mixes, Bayer Macho, Gaucho, Poncho mixes and Syngenta Cruiser Maxx all stand at the top of their tests.

The District Sales Rep and the Regional Sales rep from Stine both spoke. They are the contacts from the main company in Adel, Iowa to Philip's business on Union Road west of Dayton.

I spoke on Respect the Rotation explaining their survey and how to use it help decide your seed mix for your farm. I quoted "I was reading Farm Journal last night and Staff Agronomist Ken Ferrie said "once resistant weeds show up, no farm is safe. Start with weed-free fields and keep them clean. Appoint a pesticide boss to be responsible for scouting."

That quote caught my attention and fits in with what I have been working on. One farmer spoke up, you better listen to him, he is on to something. He had switched chemical programs to combat his resistant weeds.

Several farmers asked me about notill, radishes and other cover crops, soil and tissue testing, gypsum and other topics. Some are concerned what glyphosate is doing to the soil and I referred them to the National NoTillage Conference in St. Louis next month where this topic will be covered in depth.

Lots of farmers have lots of questions but some got theirs answered last night.

Ed

Planters

2011-12-20T01:55:00.000-08:00

Andy Vance called Friday just at the right time when I was thinking about corn planters of all things. He needed an interview with a midwest farmer and I said let me call a friend and call you right back.

I dialed up Paul Reed and I caught him at just the right time. I told him the need and he immediately goes on about how Murphy lives on their farm and pops up every time they hit the fields with the planter. It was perfect and I asked if he would talk to Andy and of course he would and here is what happened.

"Gearing Up For Planting

Accept Murphy’s Law, and Prepare a “Plan B”

For Paul Reed of Washington, Iowa, the best way to prep for planting season is to figure out what can go wrong, and have a game plan in place that assumes if it can go wrong, it will go wrong at some point.

“Along with going through all the nuts and bolts things, we follow a simple management rule: figure out the three worst things that can happen,” Reed says. “We always have a Plan B so that if we lose a system or monitor we can continue planting and aren’t stuck on the end rows waiting to get on the phone with a service tech. As our equipment has gotten more complex, so have our problems.”

As one example, Reed says that while his operation relies on GPS and automatic steering, each planter still has mechanical markers in the eventuality that the GPS system goes down. Planting can continue using markers, rather than stalling while a technological solution is found.

The Reed family keeps detailed notes on problems or challenges uncovered during the planting season, and incorporates those records into the preparation for the next season. By focusing on what did go wrong, they improve planning for what might go wrong in the future.

“The name of the game is to keep the wheels turning to take advantage of a limited planting window,” Reed says. “Crops yield by planting date, so you have to take advantage of the planting days available. If you have only 10 or 12 days in an ideal planting window, being able to keep rolling is a big deal.”

He advises systematically checking each system on the planter, from hydraulic and air pressure systems to fertilizer and seed delivery components, looking for wear items that need replaced prior to planting. While conducting that basic planter maintenance, take stock of what parts, systems or monitors are likely to go down at some point during planting, and have replacements on hand.

“Every one of those systems can and will have something go wrong,” Reed says. “How well and how quickly you can overcome those problems is paramount to keep planting.”

-30-

SIDE BAR

Making a List and Checking It Twice

Christmas may be over, but Ohio-based crop consultant and blogger Ed Winkle advises taking Santa’s advice when it comes to planter preparations.

“Tear apart the planter today,” he says. “We tore our planter apart three times during all the rain last year, and we found something every time. We knew the planter so well that as soon as we had a breakdown, we knew where it was and how to fix it with no down time. The worst thing you can do is drag the planter out of the barn and try to go plant.”

With that in mind, Winkle shares his planter-prep checklist:

Go through each row unit piece by piece.
Go through the seeding mechanism, and match the planter to the seed size you are getting.
Go over all stress parts, as well as the frame, wheels and bearings. “You think the part isn’t worn out, but it is. Replace it. You can’t afford to stretch parts too far anymore.”
Go through hydraulics with books and gauges. RTB, Read The Book!
Go through 12-volt system front to back.
Go through electronics, including GPS-related modules and monitors."

As Paul says Murphy rules and what can go wrong will go wrong sometime. Having a network of problem solving people at hand really increases my efficiency and decreases my worry!

This is just part of Andy's article but there is some really good stuff in here. It is hard to put into words what happens and how we prepare for it but I think this really encapsulates the message.

You can't be too fussy about your corn planter, it helps determine your success or lack of it every year. If we were as fussy about perfect planting as we are about land values and taxes we wouldn't have as much to complain about!

Ed

62 And Worn Clear Through!

2011-12-19T12:39:00.000-08:00

That's what I have been telling people today, "I am 62 and worn clear through!" Today is my birthday. I started the day by having my teeth cleaned of all things I could have done for my birthday. Ruth asked me when she called to schedule, are you sure you want to do this on your birthday? I thought sure, why not, have to get it done sometime anyway!

My sister called to wish me happy birthday among many(the list is long and thank you all!) and she had a different twist to my rhyme that I adopted in this manner. I even stopped to tell dad thanks at the cemetery on my route today.

The dentist asked me about the big deer I have seen so I brought him up to date and told him where all the big ones hang out. I keep telling these guys to surround the field when we shell corn and we will herd them out for you! They don't like that too much, guess it takes the fun out of hunting.

Doc told me about a bowhunter in Indiana who didn't follow the rules and lost his life. You always poke the deer or wait and make sure it is not able to get up and get you. He didn't and the buck ran his antlers through his liver and the next day they found the dead deer beside the dead hunter, lacerated his liver and they both bled to death.

I just saw a young man cutting soybeans on US 68 on Midland's finest swamp land we call Clermont Silt Loam. It was strange to see dust rolling on such a gloomy day. It is about 45 degrees and had warmed up 10 degrees since last night.

My Christmas Elves are wrapping my last packages for LuAnn in her craft room before she gets home. I let her pick up Sable from the new groomer kennel lady and she called and told me Sable was ready to come home. No doubt she is! I guess the lady survived Sable's first bath and professional grooming and toe nail clipping!

We should have had that lady video the deal and we could sell the video for more than she charges. That You Tube would be viral within 24 hours!

I see Stacey has posted a new blog today and I see the title is excercise. Right on my birthday, too! Those two things don't go together.

Maybe I can talk LuAnn into taking me to Damon's and see if the steak and blooming onion is as good as last time. We ate at Werner's Pork House on the way home last night so I really shouldn't but...

We called ahead last night and our order was ready to eat when we sat down. We both had the sampler platter and if I knew the pulled pork was going to be that good, that is all I would have ordered! Maybe the best I ever ate but I always say that. It was goooood. Rich and Barb has a busy day with lots of customers and 4 Christmas parties last night.

I picked up a bouquet at the Kroger Florist and surprised LuAnn with them. It's your birthday, not mine she said. I said wait a minute you are blank years(men present) and 11 months old today. Her birthday is one month after mine. The Parole Officer said, oh he bought something, like I bought a new pickup, tractor or combine. I said no, if I had enough money I would!

Maybe a planter tomorrow though, I stopped at Baxla Tractor to see Leon Yutzy who is selling out to serve on a mission to Mexico for 3 years. He is selling a planter I wouldn't mind tinkering with this winter. Leon is a fine young man, called by Christ to serve like Steve Neust in Haiti and so many other farmers serving around the world. God Bless them all!

I did stop to see Larry Corrill near what we call Panhandle where SR 125 meets SR 136, not far from where Peter Winkle settled over 200 years ago. We had a great chat, we used to tractor pull together and Larry is one of the best wrenches around. He said I heard you were coming so I ordered all Liberty Link soybeans! I said they started to eat your lunch, didn't they? He said yep, probably lost 10 bushels to weeds this year so he is making the switch.

That's what my project is about, keeping glyphosate as a viable weed killer and keeping your profits up in the process. It's good to have information others can use.

Ed

TSO

2011-12-18T17:10:00.000-08:00

We finally got to hear Transiberian Orchestra's Christmas Program live today in Columbus after all the hoopla since the fellow in Mason made national news with his Christmas display a few years ago. Wizards of Winter made the band and his display world famous.

We had hoped to take Liam a year ago and had tickets but the day of the show we came down with the worst flu I have had in 30 years. Since we couldn't move far from the bed or bathroom we missed it last year.

I have to say I was really bummed by intermission. I missed the whole point of the program and it was slow and boring and didn't connect the dots for me. We almost left early!

But we got to thinking we hadn't heard Wizards of Winter yet, their signature song so we went back to our seats in Nationwide Arena and stayed. Good thing we did! Even the lead guitarist sensed something was wrong and asked where our enthusiasm was and did they have a bad performance?

I thought so. The Christmas story was lead by the black man with the booming voice. I didn't get the message. The second half changed all of that with their favorite, most popular songs.

Wizards alone was worth the money and their other two top Christmas pieces topped that off. They made the gas man lots of money with all the gas they fired into the air with their pyrotechnic show and the laser lights was amazing to the beat of the music.

They made a local charity very happy too with a check for one dollar from every ticket sold today. I don't see how they have the energy to play right now with their second performance, I thought they gave it all in the first one today!

If you ever have the chance to go, do it. I assume most of you have seen it before me, we have wanted to go for years.

It was well worth the money and effort on a winter's day.

Ed

Farm Organizations

2011-12-17T04:14:00.000-08:00

This is post number 1100 according to Google. I am wondering why I continue to do this and why some of you continue to read it?

My friend HP in Illinois asked the group that type on Crop Talk whether or not they support the National Corn Growers, American Soybean Association and the American Wheat Growers.

I wrote him a personal note I will share with you that is my take on this cool winter morning:

"Hi Hp, I think I support them but not in spirit every day but in principal. I can think of worse ways to spend my grain check off money.

Have they increased market share? I think so butut it is controversial, have seen good and bad both sides but they have developed market, no doubt in my mind. It would have happened anyway, maybe less or more but I think more good than harm.

Just hate feeding the naysayers on NAT. Your post brought out the naysayers and we both knew it would but a couple spoke up with good sense. I don't agree with the naysayers but have to read it I guess because I know some people think what I say goes against their opinion.

We are all in this together and all the people I know in all 3 organizations are good people I trust and they bust their butt for us. Maybe a few perks but not worth the hassle they put up with. About like school boarding I don't miss it but I am very happy of the direction our group took our school."

I wasn't intending on attending the Grain Symposium this week but when people I respect asked if I was going I decided to give it a shot. I was glad I did and took home more than I brought or gave to the group. I got to talk to farmers ang ag people I respect.

Groups trying to do good for all are worth supporting. Reading all the Canadian Wheat Board comments makes you wonder and reading what our own organizations do makes you wonder. The soybean growers split in their disagreement on how to handle funding and policy but I still believe more good was done than harm.

That's how I see it on the farm this morning.

With all the misinformed people airing their thoughts on the Internet and other media, I think all the good we can do is admirable. What do you think?

Ed

2012 Farm Bill

2011-12-16T03:08:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned yesterday, Joe Schultz from the Senate Ag Committee brought us up to date on Farm Bill negotiations at the Ohio Grain Farmers Symposium.

He quickly pointed out the $50 Billion a year cut from the USDA Budget would be $33 Billion which would eliminate Direct Payments to farmers and $17 Billion to Conservation which would cut it in half.

That would completely change funding of agriculture as we know it. Are we ready for that? Most of the farmers say yes I read on NewAgTalk but when you talk to them one on one it's a different story.

The whole program was designed for Risk Management and it has done that. Many claim they could not farm the next year without risk management tools and the crop insurance they received, especially in these years of extreme drought and flood the same year across our nation.

Joe praised the bipartisan support of agriculture committee negotiations and said they were the only ones to do so in Washington. Once again the good people representing agriculture are willing to do the best thing for the country.

They came up with $23 Billion in cuts over 10 years which makes more sense. He warned it needs to be done NOW and not become hung up and watered down by dragging negotiations out. That makes sense to me.

Risk management varies so much from farm to farm and state to state. I have stated here that since 2004 I have received less than ten cents directly for every dollar spent on crop insurance. I see why John Phipps continually says we don't need direct payments in agriculture and why a few farmers don't even use crop insurance as a risk management tool. These farmers have more control in other places of their own farm budget.

Joe says key words and concepts are risk management in the Farm Bill, production cost has followed commodity prices directly and we are going through huge variations of weather contributing to unpredictability and the need for risk management.

EWG posts our payments from USDA on their website and we are attacked for our past and current risk management program. The key to keeping it is keeping the budget defendable to the general public(does the public have any idea?), keep it simple(it isn't simple), and keeping Crop Insurance the foundation of the farm safety net.

It looks to me we are about to lose direct payments and and many good agriculture programs. On the other hand they are expensive and haven't done the good for every recipient that perhaps they were intended to do.

I see I can farm without direct payments or even crop insurance as we know it and may have to. Farming will not look the same in 10 years if this happens.

I don't think it was going to anyhow but this really changes the playing field.

Ed

Symposium

2011-12-15T04:09:00.000-08:00

Today is the Ohio Grain Farmer's Symposium at the Roberts Center in Wilmington. I hadn't planned on going but several farmers and two companies have asked me if I am going so I guess I better go see them.

Ohio Grain Organizations have 30 company booth set ups so there should be a chance to go over some of the farmer programs for 2012. That fits right in with the project I am doing.

I saw some happy farmers yesterday who had finished harvesting. Many men don't sleep well until that last bushel is in, others take it in stride. This harvest is one for the record books, I wish I had pictures but never took time to do it.

It's good for them too with another windy front delivering another unwanted one inch of rain. I wouldn't be surprised if some of this crop isn't harvested but I don't think it will be that much. Just one field is a lot to one farmer.

I am back after a busy day at the Grain Farmer Symposium. The first speaker was Joe Schultz and I thought boy he looks familiar. He was one of those Ohio FFA Presidents I liked and wondered where he would end up.

He ended up at the top! He is Chief Economist for the Senate Agriculture Committee and said more about Farm Bill negotiations in ten minutes than I have gleaned in ten months. More on that tomorrow.

I met a farmer at breakfast I had visited for IRM at a farm auction one day and we had a good chat about resistant weeds on his farm and in our area. Then I had a chance to talk to Jeff Wuebker, Joe Steiner, David Roehm and Brian Bush. They are all prominent farmers who have served on boards and organizations in various capacities. It was neat how they all fought resistant weeds on their farms and how they viewed the coming problems. We talked about everything under the sun.

At lunch I ran into more professionals representing farming to law to merchandising. My only complaint was we needed more farmer participation and perhaps more topics but the people who were there knew enough other people to make networking effective. It was a good day.

One friend I met today I had college classes with. I asked how he was doing being newly retired and he said I am having trouble switching from the 100 MPH you and I used to work to 5 MPH in this so called retirement. I know exactly what he meant and told him how hard my first two years out of the classroom were and maybe some tips to avoid depression and stay happy.

That's why we bought this place and increased our farming operation. Maybe I will be planning my next crop at the end just like dad did.

Ed

Why?

2011-12-14T02:31:00.000-08:00

LuAnn asked me this morning why God sent me this project? That got my thinking juices flowing right off the bat although my brain is fuzzy and I am tired this morning.

I guess I need to find a new alarm clock for her, was looking at the Sunday and never saw anything I want pestering me at 5 or 6 in the morning, she is quite enough. She claims she set the old one for six and it woke us up at five so here I am writing. I wonder how that new water powered alarm works?

I was wondering about the same question as I felt this was pulling me away from being a good husband, the Christmas spirit and even operating our own farm visit. Yesterday when a young farmer answered my survey questions while unloading corn while being very thorough I see my answer. Even though this young man is not someone I work with he saw value in what I was doing. He ended the time with, "It was so good to see you, Ed, come back and see me again." That took me off guard and stuck with me all day.

This project focuses on how the farmer is dealing with resistant weeds admitting we have them and the RR system is not working like it should. If farmers don't make changes we will lose the effectiveness of "the best discovery for weed control since the finding of aspirin" for pain and swelling in humans.

God is using this project to keep me busy out there in this very busy season at a time I have gotten so depressed I could not function. I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder and I not feeling that much at all contacting these farmers, some of which who do not want to be bothered right now.

But he gave me an important message to share they cannot deny so it gives me the opportunity to discuss other things on their mind and keep the reason for being here helpful and supportive. It is all truly amazing.

While working the project He has gotten me to my crop insurance agent, crop adjustor, SWCD, NRCS and this morning FSA to address my own farming issues where I would have just put it off otherwise.

The day ended yesterday with seeing my son and his students working the fruit sale way after school. 24 years I did that myself and the other 7 years I helped the local chapters while serving as county extension agent. I have been through a few fruit sales during this merry life!

The day really ended with church at 7 with total peace and quiet, just talking to the Lord in His House.

After yesterday's blog, what a change! Be sure to watch Larry the Cable Guy Night Before Christmas and Jeff Foxworthy's Twelve Days of Christmas should pop up when you are done.

Thanks for reading and have a great day,

Ed

Hard Times

2011-12-13T04:45:00.000-08:00

These hard times for people is getting to us. We had a hard day yesterday.

LuAnn had to meet with 20 employees to tell them they were being laid off during the Christmas Holiday. It wore her out. She slept for 12 hours last night. She said this morning I don't know how much longer I can keep doing this.

If it weren't for her there would be no Turning Point and 100 other people would have no place to turn for work and for life. One man faces jail being laid off so she is writing a letter to the court in his behalf. These are people who have made bad choices or just down on their luck.

Addiction or crime represents their past and they are trying to turn a new leaf. Turning Point has the care and the tools to help them do that.

I know we all do all we can for the sick and suffering but sometimes it doesn't seem like enough. Maybe today I can cheer one person up like so many do for me.

It sure has been hard trying to get the last of the crop out and you hate to leave ruts but sometimes it is unavoidable. In Ohio we fought to get the crop in the ground and sprayed and we are fighting to get every last bushel back out.

It's easy to give thanks for all my gratitudes but when I see so many people suffering every day, it becomes more challenging. One lady had a neat tip for gratitudes, she said she goes through the alphabet and assigns the letter to a gratitude in her life.

A for Andy, B for Bill, C for Caolin, D for Deters, E for Ed is what I am thinking right now. The reality is though I have to keep working today when I am finished writing and put it all to work.

I will be 62 in a week and ran across an old tractor pulling buddy yesterday and he said no kidding, where did it go? He was introduced as being in a friend's class 62 years ago!

It is hard times for a lot of people and it is hard to stay focused but we have so many blessings, where do we start to build upon them?

Hard times don't last, strong people do.

Ed

Potassium

2011-12-12T04:40:00.000-08:00

Most of us eat bananas as a tasty source of potassium for our bodies. Bananas grow well in tropic areas where banana trees are able to pick up lots of free potassium in the soil there. I didn't meet an agronomist type person on our banana plantation tour a year ago to learn more about it but I get the general drift.

A farmer asked on Crop Talk how to manage potassium on his low CEC soil. Our soil is much the same way so I wrote this reply:

"That's a good question. I ought to add up what I have put on the last 7 years and then add up what my supposed crop removal is.

I think I have taken as much as I put on and perhaps more.

Whether it is red, pink or white potash, we all know it is not broken down in one crop. It's like feeding the soil continuously, sometimes I have more and sometimes I have less but my low CEC like yours can hold less and requires less. The big thing is as CEC goes up, usually the organic content is higher and it needs and can hold more potassium. I am not sure how that interacts with soil micro organisms but it does.

Dr. Himes taught us the black box theory at Ohio State in Soils 410. We only studied those concepts, you had to take other classes to study soil microbiology which were also intriguing to me.

This is where the tissue test helps me find hidden hunger. It may not show the total K absorbed all season but gives me a snapshot of where I am at. Some hybrids may need more than others. I would rather be Sufficient to High in Potassium than Sufficient to low."

That post should make farmers think who read that. That is what I have learned in 40 years. This morning another farmer asked what cover crop would help release free potassium into soil.

I found this link which helps describe etching of potassium from soil in a very scientific manner. Maybe one of you can help me decipher it into a good response.

It is a complex matter but we know crops grow better after tillage radish. We don't know all the reasons why. Basically, the radish "harvests" all of the free nutrients in the soil and dies over winter here in the north and the action of the tuber against the soil profile etches some of the potassium out of the mineral rock.

Potassium is a vital nutrient for plants and works with boron for maximum yield and quality. Soil tests and tissue tests help me prevent "hidden hunger" of potassium and other crop nutrients.

Ed

Cold

2011-12-11T07:59:00.000-08:00

It finally got cold enough to hold these heavy combines out of the mud so many farmers ran all night last night. They are trying to get the last bushels in but I still see a lot of crop left out there, just not as much as there was.

The market took a dive Friday after the USDA raised the carryout and reported less export demand. I figured most of that negative news was already factored in but the market still reacted negatively.

The big news is major trade people don't believe USDA's numbers. They think the carry out and trade news is too bearish. Time will tell.

We are burning wood pellets pretty heavily now and it keeps the back half of the house warmer than the front which is unusual for us. LuAnn bought a ton of Hardwood Heat pellets last week so I looked up reviews on them. Everyone says they make a lot of heat but produce a lot of ash.

I know they put out more heat than the last ton we bought in an orange bag, can't think of the name of them. One of the new bags were damaged and got moisture in the bag so the pellets were mush. I traded it in a for a new bag this morning and they gave me a bag of Lignetics out of West Virginia. They get good reviews from pellet burning people.

Yesterday I picked up some ground pork shoulder LuAnn had ordered at Sam's Meats and she baked a New York meat pie and a cherry pie. We could have eaten both of them I think. She seasoned the meat pie just right and with her famous homemade flaky, sweet pastry dough I can make your mouth water just talking about it. They pour A1 Steak Sauce or Woo Sauce(Worchestershire.) It's not southern Ohio but it is good.

Mom made mince meat pies with raisins in it and it is nothing like this meat pie. The meat pie is more like the famous Maid Rite meat from Greenville, Ohio but made with pork instead of beef. I don't remember what meat mom used to make mince meat pie.

Cherry is still my favorite and I could eat the rest today. The little girls stayed last night while Kevin supervised a basketball game and Shannon tried to finish her shopping with a friend.

Next weekend we hope to see the Peters grandchildren and go to the Transiberian Orchestra.

Busy, busy, busy!

Ed

Breakfast

2011-12-10T03:34:00.000-08:00

Our friend Eric Heeg invited me to the Wilmington FFA Farmer Breakfast this morning so I am woke up earlier than usual. I told him I don't normally get up that early on Saturday but if I do I will be there. I guess I am going!

Nine FFA Officers in official dress and using opening and closing ceremony on a Saturday morning at 7 AM when there is no school is quite impressive. They had over 50 in attendance, including a county commissioner. I got to see a lot of my old friends and acquaintances.

My friend Chris moved from Ohio to Tennessee to operate a farm years ago. I met him through NewAgTalk like so many other farmers. He posted a really good question on Crop Talk last night.

He says glyphosate and Round Up Ready is no longer viable on their farm. I think every farm will be in that same boat if we don't do a better job of rotating crops and chemistries and be more concerned with our weed control.

I think we got sloppy with Round Up Ready. It was the miracle program and we didn't spray early enough with enough chemical to keep the program going. We set ourselves up for weed resistance just as many people predicted.

I think we paid so much for the tech fee and herbicide early on we learned how to kill weeds with the least amount of chemical. That was the wrong thing to do.

It is easy to say what we did wrong as hindsight is 20/20 but looking ahead is harder to do. I see most farmers are continuing the same program with maybe a little more emphasis on fall spraying, spring burn down(which was not possible here in 2011) and more residual chemical.

That will help but I don't think it is the answer.

Ed

Global Hits Home

2011-12-09T04:13:00.000-08:00

Former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine hit close to home when he was chief of MF Global. We got home late last night and I was watching the CBS Evening News on DVR when they showed a scene I had seen before.

I told LuAnn, Honey that is Paul and Steve's neighbor! I did a google search a little bit ago and here it is.

It was a very well done piece by the lady on CBS News. I know people in the video and have driven those roads near Washington, Iowa, some 600 miles west of us.

Farmers like the Brennamen's had their commodity fund account just disappear overnight by fraud. You know it could be me or you and a local bank or stock fund. The same effect was felt by local farmers in the stock market crash of 2008 and we met a lady who lost the same amount in her 401k.

This though is more obvious fraud as you know the firm who did it and you know who was in charge. I emailed a cousin of Rob and he said they will be OK but that would make for some sleepless nights with $400,000 gone from your account one morning when you wake up and you didn't cause the transaction.

We live in a time of big numbers like I reported yesterday. It is hard to grow and even operate your business with shennanigans like this taking place.

As you do your taxes this month, where is all of your money? I ask but I am asking myself the same thing. One account lost $90 last quarter and $99 the quarter before. The money is just gone due to reduced market values when everything I buy has gone up.

A harder question yet is how safe is that money?

I got the fertilizer bill yesterday I told you about and it wasn't near as much as I thought and now I have to scrutinize it to see why it isn't what I ordered.

Whom do you trust these days?

Ed

$20,000 an acre for farmland

2011-12-08T04:10:00.000-08:00

Two farmers in Iowa wanted an 80 acre parcel bad enough they bid $20,000 an acre for the parcel! The farmer across the road was the "angry loser," and the dairy farmer just down the road had the highest bid.

To give you a hint, the parcel wasn't that far from where I snapped this picture two months ago. A farm just sold near this combine for over $9000 per acre.

The subject has been highly debated on Crop Talk as most farmers sractch their head wondering why in the world would any farmer bid that high on a parcel for farmland. It doesn't pencil out in any normal computation.

There has to be a lot to the story we don't see like the dairy farmer needed the land to spread manure on and perhaps a lower cost of production because of that. More likely he produces more dollars per acre with his dairy herd, still that amount of money is hard to figure farm wise.

I sent the thread to several friends as New Zealand prices are mentioned in the thread and one responded this way.

"Ed, Two points:

● The price of gold never changes, only the value of your currency changes, the same for land (lookout) dirt cheap!!!

I understand land prices are not related to production anymore, money has no value anymore (food is the value)

● Our price are now double that, I will enter it twice so you can't say I have made a typing mistake (double that, with currency and ac/ha correction)"

That is how my friend "down under" sees the discussion. What do you think?

On a different note I found a 2,000 acre farmer yesterday who was satisfied with his soybean yield until I brought him up to date what others got this year. He had never heard of Liberty Link soybeans!

I didn't laugh at him, I just smiled and explained the system. He is a busy machinery trader and trusts his supplier for seed and chemicals. That supplier is Round Up Ready only and never brought his customer up to speed as to what is out there for competition.

For the amount he is spending, he could grow non GMO soybeans just as cheap and perhaps get better yields but he could use Liberty Link and increase his yield with the same or lower cost of production.

He thanked me over and over for bringing him up to speed. Now I bet his supplier has some explaining to do!

Ed

December 7

2011-12-07T02:59:00.000-08:00

70 years ago today the Imperialist country of Japan bombed our U.S. forces in Hawaii. The day that will live "in infamy" is older than almost every living human being on planet Earth today. Do we remember?

Anyone living then and who does remember is in their late 70's and the soldiers of that era would be about 88 years old. There are very few of them left.

I was one year old when that date was 10 years ago so all I know is what I have read and what I have been told. LuAnn and I will be at the Arizona Memorial in February for our first visit to the last state of our now 50 states, together. Hawaii wasn't even a state when that invasion occurred.

As World War II started, every man woman and child in our country was involved in this conflict. All eligible men were drafted into our army as we joined Russia to fight Hitler on one side of the world and Japan on the other. Every citizen sacrificed from fighting to raising food to producing the war machine.

Mule1 wrote yesterday that "Tomorrow is pearl harbor day and American went to war. The world best generation built tanks, planes, ships, fought and won the war. Some stayed home to grow food to feed the world and it was all needed. We owe them all out thanks for out freedom today. All gave some and some gave all. I salute all of you from that generation and say thanks. Also thanks to our neighbors to the north..."

So do we remember? I remember what I have been told and have seen in movies and read in books. How long before we forget?

In many ways I think we already have forgotten. The world has changed greatly from that day in infamy 70 years ago.

Christmas is only two weeks away and the year will soon be 2012.

The memory of 2011 will last awhile for farmers.

Ed Winkle

Help Each Other

2011-12-06T03:48:00.000-08:00

Farmers really need to help each other. These high commodity prices have brought the best and worst out in men. We got another 2 inches yesterday and there is so much crop left in the field. That crop is all profit although I am sure there are poor souls who haven't broken even yet with the crop they have harvested.

Some little guys have no pity and say you are farming too much if you still have crop out. That isn't true here in every case but you get their point. The larger operators could fire back you don't farm enough and you are just jealous. This is serious enough we need to help each other.

We have broken all rainfall records and most farmers I talk to aren't sure what to plant next year after this years fiasco. Most will stay somewhere close to the crops they planted this year and hope we don't have to wait til June to plant it.

We were heavy in beans in Ohio this year although a lot of corn was planted. That ground could easily go to corn this year. I saw that trend across the corn belt in our travels this year so I would think we will plant more corn if weather cooperates and farmers can cash flow the input cost and get the seed they need. Top hybrids are in short supply in some cases.

It wasn't a good year for seed, either so dealers are scrambling to fill needs and orders. Here is where a strong relationship with reputable dealers helps out. I have three small dealers who have invested the money to get the seed I think I need. I will deal with them.

The bigger the seed company the more problem they could have. It will all work out one way or another but weather and economics is playing a heavy in local agriculture. It is a great challenge but that best thing I can do is help my neighbor.

The best thing I can do for you is something you don't even know about so I take no glory in it.

We really need to help each other in this time of need.

Ed

What To Plant?

2011-12-05T02:37:00.000-08:00

I see some farmers are struggling with what to plant next year. One poster asked the question yesterday on crop talk about going more soybeans in Kentucky because his corn has been blowing down and he can't harvest it. It costs too much to grow corn and have it blow down. That blows down your profit.

In my travels the last month I can also see farmers are in denial over resistant weeds. They don't want to admit they have them or that RR soybeans may not be the most profitable soybean or any crop for them.

A local farmer just finished his large soybean harvest and his best beans were LL by as much as 10 bushels per acre. I think most of that yield increase came from weed control. The LL system addresses the huge resistant weed problem we have in this neighborhood.

But where do you find yield data? There are no LL soybean trials in the newly released Ohio State Performance trial but there is a ton of other data in it.

Me, I would rather have had more 200 bushel corn and sold it at $7 which many farmers did. It didn't blow down and that made more money than everything around here. That beats 60 bushel LL soybeans at $14 per bushel, the highest price we could have sold for this year.

180 bu corn at $6 and 50 bushel soybeans at $12 is much more reasonable to have expected last year but we didn't know that the first week of June when we finally got to plant. How can a farmer know what to plant next year with all the risks and unknown?

Crop rotation and chemical rotation seems to be the answer to me. Keep rotating your crops and don't overuse any one chemistry to control weeds. If you had RR beans the past years, try the LL system or go back to non GMO beans. If you had corn blow down, plant a little more soybeans and see how that works.

I have my crop rotation figured out and it is heavier on corn this year. If I can't get it planted I have crop insurance or soybeans to go to. I am not locked in any one position.

That feels best for me and I think I have the numbers to prove it.

We all need to plant more cover crops. That 190 bushel corn Steve grew with no purchased N and what Dave Brandt has accomplished impresses my bottom line more than farming like I used to.

Ed

Draft Horses

2011-12-04T03:18:00.001-08:00

Some of our family met in Lebanon last night for the Christmas parade. Two parades are held, one in daylight and one at night with lights on the carriages pulled by horses.

Some of those are draft horses or miniatures common to our area. There were 140 parade entries one year recently but I am not sure how many there were last night.

One friend, Ray, asked what background they were. From this article it looks like most of these parade entries were of Persian descent from the horse size and markings.

Grandpa trained and worked his last pair of Percheron horses that dad still used when I was little. I always joked we farmed like the Amish do today but we didn't know it back then.

Jim and Jane were a big pair of draft horses of mainly Percheron descent. Many of them are of darker hair color kind of like a brunette in hair color, looks black but there is a lot of red color to lighten it up in the sun. This team really looked more Belgian in color but Percheron in nature and size. Huge, easy going horses they were that would pull until the cows came home and then some more.

I wish I had a picture, I wonder if there are some in mom's attic. This gives me a good opportunity to call Uncle Roy and let him reminisce about the team as he drove horses on the farm and has that story where they ran away on him and lodged themselves at the railroad crossing in town less than a mile from the home farm.

It would be neat if I could plant that farm in 2017, that would be 100 years since grandpa planted it in 1918. That's a little far off but will be here before we all know it.

Life goes that fast but draft horses helped us get here before tractors became popular.

I realize now that grandpa also produced his own early hybrid corn on that farm by planting Bloody Butcher beside Reid's Yellow Dent and selecting the ears from that cross to shell and plant the following year. It greatly increased corn yields on that farm.

Ed

Comedy

2011-12-03T08:38:00.001-08:00

After a grueling week of work, the farmer went to town last night. LuAnn had bought us tickets for the Blue Collar Comedy Tour at the Northern Kentucky University Center in Highland Heights, Kentucky or Wilder, Kentucky only an hour away from us.

We had restaurant coupons left over from last Christmas's gifts so we thought we would go out for dinner at the Olive Garden on Ohio Pike or SR 125 or Beechmont Avenue. Before we got to the exit we saw the line was 2 miles long to get off Interstate I-275! So we went to plan B, checked in our hotel and went to Longhorn Steak House in Wilder, Kentucky.

I had seen those TV ads for lobster stuffed filets so I ordered one. I was not disappointed! The steak, potato, fresh baked bread and salad was excellent, topped off with iced tea I took out with us. LuAnn had the grilled salmon and we were both very happy with our meal.

We got to the Center right at the 8 o'clock starting time and out came the host, a redneck himself and he introduced Bill Engvall. Bill soon had the crowd in stiches talking about turning 50 and keeping our male sexuality. Can you imagine being stuck in a closet for an hour with a red ribbon around your neck in your birthday suit when your wife came home with friends who wanted to take you out for beer and a steack instead of the romantic interlude you had planned?

Jeff Foxworthy was the hit of the evening with his continuation of the 50's empty nest syndrome and medical tests you have never had before, like your first colonoscopy. You aren't supposed to drink all of that stuff in 8 minutes, it is supposed to take 4 hours!

Larry the Cable Guy was last with his Florida, Nebraska and family redneck stories like Jeff's. After two hours of solid laughter they all came out and sat on the wooden stools to top each other. The I believe segment gets really almost out of hand as people stumble to the exits in laughter and tears. I still have a light happy headache from laughing so much.

It's nice to go to the city to see how they live once in awhile but they were all like me! Stressed out from a week of work or study, everyone just wanted to get out and enjoy the beautiful southern Ohio evening and the roads and restaurants were packed!

We are glad to be back home to get ready for the Christmas parade in Lebanon and the youngest grandchild's baptism tomorrow in Grove City.

And to think I was first married 40 years ago today at age 21 makes me want to go to Springfield tonight to hear Baxter Black instead of this other important, family stuff.

Ed

Good Corn, No Purchased Nitrogen

2011-12-02T02:52:00.000-08:00

Here is a story worth reading. My friend Steve produced 190 bushel corn in Pennsylvania with no purchase nitrogen.

"Farmer Steve Groff of Holtwood, Pa., is an enthusiastic advocate for the use of cover crops in both no-till and conventional tillage farming methods. In fact, he worked for over 10 years with Dr. Ray Weil at the University of Maryland to develop and bring to market the Tillage Radish cover crop, a variety of the brassica species, selected for its uniquely aggressive single taproot that grows through compacted soils and provides many additional benefits.

Groff operates what many experts consider as one of the most extensive on-farm cover crop research farms in the nation. His Cedar Meadows Farm covers 215 acres in Southeast Pennsylvania, just a few miles north of where the Susquehanna River empties into the Chesapeake Bay.

In a new research finding in the use of cover crops, this past year, Groff grew 190 bushel per acre corn on farm-scale plots without the addition of Nitrogen fertilizer. For a nitrogen hungry crop like corn, such results are virtually unheard of in the agricultural arena.

His annual Cover Crop Field Days attracted hundreds of farmers, scientists and environmental proponents to see first hand how cover crops are used to virtually eliminate soil erosion, reduce the use of all types of pesticides, enhance soil biology and actually increase yields in the process. In fact, University of Maryland research, in which Groff participated, showed that the use of the Tillage Radish increases corn yields by 12 bushels per acre (bu/ac), soybean yields by eight bu/ac, and winter wheat yields five bushels per acre and more in some cases.

The tests were replicated in fields that have been continuously no-tilled for 18 years. The test fields were seeded in August 20, 2010 with a 10-species mix of cover crops. TA Seeds variety TA525-13V (103 day) corn was planted April 29, 2011. No starter or N was applied. Other plots in the fields receive 60, 90 and 120 lbs of N at sidedress. The harvest was measure by TA Seeds' weigh wagon.

The zero-nitrogen fertilizer input and high corn yield is attributed to the sustained use of no-till practices over time as a means to build soil health, combined with nitrogen fixing cover crops. Groff's research shows that strategically selected blends of the Tillage Radish, legumes like Austrian Winter Peas, and soil-building plants like Phacelia and others can dramatically reduce or, in some cases like this research finding, replace the need for additional fertilizer input altogether.

Groff's fields teem with earthworms, a recognized sign of healthy soil, where air and water infiltrate with ease, and where microbial populations are in balance with the plant life that the soils sustain. In fact, where Tillage Radish is planted as a fall cover crop, earth worms are attracted to them like a magnet, feed on them as they decompose in the spring and take their collected nutrient benefits deep into the root zone of the follow row crops.

Beneficial fungi like Mycorrhiza are abundant in healthy soils, as well as beneficial insects and other life forms. Cover crops help restore soils in intensively cultivated agricultural fields such that the soil-depleting effects are largely offset. Interest is rapidly growing in knowledge about the regular use of cover crops planted after and before, and in some cases interseeding with cash crops like corn, soybeans, wheat and cotton. Properly selected cover crops can double as additional forage value for cattle.

Groff's dedication to farm-based research is helping produce the kind of economic data and other practical information that farmers need to more readily adopt the regular use of cover crops as part of their cultivation program.

For more information, see CoverCropSolutions.com and TillageRadish.com.

Congratulations to my friend Steve and David Brandt in Carroll, Ohio for pioneering these types of discoveries.

Here is the video of the day from our friends and neighbors to the south and west of us.

Ed

Child Labor

2011-12-01T03:01:00.000-08:00

Steve Clodfelter in Illinois posted on Crop Talk the issue of the proposed changes in the child labor laws in agriculture. I posted a letter the other day in my blog 16 inch bin fan that I received from Steve in Iowa.

We need to contact our legislators on this issue as most of us see it as over regulating another aspect of agriculture that most of us do correctly already.

I think the left is using this to "protect the Mexican children in families in the south" that work on farms. I am sure we have all seen some of the coverage on TV of hoeing crews in the south trying to hoe out resistant weeds that are ruining soybean and other crops down there.

I don't see this as a problem on most farms across our country but an act to over regulate an industry already loaded with too many laws and too many rules and not enough common sense.

The only thing I know to do is contact your legislator that current regulations have been working and this change proposed by the Department of Labor is viewed as over regulation and the potential death of 4-H and FFA instruction as we know it today in America.

That is Steve's fear and I know many agriculture teachers and farmers agree. We don't need more regulation. If anything, we need more support of our good 4-H and FFA programs through funding and support and cooperation at the local level.

Farm families are already working closely on these problems and just need support, not banning children from our farms as some view these changes would do.

We have bigger issues on the farm but this one deserves attention also.

Thanks,

Ed Winkle

Specialty Crops

2011-11-30T13:56:00.000-08:00

My friend Ben in Iowa asked about growing white corn for Frito Lay type markets. My dear friend Dave in SW Indiana gave a really good response from his experience that explains in part his view in dealing with white corn.

"alfrotoxin is what we got docked for when white corn was plentiful...worked great here for 4 years, then as Bookmark stated we had to hunt for a market...At first buyers said we could always sell our white corn as yellow corn, if white corn market went down=not so...and aflotoxin was a big thing, test a trailer load and get a widley different show of damage each time, and that's the way it was...Aflotoxin varies, likes broken kernal, although we didn't have a problem meeting damage specs, 3% stress crack was normal here, but we put a lot of effort in meeting that...Not a problem but more work, some may not like that...40 cents a bushel is worth a lot more when yellow is 1.67 than 6.71...

Higher yellow corn prices makes a person rush harvest more to save ear drop and other yield loss...15 years ago the in thing for white corn was it was Non GMO...Be sure to ask a lot of questions...When they had the telephone question survey for specialty corn last year it didn't take them long to cut me off...I asked too many disappointing questions...If all suits you, get the answer to your questions on paper, on your contract, we were able to contract acres, not bushels, = big plus...

But get all important things written in the contract, you will probably be dealing with the firm that buys from the elevator altho you will never know it...The elevator will take care of themselves before ever thinking about what happens to you, and we had the best markets-elevators around, just that things don't always work out...180 degree plenum would usually dump 120 degree almost dry, important to let the hot corn sit for a day and cool it slow...

Seasons can make a difference in aflotoxin, broken kernals, and stress cracks too, 'here' there are never two seasons alike...We didn't want to have to separate our crop so we went all white corn for five years...We had it great for 3, COC wasn't the best idea either, should mention it was COC absolutely no till...

Ed said I was headed for a train wreck and it came to be true about half way into the fourth year, and hit hard in the fifth when white corn got to be the thing to do, and everybody done it...email works if you have more questions."

My train wreck was a low yielding non GMO soybean I had on 170 acres last year. It didn't like drought stress and shucked a bunch of pods even though it was beautiful, dark green all summer. I got the $2 premium but it didn't pay for the extra chemical to control the resistant marestail and other weeds on that farm and it sure didn't cover the yield loss.

RR beans planted double crop a few weeks later yielded more and I didn't have near the expense in growing them. And, I had the wheat off the fields first for extra cash which paid even better.

We need to really watch the crops we plant and rotation of them and the chemicals used on them for top profit while maintaining and improving the farm.

Ben asked a real good question and got a real savvy response.

Ed

Land

2011-11-29T02:31:00.000-08:00

I have used this picture LuAnn took of me behind our house as my avatar on a lot of sites. It is taken on our land, something we treasure with a beautiful crop I grew there.

"I'm guessing it was cash or close to it. They could have been growing there money with Mf global or better yet given it to there stock broker. No one will steal your land. It can be passed on to your childerns childern(with a little tax, but thats another subject) you can touch it, see it, smell it, even enjoy it on a daily basis if you like. Much more than I can say for most investments. It may well be worth half what you pay for it next year, but over time its a beautiful investment one can always be proud of. LAND"

A farmer wrote this on Crop Talk yesterday and it was so good I had to use it in my blog this morning. We have talked a lot about buying your first farm this year or the merits of owning land and I thought this summarized it nicely.

He is replying to a poster who claimed that over $10,000 per acre for a farm that sold in Illinois may be too much. Maybe it is, depending on the buyers situation but someone, at least two people thought it was worth enough to bid over $10,000 per acre for class A, prime farmland in Illinois.

In Ohio, it wouldn't bring that much unless it was an awfully prime location amongst wealthy land owners who are expanding and protecting their land base or investors who may know something about the future of that land we don't know.

The quote summarizes how I feel about land versus other investments. I can touch it, feel it, see it every day and grow valuable crops on it, something I really enjoy doing. You have to make your own conclusion, I am here to encourage you and not get you into something you don't need or want.

It is a known fact none of us are going to "take it with us," but we can enjoy it while we are here on earth and put it into hands who will take care of it as well or better than we did. "Someone farmed it before I got here and someone will farm it when I am gone."

I guess we need to talk about estate planning one of these days. That is a topic I am not prepared to tackle.

Have a good day, it is still raining in Ohio.

Ed

16 inch bin fan

2011-11-28T03:16:00.000-08:00

Anyone got a good price on 16 inch bin fan this morning? I had one go down yesterday, blades have hit the cage a little and the bin is full of wet corn so I need to get it going today.

I have a used one laying here I never took to the shop to check out or get rebuilt so I don't have a spare. I usually try to have a spare laying around but this one snuck up on me.

The last one I bought was a year ago and it was $800 for a complete, new Brock AX-16 inch fan and cage. I wouldn't be surprised to find it is half again that much. I tweeted and facebooked my plea so I will see if any "friends" have one laying around to get me going fast until I can price a new one.

Ebay has 3 at a decent price but they are all less than 16 inch. I guess that is why they are so cheap because everything I have is 16 inch.

Another interesting day. It was an interesting weekend with Thanksgiving dinner with two other couples and the grandkids here Saturday and one staying over night. It was all good but it went too fast.

Here is a ditty for you from my friend Steve from Mark Seed, Iowa.

"# The U.S. Dept of Labor is proposing amending the Fair Labor Standards Act to increase safety requirements for young farm workers, our kids. Wallace's Farmer explains, "DOL is proposing rules prohibiting hired workers under the age of 16 from working with certain animals, handling pesticides, working in timber operations, and working in or around manure pits and storage bins.

Further, the new rules would prohibit farm workers under the age of 16 from participation in the cultivation, harvesting and curing of tobacco, and from using electronic devices while operating power driven equipment. The prohibition against use of electronic devices includes talking, listening or participating in an electronic conversation (i.e. sending and receiving text messages, accessing the Internet, or entering data into a GPS system.)

The department is also proposing a new non-agricultural hazardous occupation order that would prevent any child under the age of 18 from working in grain elevators, feed lots, stockyards, and livestock exchanges and auctions, unless their parent owns or operates the business."

It won't matter if kids took safety courses or not, disallows them from riding or let alone, operating tractors, or operating farm machinery. They couldn't help brand, castrate, herd or vaccinate livestock. The DOL has asked for public comment. We could start with, "Stay the he _ _ away from agriculture." This is exactly the sort of thing that gives the Tea Party validity and purpose. It is an overreach of government.

The EPA is being effectively beaten back from the idea of regulating agriculture. The DOL is now in need of similar lessons. Next thing you know, they will make it illegal for my 11 year old to shoot his 22. Parents are responsible for kids safety and do a lot better than the government who obviously doesn't trust them.

# 78% of U.S. families reportedly bought organic foods. . . really? They did that on purpose or by accident? 48% of families buying organic food believed it was safer. That means that they have fooled almost half the people, but not quite. It is too bad that while the economy is in recession, that consumers are needlessly spending more for organic food that could be spent to better purpose.

# The EPA never had any plans to tax cow flatulence and dropped any inklings early on of regulating farm dust from serious considerations. Yet the "myths" spread like wildfire in the country as "Yep, that's what the government intends to do." Claims that when denied one believed it. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley did a good job of bringing EPA administrators to the country to show them the folly of any plans to regulate farm activities. I think that it worked.

Ed

Hybrid Striping

2011-11-27T05:03:00.000-08:00

Bigmoe asked this morning on crop talk about hybrid striping.

"I was reading the post from last week or so on planting multiple varieties in the planter at once. I understand the reasons and why a guy would do it but was wondering if you planted an 86 next to a 90 day corn hybrid will they both benifit from the extended pollination or just 1 of them. I am thinking of trying this with a 90 and 92 day and with a 86 and a 90 day."

Here is what I replied with:
"All I know is it yields 7% more and some of my neighbors do it. I quote the 7% from old USDA research that was duplicated at SDSU and other research facilities. Grandpa did it on open pollinated corn to get hybrid corn. Dad did it with hybrid corn and I have too.

I would use nothing more than 4 days apart of different ancestry. I think you get less boost from similar hybrids planted together but I don't know. I think it helps both hybrids but it make sense that a longer pollinating hybrid needs more pollen flow. Some plant the longer season to the wind, others the shorter season. This was dubbed Operation Stripe years ago and I have done it many times, not every time.

The down side is perhaps what you bring up but more the visual of having the looks of two different hybrids in one field. Some landowners and some farmers want the field to look and yield the same. It never does yield the same, so much variation in a field and I would rather have the extra corn than the pretty looks usually but there is much to be said for one beautiful field that all looks the same.

I really care more about the extra yield but the moisture variation or one hybrid falling down and the other one not poses risks. I guess you have to weigh out the risks and make your own conclusion.

It is not all about pollen flow, every plant acts a little different with different neighbors and I have never seen weeds increase yield so you don't want to plant a weed next to your corn but it does yield more and I have proven it to myself and so have many others. There is a synergistic effect between some hybrids more than is explained by pollen flow.

That's my take on it. Try it and report back or leave it on the shelf as an idea never tried. It may explain why strip plots yield better than the hybrid does planted by itself in one field."

What do you think? Have you ever tried Operation Stripe or Hybrid Striping? Or do you want your field to all look the same? I think it comes down to that.

Living or dead cover crops have an effect on fields and most likely yields. I am trying to increase my yields, not hurt them. Striping takes a look at the one crop growing in the field and I know it does increase yield.

The idea is to increase yield, not problems in your field. The picture is one of my best looking fields ever. It didn't yield as much as the fields with different hybrids planted side by side in them.

Which do you want?

Ed

12 row

2011-11-26T04:23:00.000-08:00

A 12 row corn head just passed right in front of my office window. The boys are up and early this morning at 7 AM as it is just getting light outside. I saw two friends shelling yesterday as we were hauling soybeans out of bin number two.

The cart is right behind because you can't go very far without getting a bin full. That is the blessing here today. We got rain all summer and have a good crop. A couple of guys broke their all time record and I know there were some 270 bushel corn across the road.

That is the pedigree in AgriGold 6533 and LG 2620, owned by the French Seed Giant Ag Reliant. Fortunately though they sold the female in that mix to other seed companies as well as Monsanto did even though they bought Holdens Inbreds so both the male and female are "public" and other companies have that cross, too. That male is a good one and used in a lot of popular hybrids today.

I plant it as Porter Hybrids 4514. It was a good one last year and it is pretty unbeatable this year. The new "app" on LuAnn's Droid from USDA Soil Web says that soil is Russell Xenia and Crouse Miamian series and it likes that hybrid. Every soil type we have had it on says the same thing.

There is still a lot of crop out in southwest Ohio. We are all anxious to get this crop "under roof" as it keeps getting wetter and wetter with no freeze in sight. "Warm in fall, no winter at all" has taken place so far where we live.

The 17% moisture soybeans we put in bin 2 came out at 13% so using those few fall days when the temperature and humidity added to 100 or less like last night really helped the fans knock the extra water out of the beans.

I had a really rough day yesterday. Anxiety must have set in over the Holiday. I think farmers tried to enjoy Thanksgiving around here stewing over their crop while it was too wet to run so we did not work on turkey day.

Ed

Turkey

2011-11-25T02:45:00.000-08:00

"The turkey got stuffed, now we are." That's what one of my soil consultant friends tweeted yesterday. LuAnn stuffed ours with apple and celery and it stayed very moist. All I know is an 18 pound turkey is gone.

It was a good day to just rest, eat and talk. I think LuAnn finally had a turkey day she didn't go to bed exhausted. We finally paced ourselves a little better.

I wonder who is out shopping while I am writing this? Some of our kids were going to but we did not participate. That is one activity I have never taken part of. There are a few items I would like to see at the Equipment Superstore and Tractor Supply today but it is no big deal if I don't.

Tractor supply doesn't get very high ratings among farmers anymore. They have become the "dog and pony show" amongst farmers. The Cafe had a discussion on that very thing this week. Farmers can't buy much of the things they really need at TSC anymore.

A friend at the Cafe told his Thanksgiving story of where he was 43 years ago near Saigon during the Viet Nam War. Another friend asked if all the subsoil drainage tile being put in across the midwest would decrease the water in our tributaries. It is a lively discussion and just goes opposite of what I believe.

Tomorrow the kids and grandkids come for a non traditional Thanksgiving Feast of chicken shishkabobs and ribs on a grill. I am have the last blast of summer grilling before winter since the weather this year was so fickle.

So I will be heading off to Sam's Meats this morning to pick up some fresh ribs and chicken while LuAnn goes Krogering. I am out of pink grapefruit for breakfast. I think I have eaten 6 half gallons of grapefruit this month. There are about 10 whole grapefruit in one Del Monte half gallon of fruit and juice.

It's 40 degrees this morning so I think it is going to warm up and rain again. More water we don't need now but will need in August.

Ed

Reflection

2011-11-24T04:12:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is time for farmers to stop and reflect on the year they had. I am doing that this morning and wondering if you are, too.

Woodchuck posted this on Crop Talk this morning.

No-till vs. Conventionl Tillage

East central Iowa

In the last week I have had the pleasure of putting down NH3 on just short of 1000 acres. All with in 5 mile area. Let me just say, I didn't know I could burn 11 gallon/hour through my JD 4640 pulling 7 mole knives. Ground was mostly fall chiseled and worked ahead of planting corn or beans. Holy Crap, I could have run in the road and pulled with less effort.

My ground is long term notill and is like runnig on a pillow. This NH3 application was done for three diff. farmers all consideered to be good. I wish guys with big 4 wheel drive tractors would take a trip across thier fields with an old 2wd tractor and see what they are doing to the ground. The best conditions where on notill ground, Beans in sod of 5 years, 1.5 mph faster and sealed great in same gear.

My long term no-till is like running on a pillow. We won't even discuss all the G@#@@m gullys. I truly believe those ripper disk chisels, and big HP hooked to them, is a losing battle, those are just covering up real issues. Long term. PURE NO-TILL on continuos basis may not be the whole solution but Maybe some people in my region need to sell the chisel, buy some grass seed for buffer strips and waterways, buy some tile and learn how to work WITH the soil they have. According to some I may go broke no-tilling but atleast at my farm sale my tractors will still have a front axle.

O.K I'm done complaining now.

HAPPY THANSGIVING!

Dave

I say Voila, Eureka! He has seen the light! I have had the pleasure of digging in thousands of acres of pillow ground in southeast Iowa on farms where they have also seen the light. These farmers get good yields and refuse to farm the way the neighbors do. They are pioneers, they are innovators.

These diggings have refined my notill practices, changed my planter design and allowed me to buy a farm and expand my farming operation. I have shared the good word with as many farmers as I can from New Zealand to Maine to Russia. Literally, this message needs to be spread around the world.

To that I add, Happy Thanksgiving from me and LuAnn!

Ed Winkle

Thanksgiving

2011-11-23T03:16:00.000-08:00

Another holiday is upon us, Thanksgiving. It is truly a time to give thanks for all we have when so many around us have less. The word holiday is derived from the words Holiday Day.

The cost of a Thanksgiving meal for 10 people is up to a whopping $49 now according to the USDA. This was mentioned on last weekend's US Farm Report. That seems cheap to me compared to filling up LuAnn's car which I can burn in one day and not get near as much joy and good from.

Yesterday marked the 48th anniversary of the day I was sitting in the eighth grade classroom and our principal sadly came in and explained to our class that our new, young President had been shot in Texas.

The country has never been the same since and I think some people mourn the innocense lost since the 50's when we were children.

Farmers still have crop in the field here and it is hard to concentrate on Thanksgiving when your profit for the year is still out in the field. It's rained so much now Ohio is officially a mudhole and it will be tough slugging the rest of the crop out.

Farmers north of Interstate 70 are somewheat finished but there is lots of crop left in NW and central Ohio, too. The farmers that are done had a shorter crop to take out and had more drought than we did. It varies in 100 and even 10 miles.

One farmer said "they got a two inch rain 6 miles up the road and the same corn planted the same day made 50 bushels per acre more." I don't doubt he is right but that shows the power of one rain event.

We are over 60 inches of rainfall now for 2011 and have broken all recorded records. The wheat crop was poor but the beans and corn were good here. They still are if we can ever get them out.

We do have a lot to be thankful for and I am reminded of that this morning.

I hope you find reason to give thanks, too.

Ed

Small Business Saturday

2011-11-22T03:24:00.000-08:00

There are 260 dairy calves in this little barn I took a picture of yesterday. I support small business and this is a key part of a small family farm I visited.

This Saturday is Small Business Saturday. You aren't allowed to go shop at Walmart or big box stores. If you shop you need to go to the smallest store that has the item you are looking for.

That is not the whole truth but you get my drift. It is a promotion to remind us all to support small business. Many have started in the past year in this very difficult economy and we need to give them every chance to survive and make good. Success of small business is a key to economic survival.

If you read this page you know I am pretty passionate about the little guy. We are all little guys and if we don't help one another, things won't get any better. They will get even worse. Many have given up and just accept that.

We started HyMark Consulting in 1994 and expanded our farming operation in 2004. We are small business people.

Some media keep pointing out that 47% of us don't pay taxes. I assume they mean Federal Income Tax. Others point out that the richest need to pay more. For the life of me I can't figure out how almost half our population fall off the income tax radar screen. You and I never did. I have always felt I paid my fair share of Federal Income Tax. LuAnn and I sure did last year and a few years ago.

The total of the two years is enough to put one of our grand kids through college. Most years we can live with the large amount of income tax we pay but the last ten years we have had two where we just couldn't keep that amount down, although we tried.

We are thankful we made enough to pay that much but the whole tax structure is flawed and definitely not fair. I am reminded that if life were fair, "I would be dead or behind bars," a saying I heard in a discussion this summer that had impact on me.

So remember the little guy if you shop this weekend. Tractor Supply and the Superstore have big sales on I hope to take time to look at. I am always looking for those special toys for the little ones.

If this doesn't put you in a good mood, maybe this will! It is really good. I tried it but they all just ran away!

Ed

Children

2011-11-21T13:14:00.001-08:00

I had to write about children today. It's been on my mind since staying with the grandchildren in Cleveland Friday night. Jesus spoke regularly about protecting and raising children and anyone dare not keep them from Him.

I have always loved children. I love being a child myself. I told LuAnn I am enjoying my childhood again through our grandchildren.

Caring for children is the most important job on earth. I saw that today when I visited a young farmer with seven beautiful children. The two oldest boys hung onto my every word and I spoke so they could understand me and gave them a lot of attention. They understood what I was talking about with soil and tissue testing, corn hybrids, manure and killing weeds.

The young farmer is not satisfied with his notill yields so he asked me to help him bring them up. I can see he is spending too much on traits and fertilizer and not enough on nutrients. His soil tests are all low in sulfur and micronutrients so we developed a plan to put them on and test for them next spring. I will teach the boys how to tissue sample the crops and guide them through adjusting the nutrient plan.

Practically every farm I work with could use gypsum as a soil amendment. Gypsum addresses the sulfur and calcium problem while increasing soil air and water movement and SO many good things. This is a brand new article I received from the American Society of Agronomy yesterday.

I suggested some corn hybrids for $120 that I know will out perform the $300 stuff he is planting. He will change his herbicide program so he doesn't have the weed blow up he had in his corn this year which reduced his yield to 100 bushels per acre. Boron will really increase his soybean yields, too.

I also got to stop and see Jim Longenecker from AgTalk. We had a great discussion but when he asked me about my radishes in wheat and double crop soybeans, he lit up and caught fire. I bet he rigs up a broadcast seeder on his Great Plains notill drill to sow radishes with his crops. We are thinking outside the box on soil biology and Jim is one of the few who can help me refine my thinking from my findings.

Take good care of those children, they are precious!

Ed

Balmy Weather

2011-11-20T03:45:00.000-08:00

It is very balmy out this morning. The weather has been fluctuating like this all fall. I guess it is this back to back La Nina the weathermen and climatologists keep talking about.

I am trying to maximize my in bin grain drying and it is hard to do in this weather.

The temp plus humidity went to 152, dropped to 70 and back around 120 this week.

I am leaving the fans on the corn all the time "until you can jump into it to your waist like the one poster said, safety rope and two men of course.

The beans are stable around 12-13% but the corn is closer to 20% so I leave the bean bins off in high humidity and leave the corn bins on and turn the beans off.

I have one big bin with two fans on and they are mismatched, one new fan and one old and that bin howls, doesn't sound right. I think I should put one of the new fans off a bean bin on that bin and put that older fan where the new fan was and see if that stops the surging sound.

I should have had my visitors this year look at the bins when they were here but time is so short during our visits I don't get all the bases covered.

Hope this makes some sense, I keep asking and thankfully you all keep replying.

So how are things in your world? Farmers keep pecking away at these good yields but the weather changes so fast it is hard to get much done.

Rain is coming and you can sure feel it this morning.

Ed

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

2011-11-19T10:39:00.000-08:00

I just returned home from the land of planes, trains and automobiles. This time it was Cuyahoga County, Ohio, or Cleveland.

One of our children bought a house there and I stayed overnight with the three grandchildren. We had a blast.

I crashed on the couch shortly after 9 PM and woke up before 5 AM to the sound of trains crossing just to the north of the house and near the lake. I guess Lake Erie's ships weren't too far away, either!

I did make it to the guest room though and the city lights and noise were far enough away to easily go to sleep.

Cleveland Municipal Airport is nearby also but the house is not in the flight path so they didn't wake me, the trains did. Interstates 80, the Ohio Turnpike and 480 are also nearby so it is easy to get to off Interstate 71.

The urban deer population is huge and of course you aren't allowed to shoot any. I could have easily hit a buck on the way home on Interstate 71 near the I-80 split. It just stood in the median watching traffic. Someone had one go feet first through a windshield this week and the hooves cut up a young girl.

The traffic was heavy into Columbus today for the Penn State Ohio State game. I feel for both teams with what they are going through. Posey may get to start today after sitting out 10 games over tattoos and jerseys.

Penn State's problems has over-shadows every sport in the country.

Ed

Organic Matter

2011-11-18T03:37:00.000-08:00

A fellow directed a question to me, soil life and others on Crop Talk as to why he wasn't seeing his organic matter go up on his Maryland farm.

I answered the best I could but I am not sure how you communicate all these ideas via word and print.

In his rotation he is chopping off more residue than he is putting in, even though he adds manure and a cover crop to his rotation. He is on low organic matter, non glaciated soil much like I have here at the bottom of this farm on the glacial moraine.

We hear of farmers actually increasing their soil organic matter like gardeners can do but in his circumstance he can't get ahead of the game. It sounds like he must have a lot of microbial activity but the microbes are eating up what little residue he puts in his rotation to feed the next crop.

Soil is a vast, deep and interesting subject. A young farmer friend showed me an "app" for his droid connected to Soil Web that shows the soil type on your farm via the GPS connected to the soil survey. It knows where you are and looks up the mapped soil type where you are standing. I thought that was really cool.

I was surprised to see we were talking above Blanchester Silt Loam, a very low organic matter soil that is very old, over 100,000 years old the soil scientists think. It was a low area but really a higher elevation swamp and probably was a lake many centuries ago.

This location is over 1000 feet elevation above sea level. Increasing the soil organic matter on this soil would be about like the fellow in Maryland. It would be slow and difficult in one man's lifetime after centuries and eons of other practices.

That is why farming is so exciting to me, there is so much to learn and so little time. I am still learning this week so I guess you could say I had a good week overall.

Ed

Chasing The Wind

2011-11-17T04:15:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite readings is the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible. It is a book of wisdom to me.

Solomon was the richest, wisest man that ever lived and learned the folly of our seeking wealth for wisdom and happiness.

This has been so evident this year as farmers raced to plant and harvest in a strong agricultural marketplace while the economies around us crumble. It feels like we chased the wind all year, literally and figuratively.

I knew there was some preventive planting west of me where it rained hard on even wetter soils but yesterday I saw thousands of acres of radishes and peas planted on those old Clermont Silt Loams! What a crop and what a stink it is going to be when those things die in a few weeks.

I teased some of the farmers about the stench they are going to have to explain and their answer was nothing seems to make the neighbors happy so we guess this is just one more thing we will have to go through. One said he gets a visit from the Ohio Department of Agriculture every time he does and operation on his farm behind a certain house.

I could smell the gases from the radishes as they are approaching maturity and going to seed just before they will freeze and die. When they die though there will be a few days of really smelly gas emitting from those fields. Grandpa said if you run out of manure, and no one had enough to ever cover all their ground, then plant a green manure crop!

That's what these guys did and I think they have set themselves up for some great notill crops next year. I would notill corn on every acre of radish and peas but soybeans would do fine too if it gets late for corn. This year it never got late and even corn planted in July made great silage. Who would have guessed?

Today I am reminded to do my chores and make my visits without chasing the wind. I have a good message to discuss on resistant weeds that is timely and profitable for both parties. This is another way HyMark Consulting can serve its clients and friends.

It is easy to get caught up chasing the wind, just like Sable chases her tail some days but today I won't do that and enjoy the friends I get to visit with.

Ed

Preschool

2011-11-16T04:52:00.000-08:00

We went to Brynn's Fall Preschool Program last night. Once again, the auditorium of the biggest church in Wilmington was packed. There is one larger, a mammoth church just outside city limits.

The little ones were all dressed by class as Indians, Pilmgrims or Turkeys. It was a pretty cute program and I think every person came out happier than they went in which is really good for any get together.

They got every one to sing words off the screen to My God to the tune of My Girl by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. The whole program couldn't have come off any smoother and I am sure the teachers and children are talking about it this morning.

I was looking over rebate programs for bundling agricultural products we farmers use. Does anyone like rebates? I don't think I have ever met anyone who does. They always seem to want to bundle some product I don't use but occasionally they do.

I probably bought enough products the last three years to get rebates but I really never paid much attention to them. I have enough difficulty just focusing on the big picture of making a profit by raising good crops and rebates just destract me from that.

Still, I am looking as $250 here and $250 there soon add up to real money. Once again the big picture in farming is marketing and anyone who didn't sell some corn and beans the day they were $7.11 and $14.22 this fall really missed out on some sales. It seems like you never have enough to sell on those kinds of days.

I am also narrowing down my corn hybrids for next spring. I can get one pedigree I want with the seed treatment I need for under $150 per unit. I need at least three and want no more than five different hybrids to deal with.

One larger farmer/retailer I know is closer to $100 a bag so again quantity matters.

It's hard to plan and focus though when you still have crop in the field.

So it is in farming.

Ed

Weeds

2011-11-15T04:19:00.001-08:00

I spent the day talking about glyphosate resistant weeds yesterday. Many farmers are still in denial whether or not they have them and I can assure them they are here and will get worse.

So what do you do about them in soybeans? The easiest answer is LL soybeans. They really worked. I had no typical resistant weed issues with LL soybeans this year. I had very good yields. I have pictures of fields that "crashed" in this area this year like there are all over the south, east and midwest.

Marestail is very difficult to kill here under any system but Liberty Link. There was not enough time to spray 2,4-D this year and even if you did, could you get a good kill? I didn't see anyone who did.

If you used a full rate of residual, you could have planted non GMO soybeans and gotten a premium. I got an email yesterday that a friend demo'd a new yellow CNH combine with MacDon head for a farmer near Bloomingburg and he got 87 bushels per acre and a $1.50 non GMO premium on top of that! Talk about hitting the soybean lottery, that would be it!

I did well but I didn't do that well. I did control all my broadleaf weeds with Ignite. I had no resistant Marestail, Lambsquarter, Giant Ragweed or Common Ragweed. I had some grasses and continue to learn how to control them.

If you are sitting on the fence and don't think you have resistant weeds, think again. If you don't have them, you will if you continue a RR program without residual chemical and any breakthrough weeds will enlarge the patch of resistant weeds.

It is easier to take measures to control them now. I took this picture just down the road from one of our farms. I think that farmer is in denial.

Ed

70 And Windy

2011-11-14T04:36:00.000-08:00

LuAnn made it home safely and had a great week with her family. I even got a call from her mother thanking me for giving up my wife for "the best week in her life." That is awesome, but it was not easy!

I got by "baching" for a week but I don't like it. I can see why seniors get in trouble when their mate passes. It is hard to make yourself cook for one. I got tired of diners, shopping, and cooking. That's to make me appreicate all she does even more, doesn't it?

LuAnn is off to work and I need to get to work. Looks like a chance for severe weather this evening as another storm system blows through. I hope it isn't too bad for chance for heavy rain and damaging winds. That is never fun here on the hill.

Living on a hill sure has its challenges but so does any place. Some places are just easier to get by with than others. My old house was on the flats and kind of blended in with the topography. This place sticks out like a sore thumb or a proud showplace depending on the weather. 1120 feet is higher than normal elevation around here. Good place for a cell tower or a wind turbine, but we've already been through that in past blogs.

It's Tuesday morning and the storm blew through with walls of water last night. I don't know how much we got yet but I know some places got over an inch.

There were tornado watches out near by. Old saying is "warm fall, no winter at all." I don't know if that will be true or not this winter as it is only a few weeks away by the calendar. Nothing blew away yet that I know of but I guarantee you there are dead Pecan limbs laying in the yard this morning.

Ed Winkle

Five Talents

2011-11-13T08:22:00.000-08:00

Todays sermon was from Matthew 25 about the servant who was given five talents. He went out and traded and doubled the gift to ten talents. Another servant was given two talents and also went out and traded and doubled his gift. But the third servant was fearful of his master as he knew he never sowed where he reaped and buried his gift in the ground. He was "tossed to the wolves" where there is weeping and gnashing or grinding of teeth.

The pastor said there were two kinds of people in this story, risk takers and care takers. He asked us which are we?

I have always been a risk taker and I think every farmer is. I took a risk planting those 4.1 soybeans July 2 thinking they would be mature enough to cut by now. They aren't. So I have tried my own patience taking this risk and have to wait a little longer, even risking the entire crop on that farm.

We dare not reap where we have not sown though in a literal sense as we can always do better with what we have and what we plant. I see I could have this year. But nothing ventured is nothing gained. I have gained much by taking calculated risks but risked failure when my calculations were wrong or I just went a did it without thining it through first.

There is much to think about in this parable as there is throughout the Bible. We all bury something in the ground for retirement but what do we have to show for it? If it was stocks or mutual funds, we took a big loss 3 years ago. So is our real God given talents. We dare not hide them under a rock or bury them for no one to see.

The moral of the story for me today is we are all in this together and we can only make it by helping each other. It's almost Thanksgiving and we have much to be thankful for. Our church has barrels at the back of the building to put canned goods and non perishable items in for those less fortunate than us. Most churches have done that in one way or another since their inception and it was never more needed than it is today.

We take risks and the harvest bears its fruit. Some harvests are better than others but we all have something and if we don't, we need to go find it.

I hope we both find ours today and give thanks for it.

Ed

Beans Won't Cut

2011-11-12T06:08:00.000-08:00

You would think one of these $400,000 combines would cut anything, wouldn't you? Guess what, they won't!

We are down to 50 acres of double crop soybeans left. I have been waiting for weeks to try and get them out before it gets any wetter because this farm is flat, Clermont Silt Loam, Illinoian Glacial Till, commonly called crawl dad ground around here.

I planted the rest of my 3.9 LL seed and a 4.1 I used last year around July 2. They grew well and looked really good all year but I had problems killing foxtail in all my double crop soybeans. It was sprayed with generic Select or Clethodim herbicide with the Ignite or new foumulation of Liberty herbicide. My fall panicum problem came back on me, too.

It's like the plants froze in time the first frost and all the leaves are still on the plant and they are really tough. The sickle bar will barely cut them off and they won't feed properly through the machine. So I have around 50 acres of valuable soybeans still sitting in the field after waiting and waiting.

I could second guess myself on what I did but they are what they are and I can't change a thing now but wait and get them when they will cut. Another lesson learned and farming is one big lesson after another. No wonder some farmers don't change practices much. I experiment on my farm before I recommend it to someone else.

The combine was able to cut the beans that had the radishes in them when the soybeans were planted and they yielded really well. They were making near 70 bushels per acre on the monitor but I haven't weighed them yet. They loosened up the ground a little but I think they had more impact on plant growth and pod set. I wonder if that was because of some nematode control from their root gases. These radishes never cease to amaze me.

I would rather have the whole farm finished, though. It's been a really tough year and for me it isn't over yet.

Ed

11.11.11

2011-11-11T04:41:00.000-08:00

Some are making a big deal of 11.11.11, today's date expressed digitally. This is the first time in history most people connect 11.11.11 with a date in history. I don't even use dots or periods in dates, I use dashes or hyphens when I write the date that way.

11 November or 11 Nov is more like how this date has been written over the centuries. And remember, most people could not even write until very recently in the past 2000 years.

It is an important date to me though as we honor American Veterans today. I would not have the freedom to write this blog today without the sacrifice of millions of soldiers the past 235 years. I don't take that lightly and that is the primary reason I voted Tuesday. I want to keep these freedoms for my children and grandchildren and generations beyond.

It is also a significant day for LuAnn and I. 12 years ago today she made her first trip to my home and we started dating every weekend until we were married June 22, 2001. Happy Anniversary, LuAnn! She has been in Phoenix all week with her mother for her brothers 60th birtday.

So I have been "baching" it all week and trying to leave the place better than she left it Saturday. I think I did pretty well except that big wind blew the smoke out of the chimney into the house and it smells like woodfire inside the house. A friend helped me clean the house yesterday so it doesn't look like the house she first saw in 1999.

It's 29 degrees outside with a breeze so it is really chilly. It was 18 degrees in 1973 and 76 degrees just a few years ago so you can see the highs and lows in this area this time of year.

Election day is over thank goodness and Drew Hastings is now the Mayor of Hillsboro so everything is right in the world(sarcasm intended.)

We hope to finish soybeans today or tomorrow and concentrate on corn. I need to get a picture of two soybeans I saw, one loaded with marestail that probably cost 20 bushels or near half the yield. The other has some marestail in it and shows the problem worsening over clean fields to the tune of around 5 bushels loss per acre.

It looks like the heavily infested field only had glyphosate on it and perhaps the lesser infested field had 2,4-D sprayed this spring or a residual chemical at planting time.

Neither one is acceptable and it confounds me why some farmers keep using the RR soybean system when glyphosate no longer controls their weed problem.

That's the way it is Martinsville, Ohio, November 11, 2011.

Thank you veterans, sincerely, I can never repay your particular sacrifice but I can do my part.

Ed Winkle

Making Amends

2011-11-10T11:12:00.000-08:00

The first thing I had to do this morning was go make amends to two dear friends.

I gave an interview this summer to a lady I trusted. I rarely turn down interviews to get out the good message on agriculture, notill, conservation, cover crops or whatever the subject is that I have some experience in.

I haven't seen the article yet but I was informed that it had misinformation in it. I don't know how it happened and it really doesn't matter, it happened and two friends didn't get credit for their ideas.

Another good friend read it and called to congratulate me and thank him for business I sent his way thanks to this blog. I told him to read the big message but some of the details were incorrect.

I really trust my circle of friends and they have to be able to trust in me. When something is not the truth and I find out, I must stop and address it immediately. Is it true, accurate and best for all parties involved?

Life is full of amends because we are humans and we make mistakes. We must see those mistakes when they come to us and try to improve upon them. That is what I do in making amends as I don't want anyone carrying around resentments about me when I can correct the issue when I find out about it.

Amending soil is about the same way. It is not perfect but it is the substance of life. Without soil, we as humbans would have no life as we know it. We haven't perfected aquaculture or space travel yet so our food comes from the soil.

Our spiritual food, peace and happiness comes from doing the right thing.

I did the right thing this morning and I hope you do, too.

Ed

Rain

2011-11-09T03:23:00.000-08:00

We have had a few good days now. I got the dirt piles on Horshoe Road flattened out thanks to Jack Ficke at Terra Excavating. There was more sod in there then we expected so some of the piles didn't flatten too well and will need more work. It is amazing what we can do with his Caterpillar style Bobcat.

We got a tree moved and some holes filled but there are several tile holes or "blow outs" to repair. I want to dig into them just to see the soil, how the old tile was installed and which way it runs.

I don't need rain and no one around here does but if I get some, it might get my dormant rye seeding started I sowed with the fertilizer. That could be good or bad but I imagine most of it will peak through in March after the snow melts. If this year is anything like the last two, and it sure acts like it is, there will be snow on at the end of winter.

But who knows, the last thing I can do is predict the weather, I just have to spot trends and work with it. That is why farmers are working so hard to get their late crop out in Ohio. Some have made really good progess and I assume that is most but I don't know anyone who is finished.

The harvest has been slow enough I haven't heard a problem with lines at the elevator anywhere in the country. Of course you guys in the midwest are finished and already planning for next year. We aren't but still doing some planning and not running into any real snafu's.

We are thankful for this decent weather and the low amount of rain predicted this morning then it will get down to freezing again tonight.

Time to fire up the woodstove!

Ed

NoTill and Biology

2011-11-08T04:23:00.000-08:00

A college student emailed for permission to use my picture of the Mr. Young NoTill plaque that stands in Kentucky. It is amazing how the Internet and blogging has changed the exchange of information.

A farmer called last night asking if it was OK to put soybean inoculant on his fall cover crop seeding. Some farmers inoculate their winter wheat seedings to help improve inoculation of the double crop soybeans they are going to plant next summer after wheat harvest.

I would prefer to have some soybean seed with the mix to get them up and growing in Virginia or Ohio but it is getting late. Today is our last warm day before the temperatures really drop again.

Our friends in Missouri are having their cover crop field day today. It is raining there so I wish they had better weather but any day is a good day to talk cover crops. Steve Groff had his in SE Pennsylvania last week and I haven't heard a report yet but I know it is always good.

Alan from DelMarVa is in Phoenix for a talk where Dr. Jill Clapperton is speaking. She is a farmer authority on soil microbiology, something farmers know very little about. Her talks are always revolutionary.

Maybe I will add more tonight but the sun is up and it is time to get crackin'.

Ed

Crazy Day

2011-11-07T07:53:00.000-08:00

It's two more crazy days here before the rain hits again. More beans and corn are gone. The fertilizer man was real happy to see me this morning with checkbook in hand, too happy in fact.

I have some fields that call for 200 MAP and 200 Potash plus ammonium sulfate, zinc and boron and you get $200 per acre in dry fertilizer in these fields! That's a lot of money to me but I own them so I will never meet my yield goals if I don't follow my soil test recommendations.

I did a good job probing those fields and feel confident with the recommendations. The farm I spread 2 tons of high calcium lime on last fall actually went DOWN a little in pH which means little to me but calcium level went up and I had a good crop on it. It is there and will be released the more I farm it the next few years.

Think about it, if I spread the materials on top they only moved an inch or two in the profile. If I am probing 12 inches deep, the product amount is diluted in my sample. I would have to probe 3 inches deep to find the product applied and the data wouldn't mean much to me. I have done that before and only do it when I am looking for stratification of nutrients. I know I have them here as I did it that way. Each crop will get more of that product as the soil chemistry changes with the biology.

The phone is ringing off the hook so I will try to write more later. Please post comments and questions. I will be so glad when election day is over tomorrow so I don't have to sort good calls from bad.

Ed

Gratitude

2011-11-06T08:23:00.000-08:00

It's Sunday and a great time to list my gratitudes.

We have been talking farms all week so I am happy to be a land owner and still have the health and interest to farm it. We had a real trying year in Ohio but God took something bad and made something really good from it.

Local farmers are happy to have this break in the weather to hit the harvesting hard. More soybeans are gone each day and hopefully one of these days we will be done. I would be very happy to have that last farm harvested before the next rain.

It is windy and sunny and the temperature and humidity are less than 100. The fans have been running on the bins ever since that happened Thursday. This means we are getting more natural drying of the crops left in the field and every point of moisture lost in corn means another 10 cents or so profit from not having to dry it or take the dock which is higher.

I am very blessed with my wife and family. I am happy that Becky and her young family is in there new home as the church and other movers help them get everything situated. The little girls as we call them have a new black lab puppy they named Stella. I am sure Sable can't wait to meet her!

We are blessed with all have health and income during troubling times when so many don't have one or the other or both. We pray for those people and trust things will turn around for them quickly.

An old dear friend passed away on Matt's birthday Thursday and I met him because of Matt's pending birth in 1976. We were looking for a church home and found it at Marathon United Methodist Church. He is the third close friend from that church that I have lost in the last 10 years.

If Bill isn't in Heaven, most of us don't have a chance as they say. I can tell you he is there, waiting for the rest of us. I remember when he helped the pastor baptize the two boys in the creek beside his house. We cooked many pancake and sausage breakfasts Easter Sunday over the years and all sorts of fun activities. He is sorely missed, no doubt, but left a legacy of belief and works to prove it.

I have great gratitude for everything and no remorse about anything. That's a real good place to be on a sunny Sunday.

I don't like the time change but I don't make the rules, I just try to follow them.

Have a great day and a good week all,

Ed Winkle

Soil Sampling

2011-11-05T05:07:00.000-07:00

Before I bid on a piece of land to buy or rent, I really want soil test data. Soil testing is not exact but it is the best tool we have to start raising crops and gardens. Very few people I know do this though before they bid and you would be shocked by the amount of farmers and gardeners who never soil test.

Keep sampling easy. You can do it with a good spade or shovel. The basic concept is to take a representative sample or slice of soil in several spots in the garden and I like about one sample per acre in a field as a starting point. Slice down to plow depth or 6-8 inches deep and put that slice in a clean bucket. You can pry the soil over easier with a spade to get your thin slice.

An easier and more accepted way is to buy or borrow a soil probe. Probes come in many styles but they take a one inch or so round core as deep as you push the probe into the ground. The probe I am using now you can buy from Gempler's or other supply stores for about $100. It is stainless steel, takes 12 inch deep samples and has a foot peg to help you get those last few inches of tighter soil.

If I sampled 40 acres I have 25-40 probes of soil in the bucket. I air dry them if they are damp like they are here today and then crumble each core into loose soil. Thoroughly mix the soil which is generally darker near the top and lighter colored near the bottom. Fill the soil sample bag to the fill line and carefully mark the bag to match the paperwork you send in.

Most labs give the kits away to get your business. Mine comes in boxes of 100 sample bags and recording sheets from Midwest Labs in Omaha, Nebraska. You can call or order online or take it to your lab if it is nearby like Spectrum Analytic here in Washington Court House, Ohio.

I use Midwest as it uses the same chemical extraction method my former lab did, the ammonium acetate extraction. Most labs use Mehlich III extraction now but I prefer the older method. It costs $12 instead of $6 but the information is a little more exact. Either one is fine. The main thing is do it because it helps you budget and raise better crops!

This week might be the last week we have to get this done in decent weather so get it done, now. If you use Midwest, just write down my account number 11085, HyMark Consulting LLC and I will get a copy of the report. You can call or email me and we can discuss the results.

If a farm needs $200 per acre in lime and fertilizer over those that need $100 worth per acre, it makes a big difference in you budget and your expected yield. "Don't guess, soil test!"

Ed

Insurance

2011-11-04T05:03:00.000-07:00

Before we get into insurance today, I have a report on the expected increase in land taxes in the county due to reappraisal. It looks like my assessment of taxes going up on farmland due to reappraisal was right on.

Insurance has been an important part of our farm operation. When we bought this place in 2004, I had my lifelong company Nationwide assess the property and recommend a policy that seemed what we wanted but was very expensive. The quote was so high I asked around to see who the neighbors used and I was recommended to Ron Trusty at Trusty Insurance in Wilmington.

He came to our farm and walked the property and came up with an even better policy at about half the quote from Nationwide. Upon further verification, we decided to buy our policy from Ron Trusty. It was a good move.

We had a tornado hit our farm on Good Friday of 2006. It lifted the garage off the pad and destroyed it and most of the barn doors and damage the roofs. I spent the entire summer cleaning up from that storm and working with the contractors who put each piece back into place. It was very tedious work but the property came out in even better shape than before the storm. Ron came the morning after the tornado and assured us everything would be OK and after several months, it was. You don't repair that kind of damage in a week or two.

Then in September of 2008 Hurricane Ike blew through the Ohio Valley and we had similar damage to the tornado. This time it was easier as I found better contractors but the damage total was about the same, over $30,000 each time. Ohio Mutual Insurance paid every penny through the work of our agent, Ron Trusty. I was so impressed I even gave my crop insurance business to him.

Nationwide had insured me since I was 18 so it was a big move for me but it was the right thing to do. Every time I see one of those catchy Nationwide is on your side commercials I am glad it is Trusty on my side. The man earns hisname.

Look at the picture. Tornados are strange storms. See how the garage is pushed in but See Rock City wasn't touched.

The moral of the story is to insure your property carefully. Know who you are dealing with. Compare prices and service and beware the big companies where you can fall through the crack. That happened to me with Nationwide when I was nearly killed by a dump truck on the Norwood Lateral in 1994. My truck was not totaled out and was never the same that day I bought it and was driving it home.

I have written on these stories in the past so don't be afraid to go dig in my archives. I have been finding some amazing stuff myself!

Tomorrow we need to go over soil sampling again before you buy or rent that farm.

Ed

Taxes

2011-11-03T05:34:00.001-07:00

Wouldn't you know I would write a story about buying your first farm and I get a tax notice that day saying "your property has been reappraised and your taxes are going up!"

How can that be after the record housing market value slide the last two years? Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn't.

The statements said our farmstead has gone down in value in the reappraisal, but our land values have went up! Actually they were both very close to the same, within 5% but the big question is CAUV value. The CAUV land value more than doubled since the last appraisal.

My Ohio readers and farm owners and buyers might want to read that link to our Clinton County Auditors statement on CAUV as our taxation on farmland is surely going up, it looks to be over double the last bill we paid if I read this correctly.

How much will this affect our tax bill? I don't know yet. I can call the Auditor's office or attend one of the five informational meetings around the county this month. One landlord warned me of this months ago, so he must have gotten his notice earlier.

Our taxation on this valuation is low compared to other states but even when taxes are "low" and then double, it brings a red flag warning. If you don't pay those taxes and get in arears too far, the land will eventually be sold at sheriff's sale at the courthouse to pay the taxes.

That reminds me of our family's tenant farm that had been past down to the grandson and his cousins, aunts and uncles and he had to file bankruptcy on apartment buildings he owned. To satisfy his debt, the home farm was going to be sold at sheriff's sale, even though he just had partial ownership in it. Our family was able to work with the other heirs and buy it outright before it sold at auction.

It is clear that housing values have went down but agricultural land prices have went up, even sky rocketed in some states. They have not in economically depressed states like Ohio.

Another thing has always been clear, death and taxes. Setting up ownership in a new purchase like a farm and getting your estate in order afterwards to meet your goals after you are gone is very important. Many people miss that and it is evident in this community as one farm family is going through it after the death of the father and the unexpected death of one of the sons.

Tomorrow we need to talk about insurance. "Keep the cards and letters flowing." I do appreciate the comments, emails and phone calls.

This keeps this interesting!

Ed Winkle

Buying Your First Farm

2011-11-02T04:52:00.000-07:00

How many of you own your own farm? That would be an interesting statistic of my readership. One of you emailed that you want to own a farm and another emailed saying you bought one!

I wanted to own farm land since I was a child. We were tenant farmers so ownership seemed a long ways away. It was for me, Age 54 before we bought our first real farm! I can tell you the feeling of ownership is priceless compared from looking at the outside in.

A farm has been described as anything from an acre to 25 acres in some states. Most governments consider a tract of 10 acres or more as large enough to meet CAUV, or Current Agricultural Use Valuation, or $2500 or more farm income per year.

To me, 50 acres is a farm. 100 is larger, 200 acres is large enough for some diversity between fields and crops and livestock. Everyone has their own opinion.

Once you have decided you want to own a farm, how do you do it? Of course it takes money so $50,000 saved may not be enough to get you started. Our bank and many banks require 50% cash on bare land so 100 acres at $5,000 an acre would require $250,00 in cash or assets the bank can take a lien on for the loan.

Then figure your payment-$250,000 at 5% interest for example, on a fixed 30 years lowan is a lot of money. Taxes and insurance adds some cost but are negligible to me compared to the payment. I have to pay the payment first and I have to pay the real estate taxes second.

To be more exact, if I borrow $250,000 at 5% interest amortized over 30 years, annual payments would be around $16922 principle and interest. Total interest paid over the life time of the loan would be $238,770 or $7959 average per year. Total principal paid would be $250,000 or $8333 average per year.(Thanks, RS)

You probably can't rent that ground for $40,000 acre a year in my example but you can rent it for half that amount. If you are old or young, the payment is doable in today's economics. The difference in my situation is the cost of ownership, investing in something that is going to retain its value or increase over time. It is a good business decision for me today but remember that a five percent margin of profit is traditional in agriculture. "They aren't making any more of it" but you don't want to buy in a bubble, either.

I don't think we are in a permanent bubble where prices will stay deflated for a long period of time but I don't know either. Land was "cheap" when I started in 1971 but few had money to buy. The numbers have changed but the situation hasn't. Not that many people have the money or inclination to invest in land now but enough do that we have seen record high farmland prices in Illinois and Iowa, the two prime farmland states.

We have friends who have first right of refusal on 160 acres at $9100 per acre. It is prime farm ground, some of the best in the world and rents are as high as $400 per acre in that area. Because they are lifelong farmers and have little debt, they can borrow the needed funds at less than 4% interest. They will probably never get this chance to buy land adjacent to theirs. Thankfully, farmland is not quite that high in Ohio.

The main thing is to do your homework and build a network of people you trust. That includes your banker, a real estate agent, perhaps a consultant like myself who can help you sort out the right property for you.

Finding that property is the challenging but exciting part for me. We looked hard for two years before we bought this farm and now it is our home. Location, buildings and soil were important to us and we found the right combination for us. Great location, good soil and good buildings that needed some repair.

I am very excited for our two readers and it brings back the good memories of the past seven years here in Martinsville.

Comments and email are appreciated as we all work to help each other in our common interest, the farm.

I am thankful I am where I am but wish I could have started a little sooner like our two readers. I will be sharing more about our experiences over the coming days.

Best Wishes,

Ed Winkle

61 days

2011-11-01T05:08:00.000-07:00

There are only 61 days left to this year! What a year it has been too, with rainfall and consecutive 90 degree days tied or broken. I think most of us want to put this year behind us but we aren't ready for winter, either.

Some people shelled corn yesterday and others cut soybeans. It was plenty damp for either operation with beans around 15% and most corn well over 21%. Everyone recognizes though our chance of getting a good harvest streak is reducing every day and soon winter will be here.

I am still hoping for a good week of Indian summer but every week that looks like it has some rain thrown in. Maybe that is the best we will get.

One of my young friends told me the zinc he priced was high so I mentioned he might post it on Crop Talk and sure enough another friend sold him some product at an affordable price he couldn't find in his neighborhood.

Like most soil test results I have read this fall he need, P, K, S, Zn, Mn and B on his fields. 300 lbs of these blended nutrients is about $110 per acre in my neighborhood and that is total spread, not total nutrients. That 33-52-60-21-1Zn-1Mn-1B for me, for nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, sulfur and the 3 micro nutrients.

Those fall seeded radishes are getting some size and storing all of those valuable nutrients. I wish I had them on every acre but I don't.

We had trick or treaters and guests last night and another full day. Today looks like another full day so I better get working on it.

Have a great day and God's Blessings to you all.

Ed Winkle

Halloween

2011-10-31T05:37:00.000-07:00

Oh the woes of Halloween! Last year we were finishing up and this year we are barely started harvesting. It seems like a long fall already but acre wise it isn't.

My friend Phil A from Auglaize County posted he drove down 68 to Ripley last weekend and how little crop was harvested in his travels. He is right, there isn't enough done. And it is raining again right now, just enough to keep us out of the field. Bill Northcutt emailed our weekly rainfall totals as he always does on Monday morning and we got another inch last week, mainly on the 27th to add to the 2.5 plus we got the week before.

It's wet, a wet Halloween. It is not as wet as some places but plenty heavy. We never got the snow Pennsylvania east got and if we did we would have their big snowfall totals and then some. This isn't looking good.

It is a melancholy Halloween since half the costume crew is in Cleveland now and won't be trick or treating with the others here tonight. That tradition started in 2006 when Madison and Liam were just little guys.

Oh well, maybe we will eat less candy because of that. More likely we will eat more. Did you see the average American eats 24 pounds of candy in a year? No wonder we are on the heavy side and Halloween is a big candy sale time!

This weather is hard on grain bin monitoring too. Ernest from Mississippi posted the thumbrule many of us use in grain bin air drying. The best results happen when the temperature and humdity added together are less than 100.

The formula just went over 100 total here so I better go turn the fans off the soybeans. It is sprinkling again.

Ed

Practice

2011-10-30T08:12:00.000-07:00

Practice makes perfect, practice what you praach. Jesus sharply criticized the hypocrisy of the religious leaders, the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus rebukes them in Matthew 23 saying they preach but they do not practice. They pride themselves on religious lawas and rituals. All their works are performed to be seen.

They love seats of honor, greetings in the marketplace and saluatations such as rabbi, teacher, father and master. They are all show and no go(substance), often doing the opposite of what they claim to believe.

We make the same claim today. You might receive an award but what did you do to earn that award? You can quickly see who doesn't practice what they preach. I have to be real careful of that as a teacher and a consultant and most importantly as a farmer. As my friend in Iowa says, teach by speaking with your fields. Let farmers see what you know by watching your fields. That is a big one to live up to.

My fields demonstrated that this year. They were better where I practiced where I preached. I had one new 4 acre patch beside the farm we bought last year that never got the lime or fertilizer I put on the whole farm. I just didn't get it done as I didn't know they wanted it farmed when I was doing mine.

That field made about 40 bushels per acre and the treated ground beside it made about 60 bushels per acre. 20 bushels times $12 beans more than pays for the lime and fertilizer.

My favorite picture to date is last year's corn on that farm which made 191 bu per acre on an old farm that had never produced that much before.

I have to practice what I preach.

Ed Winkle

32

2011-10-29T05:27:00.000-07:00

It's 32 degrees on one thermometer and 31 on the other. That's the coldest it's been in a long time, I would imagine probably since March.

The house is toasty warm with the furnace set on 66 degrees and the pellet stove set on number 2 in LuAnn's office. It burned a $4 bag of wood pellets in the last 24 hours to do that. It has 5 settings and 2 is as low as it will burn.

Sable didn't seem to mind, although that is warmer in her crate area than it has been the past few weeks as the nightime temperate has slowly came down.

It sure has been another crazy weather year with 60 days of rain at planting time, record precip for the year and tied the record for consecutive 90 degree days. The crops didn't mind as the county agent reports most soybeans in the 50 bushel area and corn around 175.

I am trying to figure out how to get my cover crop rye seed on. It is getting late and I think I should have just forgotten about the idea in this late year. I hate to waste the seed and it will store until next year but I will get it on now if I get the chance.

It should have been seeded before the rain and it would be coming up. We just didn't get that done and still have soybeans to run before just shelling corn.

A week without rain would be great! But the fall color is still hanging on and we will take whatever we get.

Ed

Heat

2011-10-28T07:29:00.000-07:00

I fired up the pellet stove on the other end of the house this morning. It got down to 37 degrees this morning with another light frost. It's supposed to be 32 degrees Sunday morning so I thought I better start warming this big ole barn up again. I say that affectionately.

We used it very little last winter and I found out why. We had a small bird nest in the chimney, just big enough to keep the air flow down so the stove wouldn't get hot enough to stay lit or catch that nest on fire.

It's been a very fickle stove since the day we bought it. It is a perfect example of buying into new technology too early. I still think most of the problem is the location of the stove and the chimney. It's on a south wall and the winds hit the chimney and the chimney is not straight through the wall like a clothes dryer is vented and a pellet stove should be vented.

It was sold to me as a corn burner, too, and it is really a glorified pellet stove. It burns pellets nicely and will corn too if the corn is clean and gas dried down to a low temperature. I don't own an operational gas fired corn dryer. I have the old StorMor in bin dryer from 1970 but couldn't justify rebuilding the rusty bin and dryer so it's still there taking up space. I really need to do something about that but I never seem to have enough extra cash to tackle it. That's another story.

Somehow though I was able to run a few gravity bed loads of corn through that stove until I got totally frustrated trying to keep it running 2 years ago. Corn price went up, pellets didn't so I switched to pellets which are just as cheap to burn now.

If you put in a pellet or grain stove in, my recommendation is to make sure you vent it straight out the wall and don't try to vent it into a chimney that goes up in the air. Stoves installed straight through seem to have no problems and all the problems you hear come from trying to vent it up a chimney although I am sure some people got lucky and do that well.

It's nice to have the cold side of the house heated again but it is a signal that winter is near. I haven't lit the big Vermont Defiant but that won't be long, either. When it stays 32 or so and lower all the time, I use both stoves and keep the ole barn toasty warm, 4 bricks thick and no insulation.

I am burning a little propane in the furnace now and don't have to get up and stoke the stove yet. That cost me about 5% of the 500 gallon tank sitting next to the north side of the house so far this month.

That's a cheap price to pay for the convience of heat during harvest season.

Ed