$106 Trillion

Nearly half of our national debt is money that "just disappeared."  Our national debt is around $17 trillion and 9 trillion is missing.  How could this be?  Why don't people care?  Brazil has riots over a 10 cent bus fare increase.  China's credit bubble is unprecedented in world history.

How much is $106 trillion?  I have no idea but I feel pretty certain it will eventually crash our economy.  Some say it already has, we just haven't felt the effects of it yet.

"The figure of $106 trillion is only the medium estimate, or $106,954,000,000,000. Even the lowest, extremely conservative estimate comes in at $72 trillion. The highest debt estimate is over $120 trillion.

In the meantime, White House chief of staff Dennis McDonough, congressional liaison Rob Nabors along with other Obama officials has reiterated that U.S. President Barack Obama's position that the purported $4 trillion in deficit reduction would basically solve the problem for now.

GOP deficit projections, as prepared by Johnson and obtained by National Review Online have revealed the true size of the problem. It's disconcerting considering the many seasoned budget negotiators involved.

The deficit amount is so huge that some controversial reforms appear inconsequential in comparison. Take Obama's "chained CPI" proposal: it would save an estimated $89 billion over ten years, or 1.3 percent of the total deficit over those same ten years.

The Senate GOP projection is for 30 years, which encompasses the retirement of the baby boomers, a far more significant problem than the deficits of the past few years.

"In all of these budget negotiations, we're really trapped by this ten-year budget window, which, truthfully, minimizes the problem," Johnson said.

CBO's long-term budget outlook offers two estimates: the "baseline" scenario and "alternative fiscal scenario."

What do you think?  How does our economy continue to limp along?  What will cause it to crash?  I read John Burns from Kansas on Market Talk and no wonder some farmers are squirreling away cash in a form they think will be useful.

Your thoughts and feelings are always treasured here.  Blogger says I have nearly 800 page views per day right now.  I thank all my readers.  Keep emailing and commenting, please.

Ed Winkle

Aussie Cover Crop Blog

I encouraged a friend in Australia to keep up his new Aussie Cover Crop Blog.  New Zealand and Australia brought us hot wire fencing, mob grazing, turnips, radishes and a whole host of good things to America.  We were blessed to get to see this again this winter.

There are lots of good cover crop blogs and articles available on the Internet.  It is the hot item here in the states.  My friends Dave and Steve has grown a full crop of corn with no purchased nitrogen.  That is pretty amazing when you think about it.  When you walk on their farms, you can tell from the driveway they don't farm like their neighbors.  I will attest to the fact they have both improved the soil tilth, aeration and health.  Their soil was once worn out and plowed to death and now they are living, healthy and sustainable.

I wonder how many cover crop blogs I have written in the past 4 1/2 years?  I bet several hundred of the 1617 blogs I've written focus on or refer to cover crops.  Steve's radishes really got me going when I sowed them with my wheat several years ago and saw the color change at green up.  I increased yield by 12 bushels 3 times in a row and you can still see that first patch on the yield monitor here today.

"An especially interesting part of the workshop for me was the talk on the cover crops as biofumigants in vegetable production. Brassica cover crops including radish, mustard and turnip can suppress pests such as insects, nematodes, weeds and fungi. Because of the ability of brassica cover crops to produce toxic compounds that are effective for suppressing pests, they are called biofumigants. Biofurmigation refers to the process of breaking down brassica cover crops, releasing toxic compounds and incorporating them into the soil.


However, simply planting brassica cover crops does not automatically improve everything, of course. For example, while brassica cover crops improved yields for celery, onion and eggplants in some studies, Dr. Ajay Nair at Iowa State University talked about the study in which musk melon suffered lower yield after brassica cover crops. The cause, he explained, was most likely because the period between biofumigation and melon seeding was too short. Also, when using brassica cover crops as biofumigants, Ajay reminded the workshop attendees to remember to mow all the time as mowing gives biofumigation capacity."

This is just one tiny thing cover crops do for soil, affecting it for years later.  The way some of the guys I've met completely changed their NRCS soil type description is no less amazing.

Every thing we do today affects our productivity tomorrow.

I was taught to leave things better than I found them.  Are we doing that today in modern agriculture?

250 bu green corn with brown husks last year in the center of 5 miles of dead 50 bushel corn tells me we are not.

What do you think?

Ed Winkle

Preventive Planting Insurance

"A couple of BTOs in my area have planted tiny percentages of their acreage and are talking PP on nearly all their land, sit back , do nothing and draw a big check. It is pretty apparent they have not tried to plant that hard as others in the area such as myself are almost done planting. It has been a very challenging year and I have a few wet spots and some replant on some flooded out acres but I am getting there. Will they be allowed to do this? I guess with the right agent and adjuster it can happen. It just don't seem right. If enough people do this seems like it could ruin the system." Are we "drunk on insurance?"

Preventive planting insurance hit our area in 2011.  It looks like it is hitting again.  We counted 20 fields near us not planted and I don't know if they will go to beans or not.  It looks like not.

Right near those fields others busted their butt to get something planted.  Who was the dummy?  The guy for planting or the guy taking the insurance check?

In any of these situations, each one is entirely different in my mind.  Just do the math and you can see no two farmers are alike in how they try to plant or how they use insurance to offset their risk.

Our good planting days came and went with showers and not much heat.  Stands here look pretty good but there are many empty fields.  I don't know who is right but as the thread suggests, this kind of tactic can't go on forever.

Will large claims cause insurance change?  It always does.  It just bugs the farmers who plant to watch others not plant.

Preventive planting acres are a great place for a farmer to learn how to use cover crops to control weeds, build soil properties and a whole host of things.  Many took advantage of that here in 2011, our record year for cover crops so far.  I asked my friend Bruce, a local Pioneer dealer and go to CCA how his worked?  He said I didn't get a good comparison run but I can't honestly tell you the radishes and peas etc made any difference.

So, is preventive planting insurance worth the cost nationally or is is abused beyond its intent?

Ed Winkle

Father Loss

Yesterday we talked about soil loss, today let's talk about Father Loss or those with no dad around.  I clicked on the Google image just now and there, it was, it's Father's Day!  But one statistic says one out of three Americans have no father in their life.  That's a sad report on our country. 

A radio piece I heard yesterday was worse.  It linked 60-70% of the major problems our society faces to no dad in the picture.  Earlier in the week, the national media showed this guy who has 22 children with 14 wives and he is in and out of jail.  How are we supposed to pay for that as a society?  How are those women and children supposed to cope with no bread winner as the head of household, let alone as physical and spiritual leader?

"According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 24 million children in America -- one out of three -- live in biological father-absent homes.  Consequently, there is a "father factor" in nearly all of the social issues facing America today."

"Children in father-absent homes are almost four times more likely to be poor. In 2011, 12 percent of children in married-couple families were living in poverty, compared to 44 percent of children in mother-only families.  Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Children’s Living Arrangements and Characteristics: March 2011, Table C8. Washington D.C.: 2011.

In 2008, American poverty rates were 13.2% for the whole population and 19% for children, compared to 28.7% for female-headed households.  Source: Edin, K. & Kissane R. J. (2010). Poverty and the American family: a decade in review. Journal of Marriage and Family, 72, 460-479."

I know my dad wanted a son and I did my darndest to be a good one.  Sometimes I failed but overall it worked out pretty well.  I know LuAnn's dad wanted a daughter and her brothers still call her "Suz" because their dad did.

What if the other party didn't really want the responibility of that child?  Wonder if the child wasn't wanted at all?  Do they run around in this life with no purpose in life?  Look at all many million of unwanted pregnancies has been terminated over the ages?  Or is it billions of people?

If you have a dad that cares about you today, I say thank the Lord.  I hope you plan something nice for your dad even if it is going to the cemetery where he is buried and just say thank you dad, I love you.  That's the best I can do this week if not today.

Happy Father's day to you dads.  I personally know there are a bunch of good ones who read this page.

If you can't do that, I say a little prayer today for you and your dad.

Saint Joseph was a pretty good dad even though he wasn't the father of his son.

Ed Winkle

Soil Loss

Our young friend Cody threw out a good topic for this blog, Soil Loss.  "Soil Loss. NRCS "acceptable range" was 2 ton/ac/year when I worked for them. I always thought that 2 tons was still a heck of a lot. I have never ran any figures, but if you could put a price on the nutrients lost/acre/year I bet it would be an eye opener- especially if you compared no till with covers to conventional tillage. Can you put a value on organic matter? Would the quality of organic matter vary from place to place?"

That is an excellent but very difficult question to answer.  I was taught that a well managed notill farm still had up to a ton of soil loss per acre per year.  Yes, that is a heck of a lot of topsoil to go into our tributaries, 2000 lbs of the best soil we have, lost each year, even doing a good job!

With tillage, that figure goes to 10 tons or 20,000 lbs per acre per year very easily.  That is not tolerable to me.  It's not good for my farm, my country or my kids and their future.  Soil loss is heavy again this spring with heavy rains here and worse in much of the Midwest.  Are we entering the tipping point?  Is some of the blame of the three year national slide in yield due to soil loss?  I think the main problem is our narrowing yet contaminated gene pool in our seed which made the weather look more to blame than it was.  A declining soil base to handle crop production at high levels could be third.

How bad is the soil loss in your area this year?  Do you think we have lost too much topsoil?  Are we doing all we can to prevent it?  I have noticed the tributaries are still brown here and were muddy this last big rain we had this week as that storm rolled across the northern tier and touched our area with an inch or more in one overnight storm.

I still remember Dr. Jerry Hatfield talking about the soil loss in one inch rain over 24 hours last year in Iowa.  He called it a slow soaker and yet he saw the tons of soil loss the equations and pictures predicts.

We struggle to put a value on the organic matter or how it varies place to place.  Many farmers will sell off the straw that could be organic matter on their farm in the next month.  Livestock men need the straw but how do we redistribute that properly with manure applications?

I guess I've raised more questions from Cody's question than I answered.

Ed Winkle

Local Harvest

Robb King from Mt. Orab sent me this good link.  It is called Local Harvest and lists many local farms who are trying to make a living providing food and food products to us locally.  I see that as so much better than shopping at my Kroger store.  Kroger has the advantage, they are nearby and have everything I need.  Is it really what I want?

The best local harvest is our own garden.  LuAnn has done a super job trying to get our garden going in this wet year.  She added raised beds this year but all we've had from it is a little onion and lettuce.  Is it really worth the effort?

You have to be dedicated to your garden or your farm.  It must almost always take precedence over other things you have or want to do.  How to seed, fertilize and control weeds is critical to your success of course, that is why gardening and farming are sciences and art and can be down on a low level or a very high level of production.

I had a friend call last night and ask about organic hay production.  He has a neighbor who wants him to help him seed one by doing the tillage and planting.  He said the fellow wants to plant now but my friend suggested they moldboard plow it now and seed it late summer or early fall.  I agree.

I said "'don't guess, soil test," and plow under the lime and manure or any acceptable organic practice of feeding the hay crop.  That can get intense, too.  Do any of you raise any organic crops?

Raising non GMO soybeans for a premium is enough of a challenge for me.  The company I deal with wants all records and maps so they can have them inspected by someone certified like myself during flower and/or at harvest.  We make sure the variety stated is in the field and it has been properly tended to.  No, I can't certify my own so another scout I train with each year would have to inspect my production.

Most GMO companies have abandoned third party inspection and I think that is a problem in the industry.  They say it isn't.  A company rep is going to do everything possible to get the grower's seed production into the system if needed where as third party simply reports what they see by the rule.  I don't disqualify many fields unless they are totally out of compliance but we do often eliminate overlapping borders and note heavy pest problems.  Borders can require and Affadavit that makes the grower and seed producer acknowledge they agree to not put the seed in question into the seed system.

I hope you enjoy and use Local Harvest.  It's a great way to get fresh food and buy local instead of the grocery store.

Ed Winkle

My Story

I love this picture of Aunt Jane holding me in the late winter of 1949, early 1950.  I wish I had a close up.  That sure looks like Jane but that sure doesn't look like me in my mind.

Heinrich Winkle made the big trip from Europe to Virginia in the 1700's. He later moved to Tennessee and his sons Henry and Peter made another big trip to Highland County Ohio in the same century. I am a descendant of Peter, George, Issac, George, and Gerald. They all farmed in Highland County until grandpa George Winkle became the tenant of the Bare Plantation in Sardinia, Ohio in 1918. My dad Gerald was 2 years old.

I was born the last few days of 1949. My dad had purchased his first new tractor, an Oliver 77 that year. He and my mother took over the tenant farming of the Bare Plantation and us three kids helped farm it until we left the farm after our high school graduation to attend the Ohio State University. We all received our Bachelor's Degree there.

I remember grandpa George showing me the difference between a Silver Certificate dollar bill and a Federal Reserve Note. I remember him warning us to to not trust anyone who sawed up your timber or cut up your meat from livestock, and "don't let those damn pinhooker's get you."  They were people who traveled from farm to farm and would buy up your livestock or just about anything for less than it was worth because you needed money at the time. He died when I was 8 years old in 1958.

I did learn from dad, Gerald, or Bucky as they called him that grandpa learned how to plant Reid's Yellow Dent beside Bloody Butcher and obtain a primitive F1 hybrid. They picked out the best ears and kernals to plant the next year. My family raised some of the best corn I knew of in Brown County Ohio. They later planted the first hybrids of US 18 and C-38. One of dad's cousins operated Winkle Certified Seed in nearby Mowrystown Ohio and we planted that until dad planted Moews, Jacques and Pioneer hybrids.

My family has a passion for agriculture, for people, and for education. It is deep in my roots and I saw it first hand when I was able to travel to Europe. I never found where Heinrich came from but Winkle is pronounced Vinckle and our root name is Winckel. Winkel means shop in Europe and you see it everywhere.

I have told these and many stories in my blog on www.hymark.blogspot.com for the last four years. Our family has done very well and I hope you enjoy these stories.



Ed Winkle