Children

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