Breakfast

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