Land

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

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

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

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

"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

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

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