Windy

It's really windy and blustery today just like they predicted for tomorrow. It just blew in one day sooner. Since the temperature dropped last night, I turned the fan back on the soybeans to adjust the inside-outside temperature of the grain. It was so cool last night, I could have almost used the winter comforter on the bed. Winter will be here before I am ready.

That means I need to get the wood porch stacked pretty soon which means work. I am not opposed to work but I really don't want to work in wood yet. It's time to do it.

I have been guilty of being as windy as the air is today. I like to talk sometimes and I might tell you what I think you want to hear. I realize I need to hear, "get the wood on the porch, Ed."

One reader asked if we camped the last trip to Wyoming and back. No we didn't, I had hoped to get the camper on the truck but we were lucky to just get off the farm and get on the road and sleep at Hampton. They have the closest thing to our bed here at home.

The soil test results are rolling in like the wind, too. The farmers and labs and others have been busy this fall pulling and processing soil samples. I still lots of need for fertilizer and micro nutrients. Almost every report laying on my desk calls for at least 6 nutrients needed for next year's crop.

I wish our youngest grandson Happy Birthday today. Little(he is actually a big boy for one) Finnegan is one year old today. His brother will be six in a month, can't believe Liam is that old already.

Time goes fast.

Ed

Land

John Malone is now the largest land owner in North America. His latest purchase of a million acres of timber land in the northeast surpassed the total owned by his friend, Ted Turner at 2 million acres.

I have always been interested in land as you can't farm without it. I even got my real estate license in the 70's and learned a lot more about property but it never really helped me acquire much until we bought this farm in 2004.

My young friend Brad got his real estate license last year and has quickly become one of the better real estate agents around, especially for farmland as he shares the same interest I do. The economy is so bad in Ohio our land hasn't brought the outrageous prices west of here.

A farm with a 62 CSR rating in Iowa just brought over $8000 per acre. That's pretty big money for pretty poor land. Land even less productive just brought the same price in Missouri. Here the asking price is closer to $4000 per acre and I know of a rough farm that just sold closer to $2000 per acre.

Lots of land has changed hands across the country in the last ten years, especially since the economic crash. Land is seen as a good hedge against inflation in these turbulous times if you can afford it.

Owning farmland is the most satsifying thing I have ever done. I should have started when I was 21 and land was only $200 per acre.

The land owners we deal with are very happy with our farming and our returns on their investment but I prefer owning my own so I call all the shots and only deal with my banker.

Ed Winkle

Maze

Life is a maze. I just saw on the morning news where a family got lost on the Connor Farm in Massachusetts trying to get out of their corn maze, a "maize maze."

There was a corn maze at the Golden Spike railroad museum we visited in North Platte, Nebraska two weeks ago. Our son Eric keeps reminding us we are in a great location for a corn maze and he likes the idea of charging people money to walk your corn fields.

It's not quite that simple planning a corn maze and planting and cutting the paths and having something to buy or give away at the end of the maze like pumpkins. That's a lot of work few farms are suited for.

It's hard enough for me to plan a production corn field and carry it out profitably, let alone a corn maze or a sweet corn patch. But the obvious point is this year it pays better than soybeans this year and did last year. Farmers are already discussing more corn next year in response to the market price. The market has bid up corn since last harvest over soybeans.

Soybeans are stuck in a two to one price ratio over corn where the average farmer gets 3-4 times more corn per acre. There is extra cost in doing that but the corn still wins on paper and in the checkbook.

The only way most farmers can increase corn acres is to increase planting corn after corn. Everyone admits that corn on corn is more costly to manage and produce and usually yields less than corn after soybeans but the numbers still favor it. They are and have been discussing that on Ag Talk also for many months and years.

Life is a maze. Planning next year's crop is a maze, too but we better focus on getting this one out first. More soybean fields have disappeared but there are a LOT of soybean fields to harvest before we even get started on corn.

Ed

Survival

I just read the 10 Industries That Are Surviving on MSN Money. Like most American's, the writers missed the Story. The story is Agriculture which is surviving quite nicely in these hard times.

The first paragraph tells about how drywall sales have dried up for US Gypsum. Well guess what? Agricultural scientists have discovered that gypsum improves air and water movement in the soil if gypsum is applied to it each year!

We have been talking about that fact on this blog since we started January 1, 2009. Just like Ben Franklin discovered over 200 years ago on the hills of Philadelphia, a half ton of gypsum spread per acre increases soil air and water movement 300-500% according to Dr. Darryl Norton at the National Soil Erosion Laboratory.

The article doesn't even mention the US Ethanol Industry which has provided the best jobs in the country the past 10 years even though you and I pump 10% ethanol into our gas tanks every time we fill up.

Yes we are in dire straits in America but we have so much going for us if we would just live on what we have. I have always done well in hard times because it was always hard times on the tenant farm our family lived on, robbing Peter every day to pay Paul, that was just how we did business.

Like the writers of the article, we are really missing the point. That doesn't help you if you are trained for an uneeded profession right now or working in a job you don't like.

There is a better solution to the problem.

Ed

Soybean Yields

Soybean yields are coming out all over the board here but generally very good. My question today is the new RR2Yield varieties really that much better? I haven't seen the advantage the past two years but they are winning some plots.

One of our agronomists thinks the new Vistive RR2Yields are enough better to plant the whole farm to them and never look back. I am much more sceptical.

I haven't seen the advantage of RR2's yet over RR1's but maybe they are here. I do admit that since most of the research money has been poured into improving RR2's since the patent is going off RR1's they should be better and could be in some situations. I am not sure they would be in all situations.

I think it really depends on your farm and your management. I have good friends that are producing 100 bushel soybeans with older non GMO soybean varieties. Some won't even plant Round Up Ready or Liberty Link beans because of the tech fee or the unknown of what genetically modified seeds and chemicals do to your soil.

Could they improve yields with the latest genetics? I don't know, who really cares about 2 more bushels if you can grow 100 when most of the country is stuck around 40 bushels.

I am not satisfied with 40 bushels and the crop is a failure to me if I produce them unless they are double crop beans planted in July. My yield goal is 80 bushels and we have seen yields from 45 to over 70 so far this year. With the heat we had I don't think that is too bad.

If Kip Cullers can produce 160 bushels under irrigation I think the potential is well over 200 bushels in the seed, maybe over 300 bushels. We just haven't learned how to tap that potential.

If other farmers can grow 100 bushels with just rain I know we can all do a lot better than 40. Someone is going to have to convince me that the new genetics are worth the investment when I am still trying to learn how to maximize soybean yield with older genetics. I don't see the advantage.

Ed

Economy

"It's the economy, stupid!" We have heard that often the past few years and I have thought that since the first economic crisis my family went through in the 60's.

I remember selling my prize market pigs at the Brown County Fair for ten cents a pound, a huge 2 cent premium over market price. I thought, well I will never get to college this way!

I remember really lean years on the farm as a kid in the 60's but we made it through it. We found the same thing out west.

LuAnn doesn't have her pictures downloaded yet but she has some neat ones of the mounted police in Jackson Hole. I remember one officer commenting Wyoming only has 5 percent unemployment and it was obvious across the trip that the land in the middle of our two coasts is doing much better than the coasts are.

Why is that? I suppose there are lots of reasons but ever since DHL left Wilmington, this area is really depressed economically which leads to physical depression in people. We have lots of problems.

But we never saw that on our trip, only happy people all along our way. There are good things going on in the country and I know there are over 70,000 well paid happy employees of ethanol plants in the middle. Wind farms were everywhere from Iowa west and that produces jobs and reduces our dependence on foreign oil.

The ag economy is perking along so nicely land is bringing record prices and rents and farm machinery business is booming. You couldn't get a new machine today if you wanted it unless you find it on a lot. We saw lots of used, but not that much new machinery.

Combine fires and farmer demand keeping eating up supply as fast as they build them. We saw a new John Deere S series demonstrator with a tarp over it as it had burnt the first day and they said make sure no one gets a picture of it. The new green and red combines are what I call NASCAR bodies which look sharp but are just big heat traps for fires. Insurance premiums have to go up.

So it is the Economy, Stupid and I want to put a sign on our farm that says Raise Cane With Herman. His 999 plan makes as much sense as anything I have heard.

I thought that would catch your attention...

Ed

Van Botkins

This week my friend Jules took me to Sydenstricker's John Deere store in Mexico, Missouri. We talked to Johnnie Brown and he showed us some pictures of the old Cajun Queen John Deere 4020 I pulled against as a young man. I remember meeting Eddie Sydenstricker and his ace mechanic, Van Botkins who built the Queen.

It was one of the few John Deere's that could compete in the heavy super stock classes as International Harvester had them locked up. Van built probably the first 466 John Deere engine that is now used in many John Deere applications. He figured out how to get Caterpillar pistons in it and the engine living stretched out to those large inches.

It was ironic that I had figured out how to use John Deere 4010 pistons in my Oliver 88 in a smaller application but very competitive for its weight class.

Van had the saying if she goes she goes, if she blows, she blows as he blew up many good John Deere blocks before he figured out how to make it live at those cubic inches and horsepower. They hung the saying right on the side of the tractor.

Johnnie told us Van had passed away 3 years ago. It was too bad I didn't get to see him one more time so I will make sure to see some of my other buddies before our time is up. Johnnie more than made up for it as I think I remember him being with the crew too and I am sure I have talked to him at Louisville and Bowling Green.

The first crops are coming out in the area and the yields are very good. We are blessed. My neighbor opened up the first field of corn I have seen in Ohio and many farmers are running soybeans as they quickly ripen to 13% moisture.

It sure has been a beautiful week in Ohio and two weeks across the midwest into the west.

Ed