Winter is here

Yesterday marked the end of fall field work after two or three freeze thaw cycles that saw a couple of inches of frost in the ground, then none again as temperatures warmed. Temperatures dropped from 50 degrees at 6 a.m. Sunday morning to about 12 degrees by noon. This morning we were down to zero and the ground is frozen solid. Some folks put down NH3 this fall. I worked at that until noon yesterday, but most are waiting for the price to fall. People here prepaid from $780 to $1200 a ton for fall applied NH3. Current price is $600. There's a winter storm watch on tap for tomorrow. One year ago we were waiting for the ice to thaw. There were still broken tree limbs in our yard, and ice, on the first of April.

I hope April '09 is better.

slow harvest

Corn here is still wet at 20 to 30 percent.
We did pick a little on Sunday that tested 20 and yielded around 200 bpa.
Some soybeans are coming out about 30 miles south of us, or about 30 miles north of St Joe.
Have also heard that mid group 2 beans are being harvested in western Iowa.
Yields have been 30's all the way up to the 50's.

fly in

what a success. this fall fly-in was a great for agriculture! i am very excited about what nfu accomplished. i carried info on my farms cost of production for 2009. it shouldn't be a shock to producers, but it doesn't cash flow with the input costs. illinois delegation couldn't believe that 5 dollar corn wouldn't work. well it really was in black and white. we ARE being taken advantage of and it is WRONG. there is no competition among our suppliers, they have to understand that. WE have to do a better job of explaining that! why is profit such a dirty work in production ag! adm , monsanto, and deere thrive on it, why cant we? thank you to the dc staff and nfu staff.
crop, well today it is wet.over night we received an inch and two tenths and it is going to continue the weekend. the lowest credible moisture i have heard is 35% out of the combine. we are thinking two week to harvest now.
i am also thinking about the election. talk about two polar opposite ag candidates. i have to admit i am going to be selfish. i am voting for ag! there is only one ag candidate in this election and politics aside, we need to look out for ourselves! think Illinois!

crop

Howdy, I think I figured out how to post!! I'm located in Jackson Co. Mn. along I 90, in lakefield area. Soybeans: we have plant height of 4.5 ft. after a slow start, they really spurted in the last 6 weeks. Almost unreal, sprayed for aphids couple weeks ago, not finding any on checks except on one end where boom skipped. There are a few aborted flowers, but for the most part they are looking really good. Hail storm in area caused havoc on some fields. Corn: high yield potental barring an early frost, silks brown, could use one more rain, recieved moisture last week, wind has been calm for nearly 3 weeks. I attended a controlled drainage plot last friday, looks promising and may be something one would consider . Thw gist of it is, remove water for field operations, retain a subsurface level for crop use in periods of reduced rainfall. Regards, John III

Hard to believe that the Missouri River Bottom fields looked like this in June. Today we're drying out too fast. Some of the corn has started to fire the last couple of days, and east of here 20 miles it's even dryer.
Early planted corn will be pretty good, especially in the upland fields, but the later fields are going to be short.
Aphid counts in the soybeans are on the rise. We've never had to treat for those, but this year may be a first. Without rain soon it looks like the soybeans may start aborting pods.

At least the temperatures have been moderate, otherwise it would be worse.

hot in il

this past week has been very hot in il. with heat advisories over the past few days. the crops seem to be managing ok do to adequate moisture. beans seem to moving along somewhat slow compared to corn. the corn between the wet holes looks great. there has been alot of fungicide applied the past few weeks. we chose not to apply. grain prices at local coop this morning, c-4.75, sb-12.29. fert prices at coop n-1095, dap-1200, pot-970. for those who dont know that equals about 300 per acre to fertilize for corn. and farmers savior monsanto jacked the tech fee 100 per bag on seed corn. that is at least to company's who by their traits.

it rained

On friday morning we received .8" the saturday another.9".pennys from heaven as one farmer said but more like dimes and quarters.
tim henning