Agronomy News

Smart Strategies for Planting in Wet or Dry Conditions

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 21:41:51 GMT

There are few mistakes that you can’t overcome, given enough time. But problems at planting time set the stage for an entire season’s worth of trouble.

Many, if not most, planting problems result from failing to adjust practices and equipment to fit soil and weather conditions, says Farm Journal Field Agronomist Ken Ferrie. Since you can’t know what the weather will do, you have to plan for various scenarios.

What If It’s Dry?

Ferrie has one rule: Don’t plant corn into dry soil, hoping to “rain it up.”

“Putting corn in dry soil, and not having it germinate in timely fashion, can be a disaster for your stand,” he says. “If you do spring tillage too far ahead of planting, that lets the soil dry out. Don’t let your soil finisher get too far ahead of the planter in a hot, dry spring.”

In a dry situation with conventional tillage, use row cleaners to push away clods in front of the planting units. “If you crush clods with your depth wheels, you’ll put dry soil around the seed,” Ferrie says. “Use your row cleaners as a clod roller.”

In either no-till or conventional tillage, use row cleaners to move residue out of the way. “Normally, a little residue is no big deal,” Ferrie says. “But if it’s dry, residue tucked into the seedbed wicks moisture out of the furrow, away from the seed.”

Running out of planting moisture in no-till is rare, but it can happen in sandy soil or if you fail to kill a cover crop on time, Ferrie notes. “It can happen when strip-tilling in coarse soils, if you are not timely with your planter,” he says. “In strip-till, you may have to go off the strip and no-till the seed beside the strip.

In tough conditions, with no rain in the forecast and you know it will be even drier in 10 more days, use your row cleaners to move away the dry soil. Hopefully, this will get you closer to some moisture where you can place the seed, Ferrie advises.

This carries risk, though. “If you applied a pre-emergence herbicide, there will be no herbicide left in the row,” Ferrie says. “Have a plan in place to control weeds in the row.”

If you “plow down to moisture” in strip-till or conventional tillage, you will actually be planting in a valley. “If the weatherman turns out to be wrong and you get a toad strangling rain before the corn comes up, the corn will get buried and you’ll have to replant,” Ferrie says. “But at least you’ll have moisture to replant in.”

What If It’s Wet?

Unless you own a crystal ball, you need a plan for wet weather, too. “Don’t mud a crop into cold, wet soil unless you’re running up against the crop insurance date because of prolonged cool, damp weather,” Ferrie says.

Most often, you’ll have soil that, while fit to plant, is on the wet side. “In marginally wet conditions, the biggest problems I see are carrying too much down pressure on row units and being too aggressive with row cleaners,” Ferrie says. “That makes it difficult to close the slot. If you back off down pressure and let up on the row cleaners, you’ll often find that a field that seemed too wet to plant will plant nicely.”

Worries about maintaining seed depth are what make farmers too aggressive with down pressure. “That gets people in trouble in marginally wet conditions,” Ferrie says. “With today’s monitoring equipment, you can back off down pressure and know whether you’re maintaining depth control.”

A row unit functions sort of like a Jet Ski, Ferrie says. The faster you pull the planter, the more it wants to come out of the ground, so it takes more down pressure to maintain proper depth.

“In these marginal conditions, in order to stay on top of dry soil and plant through it without moving it, you may have to slow down the planter to maintain depth control,” Ferrie adds. “Slowing down from 5 mph to 4 mph is still faster than waiting for the field to dry out, so you can plant with more down pressure and a higher speed.”

In marginal conditions, stop the planter and adjust row cleaners, closing wheels and down pressure from field to field, Ferrie says.
One other time you might need to plant in wet soil is when you have wet spots in an otherwise dry field.

“It’s a time-sensitive issue,” Ferrie says. “If you’re in danger of missing the optimum planting period, and 80% of the field is ready but 20% is still wet, go ahead and plant. You’ll have yield loss in the areas that aren’t ready, but not as much as if you miss the optimum planting window on the 80%.”

If spots in a field are wet every year, consider tiling them. “If you improve timeliness over the entire field, you pick up yield everywhere, not just in the wet spots,” Ferrie says.

If you can’t improve drainage in those fields, set your planter for wet conditions. “Use spoked closing wheels to close the furrow,” Ferrie says. “Put scrapers on your planter’s depth wheels. Use a variable down-pressure system, so you can take the pressure off when planting through wet areas.

“Be conscious of planter weight in those fields. If you have a center-fill planter with starter fertilizer tanks, fill the hopper and tanks only partway. Keep the planter as light as possible.”

Give Extra Attention To Fertilizer Management

“In a dry year, be careful about applying starter in the furrow, even if you’re using a low-salt product,” Ferrie says. “If you’re worried about having enough moisture to germinate the corn, don’t put any salt in the furrow.”

If you apply anhydrous ammonia in the spring, allow at least two weeks between application and planting, and hope for a 2" rain. “In a dry spring, I’ve seen ammonia applied in February burn corn planted in April,” Ferrie says. “If you have auto-steer, you can use it to apply the ammonia and then plant between the ammonia strips.”

Here are a couple of other things to keep in mind if spring turns out dry: “Soil-applied herbicides need moisture to disperse in the soil and activate the active ingredients,” Ferrie says. “Plan to scout more and apply rescue or cleanup treatments, if needed.”

In northern areas where primary tillage is done in the spring, do secondary tillage within hours after chiseling. “There will be no freezing and thawing to break up chunks and prevent them from turning into clods,” Ferrie says. “If they turn into clods, you’ll have to deal with them all season long.”

Whatever the weather brings, patience at planting is a virtue. “Don’t feel that you have to plant just because your neighbor is,” Ferrie says. “With today’s genetics, we have a wider planting window. Diversity in planting dates, as long as you don’t miss the optimum range, reduces pollination risk.”

Is Planting Always a Struggle?

If weather is cool and wet, you might have to fight to get corn planted during the optimum window—that’s normal. But if you struggle to finish on time every season, or if you find yourself starting earlier to finish on time, you might need to re-evaluate your equipment and manpower, says Farm Journal Field Agronomist Ken Ferrie. “Early planting is fine if conditions are right, but if you plant in wet soil in order to finish on time, you risk problems with stand establishment,” he says.

Consider the following pinch points to determine if your planting pipeline needs an update:

Timing. How much time do you have to get planting done? Your landgrant university or seed company can tell you the optimum planting window for your locality because it varies by area.

Ferrie suggests his Midwestern clients be able to plant their corn crop in five days, when conditions are right. “Of course, those five days may not come in one stretch. It may take a month to get five days of good planting conditions, depending on the weather,” he says.

Machine power. Is your planter sized for your acreage? “As farmers pick up acres, they may add a grain cart or a second combine but forget to upsize their planter,” Ferrie says. “Rather than a bigger planter, you may want a second one, so you can plant in two areas at once.”

Manpower. Consider hiring a custom operator to spray while your skilled employee plants. “You can hire people to do a lot of jobs,” Ferrie says. “But it’s difficult to hire someone to plant your crop on a timely basis.”

Southern Rust Set To Take Big Bite Out Of Midwest Corn Crop?

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 14:17:28 GMT

If one picture is worth a thousand words, then the video Iowa farmer Dan Striegel shot last week must be worth thousands more. In the video, Striegel is shown harvesting a field of emerald-green corn enveloped in a cloud of orangish-red southern rust.

“We were just getting that field opened up, and I looked over and saw that dust boiling up out of the chopper, so I shot the video,” Striegel says.

Southern Rust? Never heard of her.
What Cheer, Iowa. USA. #pftour25 #harvest25 pic.twitter.com/tiIsUc2CHl
— Dan Striegel (@djsinseia) August 21, 2025

To date, Striegel’s video has garnered more than 48,000 views on X, formerly Twitter.

“We’re in southeast Iowa, Keokuk County, and I think the southern rust is as bad here as it is anywhere,” Striegel adds. “Every field you walk in, if you’re wearing a white T-shirt, you’ll come out of there red.”

A Red Path Of Disease Mars The Midwest

Expect to see more red T-shirt-clad farmers walking out of cornfields across the upper Midwest, based on what the Crop Protection Network (CPN) southern rust map is showing.

The CPN continually updates its online, interactive map showing the counties by state where southern rust infections are confirmed. Now, in late August, the counties look like red steppingstones. They form a checkered path from southwest Michigan through northern Illinois and Indiana, into southern Wisconsin, across all of Iowa and nearly two-thirds of the way across Nebraska. Eastern South Dakota is also lit up with a string of red counties, as are parts of southern to central Minnesota.

The amount of southern rust present in the upper Midwest is worrisome to Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist. In severe cases, the disease can wipe out 45% of the yield potential in a field, according to the CPN.

“At most, one in 10 growers in northern Iowa and Minnesota have seen the kind of southern rust some of them are seeing this year,” says Ferrie, who was working last week with corn growers in both states.

“It was a problem in probably eight out of every 10 fields I was in, and they’d all been sprayed at least once,” he says. “Minnesota has a corn crop that’ll knock your socks off – yield potential of 250, 270. I encouraged every grower to spray their field a second time except for two fields. One had been knocked down by hail, and the other had a hybrid that was clean.”

I spoke with a good friend of mine from Iowa yesterday that is an agronomist and farmer. He said the southern rust in corn across Iowa and much of the Midwest will take 9 to 12 bushel/acre off corn yields on average from what his team and himself are seeing. pic.twitter.com/Ad1VJ9oQBg
— Captain Cornelius1 (@ISU145) August 26, 2025

Hybrids Have Little To No Resistance To Southern Rust

A combination of early-season moisture, heat and wind formed the perfect storm for southern rust this season, allowing the disease-causing fungal spores (Puccinia polysora) to move from southern climes up to the Midwest, according to Kurt Maertens, BASF technical service representative for eastern Iowa and western Illinois.

“We’ve seen it all – southern rust, tar spot, northern corn leaf blight, gray leaf spot. Our corn has been inundated with all these fungal diseases, and we started seeing them early,” says Maertens.

If there’s a silver lining to southern rust, it’s that it does not overwinter in corn residue like tar spot does. But like tar spot, southern rust takes advantage of hybrids that have no built-in resistance. For many growers, that was an Achilles heel this season.

“When you’re dealing with a 117-day hybrid like they grow in southern Illinois, Tennessee, and Kentucky, you don’t grow corn that doesn’t have good southern rust resistance, because they deal with it every year,” Ferrie notes. “When you move to Minnesota, and you’re planting 102- to 95-day corn, you’re probably not going to find hybrids with southern rust resistance.”

Striegel says that was true for his neighbor’s cornfield, which he custom chopped for silage. “That field had two hybrids in it, one was worse than the other, and the field had been sprayed with a fungicide,” he says.

He adds that he also sprayed his own cornfields with fungicide, but they are still inundated with southern rust.

“We’ve had southern rust before, and it’s not usually something we have to worry about, but this is really bad,” Striegel says. “I’m standing on my deck looking at the cornfield next to my house, and you know, all of the leaves from the ears down in that field are covered with it.”

Southern rust is real in eastern Nebraska. Fungicide 3 weeks ago, 2nd app today with some potassium acetate pic.twitter.com/WZubU6IBwz
— Trent Mastny (@TrentMastny) August 21, 2025

How Late Is A Fungicide Application Still Worthwhile?

Ferrie says the fields he scouted last week were at late R3 to early R4 and had already been sprayed with fungicide at least once, but the disease was rebuilding.

“Any field where farmers had sprayed two weeks previously, the southern rust and northern corn leaf blight, to a lesser degree, were coming back, especially the southern rust. It was resporating,” he says.

The intense disease pressure from southern rust, tar spot and others have kept fungicide use at high levels this season, despite poor commodity prices.

“Because of that [amount of disease pressure], we have seen increased demand for our fungicides this year,” says Maertens, who encouraged customers to get applications made at the beginning of tassel.

Maertens says he has fielded a lot of questions this summer from farmers, asking how late they could go with a fungicide application and still benefit.

“Our recommendation is to get in front of disease,” he says. “Generally, we stop applications before we get to dent (R5). That’s not to say a later application can’t have some benefit, but our best results have been before infection was able to take place.”

Southern rust is a yield enemy farmers routinely face in the Southeast, reports corn yield champion Randy Dowdy, Valdosta, Ga. He participated in the Pro Farmer Crop Tour last week and said on U.S. Farm Report he believes many Midwest farmers still have time to address disease.

“We need to implore the fungicides, the technologies out there and get after it and protect this crop, especially that crop that still has not reached dent,” he says.

Farm Journal Field Agronomist Missy Bauer likes to see farmers complete their fungicide applications on the front side of dough (early R4). “Once we get to early dent, I think it’s a little more challenging to get the payback consistently, though we’ve applied at early dent (R5), and seen a nice response,” says Bauer, who is based in south-central Michigan.

Under the tough disease pressure farmers are facing this year, Bauer is telling growers to scout fields and evaluate what growth stage their crop is in before they walk away or pull the fungicide trigger one last time.

She adds that farmers need to check the label to make sure the product used is able to address southern rust effectively. She describes these as “Cadillac” products containing the newest chemistry.

“When it comes to some of these diseases, especially southern rust and tar spot, I do believe a little bit of a Hail Mary pass can be effective,” she says. “Will it be as effective as an application you could have made on a more timely basis? Well, no, you could have made more money doing it timely, but you’re still protecting bushels and gaining ROI at the end.”

Ferrie adds that farmers might want to do the late-season fungicide application to keep their corn crop standing until they can put their harvest plan in place.

“Be doing the push test to check stalk quality,” he advises.

Southern Rust/Silage Alert!!

Southern Rust has been aggressively advancing in many fields, especially those without a fungicide treatment. In some situations the plants are shutting down prematurely and plant material is senescing rapidly.

While we typically want to get down… pic.twitter.com/aK3hGgZE19
— Pioneer Troy (@deutmeyer_troy) August 26, 2025

Striegel says some of the farmers around him are heading to fields to harvest their silage corn sooner than later, because of standability concerns. “Some of this corn got planted early, and we had a lot of heat. The crop matured quickly, and the diseases are kind of shutting it down. It’s just dying out, and guys are going to go get it,” he explains.

That’s the strategy Ferrie encourages farmers to use in regular production corn, too.

“Harvest the fields most at risk first. But if a field of corn goes down, go combine the fields where the corn is still standing and come back to that one later,” he recommends.

The reasoning is you don’t want to risk more corn going down while you’re harvesting the field of corn that already has.

“While I was driving through Iowa last week, I kept thinking that if I built corn reels to pick up down corn I’d bulk up my inventory, because I know where they’re going to get used,” Ferrie says, only half joking. “Yes, harvesting corn at 25% moisture is expensive, but down corn will kick your butt.”

Your next read: Revenge Applications: Why They Don’t Work, Cost You Money and Bushels, and Are Frankly Illegal

Is The Planting Light Red, Green Or Yellow?

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 18:36:01 GMT

When the race to plant crops gets underway in your area this spring, take care to not stumble at the starting gate, advises Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist.

One way to start strong is to evaluate weather and soil conditions to determine whether they’re signaling you have a red, green or yellow light for field work and planting.

“We don’t let the calendar, the coffee shop or neighbors dictate when we go to the field,” Ferrie says. “We do our own investigating and check all soil types, especially those in the lower topography parts of the field.”

Here are four considerations as you prepare for #planting2025:

1. Do The Ribbon Test
Jumping the gun with spring tillage and planting is costly. Ferrie points out that 80% of the compaction service calls he goes on each year can trace their roots back to the first pass the farmer made in the spring.

“Compaction put in by a field cultivator is a bad gift that keeps on giving all year long. You can’t take this gift back and get a redo,” he says.

Before you take off with spring tillage or plant, he advises checking conditions just under your tillage depth. It’s a practice that he calls making a soil ribbon.

Here are three simple steps to make a Soil Ribbon:

a. If you usually run a tillage tool 4” deep, take a shovel and dig down under that to about 5” deep.

b. Collect some soil in your hand and attempt to ball it up. If the soil is wet, it will readily ball up.

c. Once you get the soil balled up, squeeze it between your thumb and forefinger to see if you can make a ribbon about 1½” long.

“If you can make a ribbon, your tillage will not only put in a density change, but it will also put in a compaction layer. That’s a red light,” Ferrie says. “If you decide to move forward with tillage and planting, you probably will need to adjust your yield expectations later in the season as well as your marketing plan.”

Ferrie adds he has known growers who spent a lot of money and time the previous fall with deep tillage that got wiped out by one bad tillage pass the following spring. Don’t be that farmer this season.

2. Know the germ quality of your soybean and corn seed.

That can help you determine planting order or whether you need to check in with your seed supplier about making a product switch, notes Missy Bauer, Farm Journal Field Agronomist, based in south-central Michigan, near Coldwater.

Bauer says farmers are finding soybean seed is a mixed bag quality-wise this season, because of dry weather conditions that hammered much of the Midwest in 2024.

“Some of the seed that was harvested for soybeans last fall was under pretty dry conditions, 8%, 9% moisture, things like that,” she reports. “So, the seed quality this year has just been real up and down. We’ve had beans that are just awesome seed quality. And then we get another batch that comes in that’s got issues.”

For growers who might not have tested their soybean seed, she would say see what the cold germ scores are, because of the variation in quality.

“If you’re going to plant early, you want to know it can handle germinating in cold conditions, so we really encourage guys get seed tested,” she says.

With seed corn, if you have seed that tests on the lower end of saturated cold score ranges, Ferrie says to plant that seed once conditions will enable the crop to emerge in five to six days.

“You guys putting starter in-furrow, keep in mind that severe pericarp damage scores tend to lead to more starter burn issues,” he adds. “When it comes to corn stands, many issues are solved when we plant corn based on soil conditions and not the calendar. This could be your highest-yielding corn crop of your career. Let’s not shoot ourselves in the foot before we start.”

Here are some additional thoughts on how to Test Your Seed Before Planting To Avoid Quality Issues

3. Avoid Corn Seed Chilling

To avoid seed chilling, Ferrie advises farmers to plant corn only under two conditions. First, check to see that the soil temperature is 50 degrees F or higher, and second, you want a promising weather forecast in the days following planting.

“One of the challenges of planting in soils that are 45° or lower is seed chilling,” Ferrie says. “When the corn seed imbibes moisture, the temperature of the water it takes in has an effect on the seed itself. Water under 50° means that when swelling takes place the cells aren’t as elastic and they tear, which can cause disoriented mesocotyl, no sprouting, etc. It might not kill the plant completely but effects could show up in ear count.”

Corn requires approximately 120 accumulated growing degree days (GDDs) to emerge, under ideal conditions. To calculate GDDs, you can use this equation: GDD = (Daily Maximum Air Temperature + Daily Minimum Temperature)/2 – 50.

He says the first 48 hours after planting corn are most critical. Seed that is subject to cold during that period of time is most vulnerable to chilling. When that occurs, the metabolic reactions necessary for emergence don’t take place in a timely manner.

“Cold seed corn is unable to swell in the ground with the same elasticity as it’s able to achieve with soil temperatures at 50° F or warmer,” Ferrie explains.

When corn emergence isn’t timely, yield potential is docked and you won’t get it back.

“Chilling can eliminate between 10% and 20% of your yield potential,” says Ferrie “You’ll never see that loss driving down the road, but you will if you stretch a tape measure for ear counts.”

4. Plant Soybeans Ahead Of Corn
If your weather conditions and soil temperatures turn unfavorable for corn, consider whether you can plant soybeans.
If the ground is fit, Ferrie would give farmers a green light to plant their full-season soybeans. Ferrie says Group 4s, mid-Group 3 and late-Group 3 soybeans need about 950 growing degree days (GDDs) pre-solstice. Early to mid-Group 3 soybeans need about 810 GDDs.

“We try to get those fuller season beans planted here by April 18,” he says. “With those earlier Group 3s and later Group 2s, maybe shoot for the planting timeframe of April 25 to May 4.”

For more insights on picking the right maturity for your soybean planting window, Ferrie recommends checking out the information from Crop-Tech Consulting Agronomist Matt Duesterhaus. You can find his recommendations here .

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Ag Meterologists Worry More Drought Lies Ahead For Spring

Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:14:24 GMT

As Eric Snodgrass looks six weeks out to the end of March, he doesn’t like the weather pattern he sees shaping up for spring planting season – more dry conditions.

Varying levels of mild to moderate drought have dogged much of the upper Midwest, West and Southwest since last fall, and the outlook is for more of the same, according to Snodgrass, a leading U.S. meteorologist.

Check out the soil moisture deficit currently in the upper Midwest and West. At the opposite extreme, a broad band of soil moisture shows up in blue across much of the Ohio Valley region.

(Eric Snodgrass)

“I’m concerned about the way the central United States and the western Corn Belt, in particular, are going to be dealing with the risk of drought building into spring,” Snodgrass told farmers attending the Top Producer Summit in Kansas City earlier this week.

History shows that drought tends to beget drought. In six of the past 10 years with a really dry fall, Snodgrass says the spring to follow was also dry.

The weekly U.S. Drought Monitor echoes his observations. The Monitor released Thursday (Feb. 20) shows drought is impacting 45% of corn production acres, 36% of soybean production acres, 40% of spring wheat and 20% of winter wheat acres, respectively.In addition – of particular concern to beef and dairy producers – 49% of the U.S. alfalfa hay production acres are also experiencing drought.

Arctic Air Is Contributing To Drought Conditions
Snodgrass spells out what usually happens in late winter to create the moisture farmers need at planting time in the Corn Belt.

As the jet stream moves across the Pacific Ocean, it typically splits and sweeps into the West Coast from two positions – one from the northern North Pacific Ocean and the other from the southern North Pacific Ocean, close to Hawaii. The two portions of the jet stream usually then scream across U.S. western mountain ranges, picking up moisture they then deposit in portions of the Corn Belt before moving on to the East Coast and exiting the U.S. in Maine.

This year, the portion of the jet stream that normally comes from Hawaii has veered from its usual course and possibly even stalled. One indicator of that happening, Snodgrass says, is a drop off in ocean temperatures in the Baja of California and the Gulf of Alaska. The result is dry, arctic air has been moving into portions of the U.S.

In years when the Gulf of Alaska is in a warming trend, U.S. crop yields tend to be higher. The opposite is true when the Gulf cools.

(Eric Snodgrass)

For some parts of the U.S. the cold, arctic air has brought snow along with it. But the snow holds little moisture that would help alleviate the frozen dry soils. “We have some deep snow in areas right now, but it’s only got maybe two-tenths of an inch of liquid in it,” Snodgrass explains.

That’s bad news for farmers who need a full profile of soil moisture going into spring and don’t have one.

“If I’m in Iowa, Minnesota, northern Illinois, the Dakotas, even parts of Nebraska and Missouri, I’m going, holy smokes, that arctic air has prevented any sort of meaningful precipitation coming back at this point of the year,” he says.
Similar concerns were voiced by Drew Lerner, founder and president of World Weather, Inc., during the Top Producer Summit.

“If we continue bringing these cold shots of air through North America, we will have a below-normal precipitation bias [for the western Corn Belt] as we go forward through spring planting season,” Lerner explained during the taping of the U.S. Farm Report.

This map shows what the precipitation could look like in March. But remember, Mother Nature is unpredictable. It’s certainly feasible she could change course and bring moisture to the states west and southwest of the Mississippi River.

(Eric Snodgrass)

That’s not the meteorologists’ expectation for the eastern Corn Belt and portions of the Southeast. Lerner and Snodgrass agree those areas are likely to have plenty of moisture going into spring planting.

More Weather Trouble Brewing For Summer
If the current cold conditions continue through March, which Lerner and Snodgrass anticipate will be the case, what will likely occur is a knee-jerk reaction in the atmosphere: a warming trend will start in late March or early April and build through late spring and into early summer.

“If we warm up quickly in the spring, which is a high possibility, we could end up falling behind the eight ball a little bit more on soil moisture,” Lerner says.

While some meteorologists point to this year’s La Niña as a cause of the continued move to dryer conditions, Snodgrass and Lerner say that’s not the case.

“La Niña will be gone by the time we get into mid-March,” Lerner predicts. “This La Niña hasn’t lasted long enough to really have a big footprint in the atmosphere. As we get into April, it’ll be pretty much a non-event.”

Keep An Eye On The Pacific Decadal Oscillation
Lerner and Snodgrass believe a negative phase of what scientists call the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) could be a primary contributor to ongoing drought and higher temperatures by April. The PDO is a long-term climate pattern that affects the temperature of the Pacific Ocean and can influence weather patterns across the globe.

While the PDO has not had what Lerner calls a “tremendous amount of impact” in past years in the U.S., it’s looking more influential for the 2025 growing season.

“I’m seeing some additional cooling off the West Coast of North America that may end up leading us into a greater ridge building with all the dryness that’s in the soil and that negative PDO,” Lerner says. “I’m not ready to go all the way over with [that prediction], but that’s where I’m headed.”

The Surprising Solution To Drought
If Mother Nature continues on her worrying course, Snodgrass says continued low temperatures in the Gulf of Alaska would be a signal in early summer for farmers.

“If we get into June and it’s cool there, that is telling me that the atmosphere is not moving. And if it doesn’t move, well, all of a sudden we could find ourselves in a situation in late June into July with more drought and excess heat,” Snodgrass says.

The North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) is a seasonal forecasting system, showing this summer could be a dry one in portions of the West and upper Midwest and into Canada. However, summer is still months away, and Mother Nature could change course. However, being forewarned can help farmers plan ahead.

(Eric Snodgrass and NMME)

Another worrying sign he says to watch for is where the active spring weather pattern falls. If areas of Kansas and the Great Plains see an active tornado season, Snodgrass says that means the weather pattern is more favorable for rains to fall across the Corn Belt. But if tornado warnings blare across the Southeast, Snodgrass says that’s a signal drought could be a problem this summer.

There is a solution to the troubling weather patterns, he adds, one most farmers won’t welcome – a big, wet snow on the Northern Plains.

“The No. 1 thing I’m praying for right now is an April 4 blizzard. I want a foot of snow,” Snodgrass told farmers at Top Producer Summit, many of whom laughed.

Snodgrass laughed, too, and added, “You’ll hate me for about a week, and then love me through the rest of May.”

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Digging into Soil Health

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 22:14:48 GMT

One hundred years after the Dust Bowl blew away topsoil from nearly 200 million acres of American farmland, farmers and ranchers are slowly entering into a new relationship with the soils beneath their boots.

But is change happening quickly enough to make an impact on the future of our soil? Some experts are concerned.

Certainly the nomenclature “soil health” is more commonplace now across farm management plans and in everyday farm-gate conversations.

“In the early 2000s ‘soil health’ was a term hotly debated among scientists as a replacement for ‘soil quality’,” says Dr. Bianca Moebius-Clune, climate and soil health director of American Farmland Trust’s Climate and Soil Health Initiative.

More than 20 years later, Moebius-Clune says that “significant strides” have been made in normalizing the concept of soil health across the research and agricultural community.

But that normalization may not be translating to soil health practices on the ground fast enough.

“We need to scale up the drivers of adoption, because we don’t, as of yet, have a New Conventional Agriculture where soil health management systems are the new normal,” she says.

“Depending on which data we look at, no-till or reduced-till are in use on about half the acres at this point, and possibly still slowly growing, while cover crops increased from 10M acres in 2012 to about 15M acres in 2017 to about 18M acres in 2022 per the Ag Census, that’s 6% of today’s about 300M cropland acres,” she says.

“That’s progress, but not enough progress!”

(America’s Conservation Ag Movement)

Soil Health Principles

Moebius-Clune says that principles that promote healthy soil ecosystems are broadly applicable, but they need to be carefully adapted for success in a production system.

She points to four globally accepted principles that, together, can achieve an optimal soil health system:

- Maximize biodiversity
- Maximize living roots
- Maximize soil cover
- Minimize disturbance

Putting these into place on farms and ranches is to commit to stewarding what Moebius-Clune calls an “underground herd of livestock” or living organisms that contribute to a vibrant soil ecosystem and, therefore, high-functioning soils.

Beyond well-known practices like reduced tillage and cover cropping, those baseline principles can yield additional opportunities for farmers to invest in the health of their soil, including diversification of crop rotations, integrating livestock into cropping systems and precisely managing inputs. One innovative soil health tactic— biochar --has recently been included by USDA-NRCS through Soil Carbon Amendment Conservation Practice Standard 336, meaning financial and technical assistance is now available to help growers with implementation.

Soil Health Drivers

If the baseline principles are basic enough, why aren’t more farmers and ranchers jumping ahead in implementation?

Moebius-Clune says that adoption thus far has largely been driven by innovators, early adopters, researchers, NRCS and organizations like American Farmland Trust that have put time and effort into education, outreach and training. But, that work, she says, is not sufficient to take soil health adoption to the next level.

“We need to address the still significant social, financial and technical barriers to adoption,” she says.

American Farmland Trust is working in collaboration with partners across the value chain, including America’s Conservation Ag Movement , to break down those barriers through initiatives that develop farmer networks, science-and-practice grounded technical resources, decision-support tools and policy solutions to improve farmer access to resources.

Soil Health Benefits

Those soil health early adopters are seeing tangible benefits on farms and ranches, especially as climate extremes are becoming more prevalent.

“Healthier soils provide more resilience in extreme conditions,” says Moebius-Clune.

Moebius-Clune credits the “stable aggregates” of healthy soils for keeping pores open during periods of heavy rainfall events, allowing rainfall to infiltrate into the soil and store rather than washing topsoil downstream.

“This prepares systems to be more resilient during droughts when stored water in a deeper root zone remains available for longer,” she says, adding that diverse production systems are more likely to produce some crops that maintain yield when others fail.

The diversity of ecosystems in healthy soils can protect crops from pests and pathogens as well.

“There is even evidence in social science literature that farmers who manage for healthy soils may experience less stress and more inspiration, autonomy, confidence, freedom, flexibility and happiness,” she says.

Soil Health + Bottom Line

While soil health practices could lead to enhanced opportunities for farmers and ranchers looking to cash in on the carbon marketplace , Moebius-Clune cautions that there is still confusion and uncertainty holding many back.

But, even without that opportunity, American Farmland Trust has been putting soil health to the economic test by highlighting case studies where soil health penciled out in the bottom line.

“Our case studies show potential for return on investment through increased yields, decreased input costs, decreased long-term production system risk during extreme weather events and decreased maintenance needs and also quantify environmental benefits such as decreased erosion, nutrient and sediment pollution and increased carbon sequestration,” Moebius-Clune says.

“We know that farmers who successfully adopt these systems experience real economic returns on their soil health investments that can be quantified.”

America’s Conservation Ag Movement is a public/private collaborative that meets growers across the country where they are on their conservation journey and empowers their next step with technical assistance from USDA-NRCS and innovation solutions and resources from agriculture’s leading providers. Learn more at americasconservationagmovement.com .

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The Benefits of Diverse Monocultures

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 21:28:56 GMT

The benefits of diverse plant species are well documented — yet sometimes diverse mixes can be difficult to manage due to differences in palatability and maturity dates. That is especially true in diverse perennial stands.

Which leads me to this question: What if we could get some of the same synergistic benefits we see with diverse species mixes without the accompanying challenges?

I have been intrigued by the possibilities of diverse monocultures — combining different varieties of the same species to accomplish some of the same soil health and productivity benefits as diverse species mixes.

I’ve spent a lot of time over that past few years researching the phenomenon, and the results are very exciting. I have started using these mixes on our farms as well as clients’ farms.

The Research …

My first experience with such results was by chance in an alfalfa test plot planted seven years ago. The plot contained nine different varieties of alfalfa. After I finished planting, I mixed all the remaining seed together and planted another plot at the same seeding rate.

This plot significantly outyielded the others, which really spiked my interest in trying to understand why it worked and to see which varieties would provide the best synergistic responses.

I started by planting two variety grids, with one set of plots running east and west at a half rate, and another set across them going north and south. The result is a grid with hundreds of two-way mixes. The outside borders of the plots are monocultures, thus allowing for yield comparisons between monocultures and mixes.

For instance, if row F is variety #2 and row 16 is variety #6, then block F16 is half #2 and half #6. We add the yields of blocks F-1 and 16-1, divide by two and compare it to the yield of block F16.

We have done two of these plots the past five years, working with ladino clover, red clover, alfalfa and several cool-season grasses and annuals. The diverse monoculture often outyields the true monoculture. And sometimes the results are amazing.

Some mixes are consistently providing 15% yield increases. That might not seem like a lot, but it’s a huge deal when you consider most breeding programs expect a 2% rate of improvement per generation.

So just by just figuring out which varieties complement each other, we can move productivity ahead by 15 or 20 years — immediately.

The Results...

Why is this happening? With different varieties providing layering both above and below ground we have been able to maximize root development and photosynthesis. While a single variety might dominate in specific areas in fields with variable soils, using different varieties boosts yields in those areas that would struggle with a true monoculture.

We have discovered the key to getting a synergistic response within species is to look for as much diversity as possible. For instance, combining a branch-root alfalfa and a tap root variety is magic. Add a creeping root variety to these two? Possibly even better.

With red clover, we are combining varieties that have better spring growth with varieties that have more fall growth. By merging diverse productivity curves, we can have more consistent legume content and higher annual yields.

In cool-season grasses, the main goal is to combine tetraploid and diploid varieties. Some companies have been doing this for years in some of their popular branded blends. I have also been trying to combine varieties with other characteristics, such as drought tolerance, wet tolerance and upright versus lower profile.

So, how do we make a real-world application with this information? Should we move away from diverse species mixes and go entirely toward diverse monocultures?

I am not ready to do that. There is real value in planting legumes and grasses together.

However, there must be some thought put into the mix composition. Too many farmers and seed companies are going into the warehouse and grabbing one of everything. Diversity for the sake of diversity will not accomplish the goal — it can actually hurt profitability.

A good first step is to simplify mixes. Instead of 10 to 20 species, maybe do three to five. Let’s make sure they complement each other and are easy to manage together.

Then, let’s try to get two complementary varieties of each species. Based on what I know today, this approach helps to preserve the synergistic effect of diversity while providing a forage mix that is easier to manage than the multi-species mixes.

Masters of Change

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:34:54 GMT

lsmith@farmjournal.com

The Schmidt family doesn’t always find change easy, but they never shrink away from it when it’s the right thing to do. Now in the third generation of farming in the U.S., Schmidt Farms has changed location multiple times, adopted conservation tillage before it had a name, added and dropped livestock and sought value-added enterprises. Brothers Alan and Hans and their wives, Brenda and Jennie, already are planning so they will be ready if their children, now ages 10 to 14, choose to farm.

They were chosen as Top Producer of the Year finalists for their ability to survive and thrive in the Chesapeake Bay area—one of the most environmentally challenged watersheds in the country and one with increasing suburban pressure. By squeezing additional dollars of profit from their existing acres, they are able to support multiple generations.

Oscar Wilhelm Schmidt and his brother, Ernst, left Germany in 1910 and tried farming in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Saskatchewan before migrating to the Eastern Shore of Maryland in the early 1920s. Today, the family farms 1,800 acres near Sudlersville.

In time, Oscar’s son Walter took over the operation with his brother, who died in 1970. Although Walter’s sons Hans and Alan were still in grade school, the death of his brother was a wake-up call for him to begin transitioning the farm while he was still in good health and could serve as an adviser.

“Dad taught us management skills on specific enterprises very early,” Hans says. “He let us make decisions and make mistakes.”

Goodbye to Livestock. When the brothers purchased the farming operation from Walter in 1995, it included a 500-sow farrow-to-finish hog operation that had been part of the farm for 50 years and a cow–calf herd. That soon changed.

“We saw the handwriting on the wall regarding both the local livestock market and environmental issues,” Hans says. “We decided to get out of the livestock enterprises and survive on grain. Two years later, we realized we couldn’t make enough from grain, given our land base.”

Located 70 miles from the major population centers of Washington, D.C.; Annapolis, Md.; Newark, Del.; and Philadelphia, the operation’s acreage growth was limited by suburban encroachment, and the brothers didn’t want to enter rental wars with neighbors. So they needed to get more profit out of the existing 2,100 acres owned by the family (1,800 farmed).

They looked around and saw thriving markets for high-quality hay for horse farms and fresh green beans for the nearby urban markets. They invested in a new co-op that offered a lucrative market for edible soybeans and began growing canning tomatoes on contract. They converted one farm to organic production and switched to seed soybeans and seed barley.

Most recently, they added wine grapes. “We are maxed out on tomatoes and string beans, and we have all the hay acres we can manage. So we looked for value-added enterprises,” Hans explains.

Wine Grapes. New to the vineyard business just seven years ago, the Schmidts began growing grapes on three acres. Their current 20 acres represent the largest commercial vineyard in the state, and Jennie is president of the Maryland Grape Growers Association. The wine grape industry is an emerging market in Maryland, with 558 acres of grapes in the state and 42 licensed wineries, many of which are not yet open.

“We learned through networking and by doing,” Jennie explains. “One of the hardest things was that with grain, the focus is more on quantity; with grapes especially but hay and vegetables as well, it’s all about quality. Once you have figured out how to get the quality, then you can focus on quantity.” Another adjustment is that it takes three years before you harvest a crop and five years to reach full production.

Growing interest in wine grapes and boutique wineries in the state has spawned a new enterprise, which Jennie runs: custom vineyard management. In addition to the family’s 20 acres, they now manage 35 acres of grapes for other vineyard owners.

“Growing wine grape varietals opens the avenue for a winery down the road—perhaps our children will choose to do that,” Jennie adds.

This mix reduces risk through multiple added-value crops, and it keeps two full-time and two part-time employees employed year-round. “By being busy 11 months of the year, the business is able to support our three families and our employees,” Jennie says.

The Schmidts employed a total of 28 people this past summer—seven local teens and 13 migrant workers from Guatemala for the tomatoes and grapes, plus family and year-round employees.

Not every venture has been a success. Raising birds for hunters and ostriches for meat came and went.

“We now look at markets that exist—not ones that you have to create a market for,” Hans says. Every enterprise is reviewed regularly on its own merit and will stay only as long as it is the best fit for the operation’s resources and profitability.

“Alan and Hans have a unique ability to assess risk and make well-calculated business decisions, often into areas that are new and different and as yet unproven to them and their neighbors,” says Kenneth Bounds, vice president of MidAtlantic Farm Credit.

“A key component of success for farms is the ability to objectively review your financial condition and make strategic financial and operational decisions based on the analysis,” he adds. “Alan and Hans perform enterprise analysis, track and analyze costs by unit and trend income and expenses by enterprise. They use this information to make appropriate operational changes.”

Analysis is Key. Ag lender William Walmsley with the Centreville National Bank of Maryland, also agrees: "[The Schmidts] are in the top tier of those who look at the math first. Cash-flow analysis is completed for every enterprise from field corn to grapes and all in between. All tools are used in production and marketing to recover as much profit as possible.”

Opening the door to new opportunities remains a key to the Schmidts’ future. Alan and Hans will try new enterprises that many farmers would never consider. Given the transition their father, Walter, set in motion, the brothers have set a course to ensure the farm remains profitable—and ultimately will support their children, should they choose to farm. It may not appear to be the same farm it was in generations past, but change is necessary to stay profitable and productive.

Quick Facts
> Location: Sudlersville, Md.
> Owners and partners: Hans and Jennie; children Zachary, age 12, and Katrina, age 10. Alan and Brenda; children Jacob, age 14, and Tyler, age 11
> Crops in 2009: Field corn, 645 acres; feed- and food-grade soybeans, 500; hay (timothy, orchardgrass, alfalfa), 311; wheat, 275; seed barley, 170; canning tomatoes, 150; green beans, 140; popcorn, 57; grapes, 20

Conservation Is Critical
Living in an area where water pollution is a major issue, Walter Schmidt instituted conservation tillage in the 1960s, long before it was widely promoted.

Sons Alan and Hans also have taken a proactive, rather than reactive, approach. They have entered 120 acres that abut local waterways in conservation programs and have adopted nutrient-management systems, such as filter strips, grassy buffers, tree buffers and winter cover crops.

“It’s important that farmers put as many BMPs [best management practices] on the ground as possible,” Hans says. “We don’t want to be blamed for runoff.”

Precision agriculture via GPS reduces overlap of seed, fertilizer and chemical applications, reduces soil compaction and results in cost savings and environmental benefits. Data collected help the brothers make better management decisions. “Using a lightbar to spread poultry manure lets us apply the optimum rate, but not overdo it,” Alan says.

Because these practices also provide wildlife habitat, the Schmidts received the Maryland Wildlife Farmer of the Year award in 2006.

In 2008, Schmidt Farms received a cost-sharing grant to build an agrichemical handling facility, a permanent structure with a diked loading pad—the first in the county. The facility consolidates numerous tanks and sprayers into one location. Not only is it safer environmentally, it is more efficient.

Teaching Conservation. Due to their proximity to Washington, D.C., the Schmidts frequently get requests from groups who want to visit a farm. They often let government administrators, foreign visitors or city folk ride in the tractor and even let them drive it on the return trip across the field. They use these opportunities to teach how farmers are farming responsibly.

Top Producer, March 2010

What You Must Know About Soil

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:34:04 GMT

Think of soil as you do your employees. If you account for each one’s distinct personality, he or she will be happier and more productive. Soil is like that as well—it will produce a lot, or much less, depending on how well you
understand it and how you treat it.

Like people, soil is complex. But if you understand some basic concepts, you’ll be on your way to laying a foundation for high yields every year.

At the 2009 Farm Journal Corn College, Farm Journal Field Agronomist Ken Ferrie explained the conceptsP: porosity, soil structure, soil texture, root size and capillary water movement.

Soil porosity. Well-managed soil looks and feels crumblike in structure. There are three types of soil pores, which are the spaces inside or around the crumblike particles.

“The size of pores plays a big role in soil density,” Ferrie explains. “We want macropores—the large spaces where nutrient exchange can take place. Macro-pores hold usable water and nutrients. They are the spaces around crumbs of soil.

“Small pores are called micropores. They are of less benefit because they hold very little usable water or oxygen. Micropores are found inside the crumb structure of soil.

“A third kind of pore, biopores, are channels left in the soil where roots decomposed or worms or other organisms were. New roots follow those channels and nightcrawlers use them.”

Waste excreted by nightcrawlers makes biopores a nutrient-rich environment. So biopores are good, although they have one downside: In continuous corn, they may contain toxins left by decomposed corn roots.

Pores and root size. Two factors determine how large your corn root diameter will be. The first is genetics. “If we grow a plant in a hydroponic situation, the root will get as big as its genetics allow,” Ferrie says.

The second is pore size. “If we grow the plant in soil, pore size becomes the determining factor,” he says.

“If you plant a hybrid in coarse sand, you’ll get larger diameter roots because there are large macropores between the sand particles. If you plant it in tight clay, you’ll get a more fibrous-looking root system, much smaller in diameter. Roots keep pushing until the soil doesn’t let them expand anymore.”

Soil texture and roots. Soil texture influences pore size. Texture means particle size—from largest to smallest, sand, silt and clay. Soils contain varying amounts of the three sizes of particles. They are classified according to the proportions of each particle they contain. The highest proportion is listed first, as in “silty clay loam.”

“Clay particles are microscopic,” Ferrie explains. “To put the sizes in perspective, think of them this way: If a coarse sand particle was a 747 airliner, a silt particle would be a hang glider and a clay particle would be a hummingbird.”
Clay is different from other soil particles because it is made up of lattices—layers held apart by negative charges that repel each other. The lattices allow clay to hold water. Clay, more than anything else, gives soil its waterholding capacity. Clay’s negative sites also allow it to hold tightly to positively charged nutrients.

“Clay particles also have carbon, or organic matter, a substance that allows the particles to hold nutrients,” Ferrie says. “A tablespoon of clay has enough surface area to cover a football field. All that surface area is available
for holding nutrients, so the possibilities are great.

“Sand and silt don’t have lattices or negative sites, but they do have carbon, or organic matter,” Ferrie adds. “So they have some water- and nutrient-holding capacity but nothing compared with clay.

“If we evaporate water out of clay particles—out of the lattices where it is held—the particles collapse and the soil cracks. At the other extreme, sands don’t crack when they dry out—they just get hot and blow away.”

To create a crumb structure containing macropores, soil particles must be pulled together into aggregates. Clay particles are essential to this process.

Adding calcium causes clay particles to “flocculate”—that is, particles are held together but also held apart. The flocculation process also requires organic matter and pectin, which is secreted by microbes found around plant roots, especially grasses.

“Through this process, we build a crumb structure, with macropores, capable of holding usable water,” Ferrie explains. “If we can keep the soil from running together and maintain the crumb-like structure, the soil will be able to take in water and oxygen.”

Quick to destroy. Demonstrations at Corn College show how structure that took 15 or 20 years to develop can rapidly be destroyed—with two years of moldboard plowing and disking, for example. “A plow brings poorer-structured soil to the surface and leaves no residue to protect it,” Ferrie says. “A disk breaks down soil structure.”

Tillage implements, such as moldboard plows and large offset disks, can break the “bridges” between the flocculated clay particles. “We also can destroy structure by letting the salts in the soil get too high or with poor drainage or overapplication of manure. Soil acidity can do the same thing if pH gets too low,” Ferrie says. “If this happens, you may see water run off a field in places where it once percolated into the soil.
“In a salt situation, we would apply calcium sulfate to flush out the salt,” Ferrie explains.

“If the problem is acidity, apply calcium carbonate. That will flush out the excess hydrogen ions that result from acidity and rebuild the bridges between the organic matter and the clay particles. It’s always easier to maintain soil structure than to try to put it back in.”

How plants get water. Water moves through the soil by capillary action, which involves processes called adhesion and cohesion. Pore size and soil texture influence this movement.

Cohesion works like this: Water is one large oxygen molecule with two hydrogen molecules attached to it. That gives it polarity—a positive end and a negative end. “One molecule’s positive end hooks to another molecule’s negative end,” Ferrie explains. “When water runs down your pickup window in a stream, that’s cohesion. The water looks like it’s all hooked together, and it is.”

The hydrogen molecules hook to the negative sites on clay particles, forming a tight bond. That’s adhesion. “Water inside the clay particles is not usable water because plants and microbes can’t get it loose,” Ferrie says. “But hooked to that water are other water molecules, out in the macro-pores. Those molecules are hooked to each other by cohesion; that is usable water.”

In the field, adhesion and cohesion work like this: “In a soil with very high clay content, the soil contains mostly micropores,” Ferrie says. “Most of the water is held tightly to clay particles. In these soils you sometimes see corn roll, even though you can dig down 6" and find enough moisture to make a ball out of the soil. But it’s not usable water.

“In a silt loam soil, we have more macropores, which contain usable water. As water is drawn to the soil particles through adhesion, it pulls more water through cohesion.

“Where the adhesion sites are, and how far apart, determines a soil’s pulling power. A coarse sandy soil can’t lift water very far because gravity takes over. In a finer soil, we can move the water upward. In sand, that may be 8". In a silty clay loam, it may be 3'.”

Seeing is believing. To show Corn College attendees how water moves in various soil types, Ferrie and his staff recreated a demonstration he first witnessed in junior college. They filled a box with coarse sand in the bottom, fine sand in the middle and silty clay loam on top. Then they dribbled water into an “irrigation ditch” at the surface.

In the silty clay loam, the water moved as far to the side as it did downward because of all the adhesion sites in the soil.

“When the water reaches the sand, you would expect it to move straight down,” Ferrie says. “But it doesn’t—it halts its downward movement. There are so many negative sites in the silty clay loam, pulling on the water, that it seems to defy gravity.

“This is an example of a perched water table, which you may encounter if you farm on top of a sand lens. It requires enough water to create positive pressure to push water into the sand.”

When the water hits the coarse sand, it again halts its downward movement. “The fine sand exerts more pull on the water than the coarse sand,” Ferrie says. “Eventually, we will saturate the fine sand and apply enough pressure to move the water into the coarse sand.

“But the demonstration shows that moving water up and down through the soil profile is not merely a function of drainage; rather, it’s a function of pore space, adhesion and cohesion.”

Something similar can happen if we alter the structure of soil mechanically, Ferrie continues. “If we compress the soil particles together—with horizontal tillage, for example—and create a layer of micropores, water will not move either up or down. In that case, we create a perched water above the compressed layer or we hold water beneath it.”

Something else can happen if the silty clay loam dries out and cracks. “If we add water to the cracked soil, it drops straight down the cracks, creates positive pressure on the sand underneath and the water travels directly to the B horizon,” Ferrie explains.

“This happens a lot in soils like we have in central Illinois,” Ferrie says. “You get a 1½" or 2" rain on cracked soil, and a week or two later you can’t figure out where the water went. It went straight down to the subsoil.”

Tillage troubles. Compressing soil and forcing out the macropores affects not only water movement but root growth, as well. Horizontal tillage is the main cause of such density changes.

“Horizontal tillage is anything done in the horizontal plain,” Ferrie says. “We’re talking plows, disks, field cultivators or soil finishers.

“Remember that a corn plant’s root system will expand to what the soil will allow. If soil gradually becomes more dense, the size of the root will gradually taper down. It can handle gradual density changes but not sudden ones. So when we create loose soil on top and the root suddenly hits a dense layer, it’s in trouble. The root can’t get through the soil, so it turns and grows horizontally.”

Here’s how the scenario often plays out: Horizontal tillage loosens the soil several inches deep. The downward pressure of the implement crushes out the macropores, “tightening” the layer of soil underneath.

In the loose soil layer on top, water percolates in quickly. It also evaporates quickly, but evaporation is unable to pull water up from deeper in the soil because of the dense layer.

As for the root, it charges downward through the loose soil at a big diameter. “But when it hits the density change, it may not be able to handle it,” Ferrie says. “How great a problem results depends on which roots are turned and when. The greatest problem occurs if the third set of crown roots is turned. Those roots need to get water to the plant in July and August.”

The best way to see what’s going on below the surface of your fields is to dig a soil pit.

You can e-mail Darrell Smith at dsmith@farmjournal.com.

Equipment Floats Over Fields

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:33:30 GMT

Downtime is not something Bruce Bishop tolerates. “I work very hard to keep my machinery as simple as possible so there are fewer things to slow me down,” he says.

The McComb, Ohio, farmer’s quest for minimal breakdowns and reduced weight inspired him to build two fully mounted 24-row, 30" machines—a corn planter and fertilizer applicator—that float over the field, with nary a lift-assist wheel or carrying wheel for support.

The machines won first prize in the planter and chemical handling categories of Farm Journal’s “I Built the Best Contest.” The victories mark Bishop’s seventh and eighth category wins.

“Tires are one more thing to maintain, and if you have to replace one it slows you down,” Bishop says. “They make a machine heavier, and they leave tracks.” Eliminating the weight of wheels improves fuel efficiency, he adds, and a lighter machine may let you get back into fields sooner following a rain.

Bishop’s corn planter weighs only 11,900 lb. “Compaction-wise, it’s as if you’re driving the tractor across the field with nothing behind it,” he says.

Mounting the planter units (which make up half the weight of the planter) as close as possible to the tractor eliminated the need for lift-assist or carrying wheels. To facilitate close mounting, Bishop placed the two bars of the planter’s double frame 4' apart instead of the usual 1'. “That let me mount the planter units on the front bar,” he says.

Putting the toolbars 4' apart reduced stress on the second bar. So Bishop was able to use lighter ¼"-wall 4"x4" steel tubing, rather than 3⁄8"-wall 7"x7" tubing, for the second toolbar. He used ¼"-wall 7"x7" tubing, rather than 3⁄8"-wall, for the outer 25' on each wing of the front toolbar.

No wheels. With the weight of the units close to the tractor and lighter steel in the toolbars, “the planter units can hold up the wings of the planter,” Bishop says. “So the only wheel traffic comes from the 24" tracks on my 765 Cat tractor—one set of tracks every 60'.

“Building the frame from aluminum, rather than steel, would have saved 3,000 lb.,” Bishop notes. “But it would have made construction much more complicated, and the planter would not have lasted as long.”

In the absence of carrying wheels, a device designed by Bishop maintains constant toolbar height. It consists of a small-gauge wheel which activates a sensor that electronically raises and lowers the three-point hitch.

Bishop eliminated many feet of hose—and more weight—by using the main toolbar for a vacuum line. He plumbed 2" air-piloted valves into the toolbar. The valves shut off vacuum pressure to the seed meters. They are controlled by air switches in the cab, which let Bishop shut off three rows at a time. The system cost $1,500, much less than individual row clutches.

The planter is equipped with a John Deere CCS air delivery system, John Deere Pro-Series XP row units with Precision Planting eSet vacuum disks in the meters and a Precision Planting 20/20 SeedSense population monitor. The seed tank holds 70 bu. of seed.

Fewer chains to maintain. A Rawson hydraulic drive controls planting rate.

“Using only one drive motor requires only one set of drive chains for the entire planter, which reduces maintenance,” Bishop explains.

Using only one drive motor requires Bishop to disconnect the driveshaft when he folds the planter. He made a connector from hydraulic hose, with a rod inside that prevents it from twisting.

Bishop subsoils in the fall and then plants corn into a stale seedbed. He equipped the planter with Martin row cleaners but saw no need for no-till coulters. Because the wings are light, he can apply active hydraulic down pressure to push them down when no-tilling; in effect, transferring weight from the seed tank to the toolbar.

Because Bishop’s corn is grown in rotation with soybeans or wheat, and because extended-diapause rootworms haven’t invaded yet, he had no need for insecticide boxes.

Bishop did not add starter fertilizer attachments because on-farm tests showed starter doesn’t pay in his soils. “I considered putting a 400-gal. pop-up fertilizer tank on the front of the tractor,” he says. “But with current fertilizer prices, pop-up doesn’t pay in our soils, either.”

On the road. For travel, the planter folds to a width of 15'. The wings rotate upward and then forward, using four hydraulic cylinders and hinge points. “Those are the only hydraulic cylinders on the entire planter,” Bishop points out. Minimizing the number of cylinders leaves the outside 20' of each wing free of hydraulic lines.

When folded, no part of the planter is higher than the tractor cab. The only parts wider than the tractor are 6½' above the ground—higher than any vehicles Bishop will meet on the road. The planter stores on a stand, leaving room to park machinery underneath.

The light weight lets Bishop plant an acre of corn using only 0.18 gal. of diesel. He thinks the light weight and his tracked planting tractor helped him get corn planted on schedule despite rainy weather this past spring.
The total cost of the planter, Bishop figures, was about half that of a new 24-row planter. He spent a month building the frame and another month assembling the rest of the planter.

Light-stepping applicator. The principles of weight conservation, compaction and low maintenance equally apply to Bishop’s nitrogen applicator, which mounts on a tracked 235-hp Challenger MT755 tractor. The applicator weighs 7,800 lb. when empty and 18,000 lb. when loaded.

The applicator carries a 400-gal. tank on the front of the tractor and a 1,000-gal. tank on the rear that is plumbed with 3" lines. There’s also a 7-gal. freshwater tank for cleanup.

As with the planter, Bishop used a toolbar of ¼"-wall steel. The bar carries Clymer coulter injection system units. “The units come with depth spools, which I use as gauge wheels for the toolbar,” Bishop says.
The 24-row, 30" applicator folds the same way as Bishop’s planter—upward and then forward, using the same arrangement of four hydraulic cylinders and four hinge points.

A Raven controller varies the rate, which Bishop backs off a bit on sand hills and lower-yielding areas next to woods. The controller lets him shut off four rows at a time to minimize overlap on point rows. The applicator’s controller and 2" pump also work for a 120', three-point mounted sprayer that mounts on the same tractor.
Running his mounted corn planter, soybean planter, sprayer and sidedress applicator in the same tracks sets up a controlled-traffic pattern that varies only when Bishop plants wheat.

Because the tramway gets compacted, Bishop applies no nitrogen behind the tractor track. Instead, he moves the adjacent injectors 5" closer to those rows and applies 50% more fertilizer through each one. He runs the sidedress applicator at 10 mph.

Just as with planting, Bishop credits his light-stepping applicator with helping him sidedress in timely fashion this past spring. “The corn was growing several inches a day and it was time to sidedress, but it was raining once a week,” he remembers. “I was able to get into fields when they were a little wetter than I could have with a conventional applicator.”

Bishop sidedresses because applying nitrogen when the corn needs it lets him use lower rates. He applies 10 gal. of 28% nitrogen solution (30 units of nitrogen) in a weed and feed herbicide treatment before planting, then adjusts his sidedress rate based on crop condition.

The closest thing to a downside with Bishop’s mounted machines is that they put a lot of weight on the tractor when he lifts them to turn at the end of a field. “But I can turn in half the distance I used to need with a pull-type planter, so I only run over half as much ground,” he says.

“And I turn the planter, sprayer and applicator in exactly the same tracks, so I don’t create any additional compaction when I sidedress fertilizer.”

You can e-mail Darrell Smith at dsmith@farmjournal.com .

Double Take on Twins

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:32:49 GMT

Kevin Wood doesn’t care if you call him narrow-minded. The Raymond, Ill., farmer is looking for a way to eke every last corn bushel out of his land. When a 2008 twin-row corn plot showed an amazing 30-bu. yield bump, he wanted a closer look at the concept.

His curiosity mirrors that of the Farm Journal Test Plots team, which first tested twin rows in 1999. The momentum for the practice of planting two rows 7" apart on 30" centers has built in the past few years as more corn contest yield winners use twin rows to take home honors.

“By 2006, twin rows had advanced from a niche practice used primarily by vegetable growers to a mainstream option for corn growers,” says Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist, who oversaw our replicated twin-row plots. “That was the year when some of the winners in the National Corn Growers Association Yield Contest used twins to achieve their big yields.”

Twin rows work well for producers who have maxed out planting populations and yield potential in 30" rows, Ferrie notes. The narrow row spacing can also aid in water management.

Yield quest. To evaluate twin rows for himself, Wood and his son, Brian, worked with Channel Bio, a seed corn subsidiary of Monsanto Company, to launch a twin-row test. Other farmers soon jumped on board and the effort ultimately covered 7,900 acres in
Illinois, Arkansas and Missouri.

“Our goal is to find a way to push populations beyond the 36,000 to 37,000 plants per acre typical of 30" rows,” Brian explains. “We want an ear on each plant about the size of a soda can.”

As you might guess, it turned out to be a tough season for any kind of test. The wet spring led to late planting and that was further complicated by the sharing of twin-row planters to establish the test strips.

Yield results for the first-year plots at Wood Farms ranged from an 11-bu. yield advantage to an 11-bu. yield loss. Father and son saw the best results with more determinate-type hybrids.

Will Mullenix, Channel Bio technical sales manager and agronomist, says when plot results were tallied this year, there was only a slight yield benefit to twin rows across all trials. Channel Bio farmer–cooperators were encouraged to compare twin rows with 40,000 plants per acre to 30" rows with 36,000 plants per acre while keeping other inputs equivalent.

“We believe some configuration of narrow-row corn holds promise. We’re trying to help our customers maximize harvestable ear counts across the variable yield environments on their farms,” Mullenix says.

“Twin rows help minimize interplant competition, especially when final stands are above 36,000 plants per acre,” he adds.

In 30" rows, the field area available for rooting decreases as populations increase due to interplant competition. With twin rows, the root area increases as populations increase because plants are spread out over more area.

Family ties. AgriGold agronomy manager Mike Kavanaugh notes that years with above-average rainfall lessen stress during the growing season and can minimize the benefit of narrow-row corn. Even so, AgriGold’s 2009 twin-row study shows a 4.9-bu. advantage compared with 30" rows when all hybrids and populations are considered.

“The trendline for twin rows suggests grain yield continues to increase up to 43,000 plants per acre,” Kavanaugh explains. “The trendline for 30" row systems begins to plateau around 34,000 plants per acre” based on the company’s 2009 first-year data.

The AgriGold agronomy team planted 37 research plots across the Corn Belt, using five hybrids at populations ranging from 28,000 to 43,000 plants per acre. They compared each population in 30" rows to twin rows. The tests were planted in commercial fields using each farmer’s individual production practices.

Kavanaugh says the results showed agronomic differences, such as larger stalk diameters that could lead to less lodging. “Greater stalk diameter is a direct result of reduced competition and larger root systems,” he notes.

Ear heights averaged 1" higher in twin rows compared with 30" rows as populations exceeded 33,000 plants per acre. Twin-row plant heights averaged 1.5" taller than all populations compared with 30" rows.

The Impact of Narrow Rows
Charlene Finck , Farm Journal Editor

In a decade of studying narrow-row corn in twin and 20" rows in replicated plots, the Farm Journal Test Plots have shown that narrow rows out yield 30" rows by as much as 22 bu. per acre, with an average yield gain of 7 bu. to 10 bu. acre.

The row spacings produce similar ear counts, but twin and 20" rows pick up extra yield through better tip fill and deeper kernel depth. The upper end of the yield response came from soils that need to be pushed and from lighter soils that hang onto water. At the same time, the average yield gains were posted in middle-of-the-road soils.

Seed selection is important with any row spacing in corn production. If you’re growing a racehorse hybrid without strong defensive traits, you’ll need to protect it. Some disease-prone fields simply need a hybrid with defensive genetics. As always, it is wise to plant your own variety plot to see what works best in your fields at what population. There are limited labels for insecticide in twin rows, and post-emergence ground application is more difficult.

The downside of narrow rows and high populations is that you have to manage disease. With narrow-row corn, the tighter canopy can make disease worse. As with any row spacing, growing conditions are more conducive to disease in some years than in others. Scouting for disease is especially important. Narrow rows have to be treated like 30" rows when it comes to weeds, although the narrower rows close the canopy faster and help choke back the weeds.

Insect pressure can also pick up. Rootworm control in narrow rows requires the most attention. In narrow rows, it’s not the rate of insecticide per acre that needs to be calculated but rather the rate per foot of row.

Just as with insecticide, the application rates for starter fertilizer in narrow corn rows should be calculated in rate per foot of row to make sure you deliver enough nutrients to the plants.

For More Information
Download the Farm Journal Narrow-Row Corn Report.

Have questions about it? E-mail testplots@farmjournal.com .

“There are real differences in genetic families and how they respond to twin and 30" rows,” Kavanaugh says.

For example, he says, AgriGold’s Family B flexible-eared hybrids tend to maximize productivity at 34,000 to 36,000 plants per acre in 30" rows, but twin yields climb at higher populations (see yield charts at left).

“Our data suggests there’s potentially another yield level to be achieved by planting this family of hybrids in twin rows,” Kavanaugh says.

Semiflexible ears, as in AgriGold’s Family F hybrids, showed a strong response to higher populations regardless of row spacings. The 2009 plot results put optimum planting population for this hybrid family at 38,000 plants per acre in 30" rows and 43,000 plants per acre in twin rows. Twin-row spacing provided a 6.9-bu.-per-acre yield pop at 43,000 plants per acre.

“We felt these data points were right on target with past recommendations for this family of hybrids because they tend to be population-driven and less sensitive to inter-row competition,” Kavanaugh notes.

Mixed bag. Bruce Battles, agronomy marketing manager for Syngenta, says population studies by his company indicate there are some geographical differences when it comes to the benefits of narrow rows. That makes sense if you consider that the goal of the practice is to capture sunlight more efficiently and quicker.

Research across the Midwest has shown an advantage to narrower row widths as you move northward in the Corn Belt. The shorter growing season means a larger amount of sunlight is used when corn shades the rows quicker to take advantage of as much photosynthetic capacity as possible. You want 95%-plus sunlight interception at pollination. Sun that hits the ground that is not intercepted by corn leaves means lost potential energy.

“We think there’s a big opportunity in using twin rows and narrow rows in a very prescriptive way,” Battles says. “They are a tool that enables hybrid genetics to realize a higher percentage of their yield potential.”

The company plans to conduct a broad swath of additional tests on row spacings this spring.

Battles notes that the tighter canopy associated with twin rows can cause disease pressures, but Syngenta studies are showing some exciting results with fungicide use in high populations.

More plots in 2010. It would certainly be a case of being narrow-minded if Wood and the other farmers who helped seed companies test twin rows in 2009 stopped with one year of data. No worries. Each group plans to head back to the field in the spring to do a double take on twins.

You can e-mail Pam Smith at psmith@farmjournal.com .

Soy Savers

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:32:30 GMT

Soybean rust isn’t taking any holidays. The first report of the disease in 2009 was logged Jan. 1, in Lee County, Fla., on kudzu. Additional positive confirmations have been lighting up the map ever since.

The good news for farmers is there is still a way to track disease outbreaks. The online monitoring system called ipmPIPE has been taken off the endangered list, where it was placed because of lack of funding.

Heralded as a progressive diagnostic management tool, the Web-based service was originally built to track and advise farmers about soybean rust. Since then, it has been expanded to provide real-time information on soybean aphids, cucumber downy mildew, pecan nut casebearer, and pests and diseases of legume crops.

Marty Draper, national program leader for plant pathology with the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES), says a patchwork of funds has saved the program through the 2009 production season.

Draper says both the United Soybean Board and North Central Soybean Research Program are supporting the scouting and monitoring program. CSREES found enough funding to keep most of the Web site and analysis services alive. The Risk Management Agency has also contributed funding to help with costs associated with the new legume, cucurbit and pecan portions of the service.

“The bottom line is the ipmPIPE will survive one more year, but there are a lot of Band-Aids on the body,” Draper says. “The soybean rust efforts are most vulnerable since they have been under way for longer than other portions of the program. Nonetheless, they serve as the proving ground for most of what is being done to forecast pest risk.”

Last year, the soybean rust pathogen was found in 16 states. In 2008, soybean aphids went west—reaching Wyoming, the westernmost cultivation of soybeans in the U.S. Texas, Florida and the Carolinas are the only states where aphids have not been found and/or verified.

Soybean aphids migrating from soybeans to buckthorns, where overwintering eggs are deposited, exceeded any seen in previous years. Predators can have a major impact on soybean aphid populations, but the pest is straying from normal behavior and monitoring is critical.

“This Web site was developed as a resource to help growers plan what actions need to be taken—rather than merely reacting to what they think might be happening,” Draper says. “The ipmPIPE has proven itself as an important resource that helps the grower and the environment.”

You can e-mail Pam Smith at psmith@farmjournal.com .

The Latest Crop Trends

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:31:41 GMT

The Commodity Classic Trade Show held March 4–6 in Anaheim, Calif., featured more than 200 companies exhibiting in more than 800 booths. The 2011 event will be held in Tampa, Fla.

Commodity Classic offers farmers a chance to commune, consult and catch up on the latest trends in the corn, soybean, sorghum and wheat industries. Beyond policy challenges, such as trade, climate change and alternative fuel legislation, the annual meeting is the place to learn what will be the next big thing in production agriculture.

Here’s a sampling of discussion threads we took home:

Green is growing. Watch for huge growth in agricultural biologicals as new players enter the market. Relative newcomer Novozymes Biologicals of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, is a global company marketing several microbial biofertility products and nitrogen-fixing seed inoculants, mostly in the Great Plains states.

This year, the Novozymes BioAg division expands its reach by intro-ducing a naturally occurring insecticide and a biofungicide to specialty crops. In 2009, the company had 170 field trials in the U.S. on 30 different crops and is doubling that effort in 2010. Watch for row crop biobased inputs to emerge from three core technology platforms: biofertility, biopesticides and bioyield enhancers.

Bayer CropScience brings VOTiVO, the first biobased nematode seed treatment, to corn, soybean and cotton fields. “The product creates a living barrier around plant roots so nematodes have limited access to feed,” says product manager Paul Hewitt. “The same environmental conditions that trigger seed germination also trigger the product’s bacterial spores to germinate. From that point on, the bacteria grows and creates a living barrier of protection around the seedling roots.”

EMD Crop BioScience extends the benefits of rhizobia to corn this spring through Torque IF with LCO Promoter Technology. The new formulation of Torque is packaged to premix with bulk liquid starters.

Traits go native. The first drought-tolerant hybrids wend their way to market using native traits to eke the most crop from every drop.

Pioneer Hi-Bred’s Drought I hybrids will be planted in 260 real-world farmer trials in eastern Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma this summer. Expect a product launch in 2011, pending successful trials.

Syngenta Seeds expects to commercialize water optimization technology in 2011. For soybeans, the company will offer integrated aphid management through its NK brand for the 2010 planting season. Genetics containing the native RAG-2 trait for aphid tolerance is part of the season-long package.

Refuges continue to shrink. SmartStax, the latest in stacked trait technology from Dow AgroSciences and Monsanto Company, will be planted on 3 million acres this spring. Beyond multiple layers of protection, the new stack offers a 5% reduced refuge (20% in some cotton states). Monsanto announces broad-scale testing of an integrated, refuge-in-a-bag option in 2010 with commercialization potential in 2012, pending regulatory approval. Pioneer’s integrated rootworm refuge, Optimum AcreMax 1, awaits a 2010 regulatory thumbs-up, but still requires a refuge for European corn borer.

Agrisure Viptera, the first non-Cry protein in the trait space, is reaching the final phase of commercialization. The novel insecticidal protein will feature two modes of action against lepidopteron corn pests, and Syngenta has filed for a 5% refuge in the Corn Belt.

In the soybean sector, Valent’s new Inovate seed treatment system meshes NipsIt Inside insecticide (clothianidin) with Chemtura AgroSolutions’ Rancona Xxtra fungicide (ipconazole plus metalaxyl) and is compatible with Becker Underwood (Vault LVL and HP) and EMD Crop BioScience (Optimize 400) inoculants.

Headline AMP, a strobilurin and triazole fungicide combo for corn, is now available from BASF.

Sorghum growers should see at least one of two new over-the-top herbicide-tolerant traits from DuPont Crop Protection by 2012. Inzen, a non-GMO, herbicide-resistant seed, will be matched to ALS and ACC-ase herbicides.

BASF introduces Sharpen, OpTill and Integrity herbicides from the new Kixor family this spring. Sharpen, for corn, small grains, grain sorghum and soybeans, contains the new active saflu-fenacil. OpTill combines the actives of Sharpen and Pursuit (imazethapyr) for use in soybeans. Integrity contains Sharpen and Outlook (dimethenamid) for preplant or pre-emergence in corn.

Bayer CropScience brings a new stable of actives with safeners: Balance Flexx (isoxaflutole and cyprosulfamide), Corvus (isoxaflutole, thiencarbazone and cyprosulfamide), Laudis (tembotrione and isoxadifen) and Capreno (tembotrione, thiencarbazone and isoxadifen). DuPont’s Prequel (rimsulfuron and isoxaflutole) is a new corn herbicide premix. Syngenta’s Callisto Xtra (mesotrione and atrazine) is a premix product for corn. MON 63410 (acetochlor), from Monsanto, helps tackle herbicide-resistant weeds in soybeans.

You can e-mail Pam Smith at psmith@farmjournal.com .

Fertilizer Bargains

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:31:33 GMT

How do you spell relief? For many farmers, it’s the current about-face in fertilizer prices.

Bruce Erickson, Purdue University economist, expects 2010 corn fertilizer prices to be reduced by one-third for nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P), compared with 2009. The percentage discount could be even more for potassium/potash (K) considering current prices.

“Depending on when fertilizers were purchased, some farmers may have spent $200 per acre or more to fertilize their 2009 crop, more than rent in some cases when you consider N, P and K replacement and any liming requirements,” Erickson says.

“By comparison, our budget projections for 2010 put corn fertilizer expense in the $100 to $130 per acre range, depending on soils and crop rotation,” he adds.

Fertilizer prices reflect market conditions, and supply and demand factors will differ among nutrients, says Harry Vroomen, vice president of economic services at the Fertilizer Institute.

N, which is produced predominantly from natural gas, is typically the most price-sensitive to changes in energy costs. “U.S. nitrogen production capacity has declined by 42% since 1999 as domestic natural gas prices increased by about 300%,” Vroomen says.

“Imports now account for more than half of our total nitrogen supply. Overall, 56% of U.S. nitrogen fertilizer came from other countries in fiscal year 2007/08,” he says.

“A weaker dollar translates into higher prices because it raises the cost of the fertilizer we import and it makes the fertilizer we export less expensive for foreign countries, which means they purchase more fertilizer from the U.S. than they would if the dollar were stronger. The higher demand for fertilizer exports from these purchases results in higher domestic prices.”

Vroomen attributes the fertilizer price decline, which began at the end of 2008, predominantly to a drop in domestic and world nutrient demand. Declining natural gas and diesel fuel prices and lower ocean freight rates have also contributed. Lower retail fertilizer prices lagged wholesale prices because material purchased by retailers at higher prices had to work through the system.

Look ahead. University of Nebraska soil specialist Gary Hergert says it appears farmers purchased less N, quite a bit less P and significantly less K in 2009. “Farmers know they need N year in and out, but figure they can draw on P and K reserves for a while.

“Fertilizer prices should be a bargain compared to past years, but you will still need to comparison shop,” Hergert says. “It may be a challenge to get soil test results this year because of the late corn harvest. Soil P and K levels do not change rapidly, so you can use historic field averages [if you have yearly samples] as a guideline.”

Here’s what Hergert sees on the horizon for prices for 2010:

Nitrogen. World urea prices slid to 2006 levels and have slightly rebounded with New Orleans urea prices off the ship recently trading for $320 per ton. Hergert says urea in western Nebraska is $400 to $470 per ton (43¢ per pound to 51¢ per pound N).

“The best nitrogen buy is ammonia,” Hergert says. “The late corn harvest created high inventories.” In January, ammonia fob in the Corn Belt was running $350 per ton to $400 per ton. Panhandle growers saw $435 per ton to $480 per ton, Hergert says. N solution (32%) ranged from $205 per ton to $290 per ton in western Nebraska.

Hergert suggests looking hard at the N sources you use to see if changes could benefit profitability. Ammonia is expected to be a good buy and N solution prices are even lower than urea.

“The Chinese are expected to lower N export tariffs, and the Russians have opened a new facility to load supertankers with ammonia, which provides competition for world markets,” Her-gert adds. However, Vroomen says the reluctance of railroads to move anhydrous domestically is adversely impacting rail rates in some regions.

Phosphorus. Prices for diammonium phosphate (18-46-0) more than quadrupled in 2008 before falling back to 2006 levels this past spring. Hergert says prices are running under $330 per ton fob at many Corn Belt locations. He finds prices of 18-46-0 and 11-52-0 comparable in western Nebraska, in the $400 to $480 per ton range.

“If soil P levels are low, this may be a good building year,” he says. “Strip-till or zone placement of P at 3" to 5" below the soil surface should perform similar to row application.” In neutral pH ranges (6.8 to 7.3), P broadcast and incorporation is still a good option.

Potash. Canada holds the cards in the potash market. “Manufacturers watched what was going on in the phosphate market as they were deciding how to price potash last spring,” Hergert says. “When lower prices for phosphate did not stimulate sales in late winter 2009, they decided they would keep the potash price constant at $800 per metric ton. Eventually, that decision held down potash sales and prices have since dropped to $400 per metric ton or less.”

You can e-mail Pam Smith at psmith@farmjournal.com .

Fungicide Fundamentals

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:31:02 GMT

Chlorothalonils. Strobilurins. Triazoles. Asian soybean rust has thrust an alphabet soup of new names into the mix of products you must understand.

The important thing to know is these fungicides don’t all work alike—a fact that impacts how you use them, says Alison Robertson, Iowa State University extension plant pathologist. “Fungicides kill or inhibit the growth of fungi,” she notes. “But they don’t all achieve that result in the same way.”

Mode of action describes how the chemical affects the fungal pathogen. Some fungicides inhibit a specific enzyme in the metabolic pathway of the fungus; others damage the cell membranes; others react with sulfur-containing enzymes. Fungicides belonging to the same chemical group share the same mode of action. Example: Strobilurins stop energy production in fungi while triazoles prevent production of sterols—key components of fungal cell membranes.

Fungicides are also categorized by their activity. Some fungicides are highly specific and act at a single site. “Triazoles inhibit a certain enzyme at one specific site in the sterol production pathway. The strobilurins bind to a particular protein, thereby blocking energy production,” Robertson says. “Other fungicides are less specific and act at multiple sites, like chlorothalonil.”

Resisting resistance. All of this becomes pertinent as you develop a rust management strategy to avoid resistance. Fungicides with a single-site mode of action, such as triazoles, are a concern since a single genetic change in the pathogen can cause resistance to the fungicide to develop.

To avoid resistance, alternate or tank-mix fungicides like strobilurins and triazoles with other labeled fungicides that have different modes of action.

Robertson says fungicides also differ in how they move within a plant. Contact fungicides tend to be protectant and remain on the leaf surface. “They may spread out slightly from their point of contact, but they do not move inside the leaf tissue,” she says. Leaves or areas of leaves that do not receive fungicide aren’t protected.

Systemic fungicides are absorbed into the leaf tissue. Some are locally systemic (translaminar) and are absorbed where the fungicide is applied and spread within the leaf but not beyond it. In this case, leaves that do not receive fungicide are not protected.

Other fungicides are more mobile and are absorbed into the leaf tissue, redistributed in the leaf and translocated upward in the xylem. “But there’s little evidence to show that these fungicides can be translocated from one leaf to another,” Robertson says. “When growers hear the word systemic, they think of glyphosate, but systemic fungicides are not comparable to systemic herbicides. That’s why it’s important to get good spray coverage of the entire plant because fungicides do not move through the plant like herbicides.”

Fungicides also differ in their protection roles. Protectant or preventative fungicides protect the surface of the leaf by inhibiting spore germination and infection. They can be contact or systemic. Chlorothalonils and strobilurins work preventively.

Curative fungicides inhibit development of disease after infection to some degree and can be used when disease is present at low levels. Triazole fungicides are considered curative fungicides.

In a Growth Mode

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:30:36 GMT

The guys gather, eyes popping, in the machinery yard of a 15,000-acre unit of Raiz Agro near the village of Ruzhavka in Ukraine’s Uman region. They’re face-to-face with three brand-new 30-ton monster grain trucks, top-end GPS-equipped combines and tractors, two of the hugest anhydrous am-monia tanks imaginable, 120-ft. boom sprayers and—hold on here—is that a 32-row planter?

Sergy Olexsandrovich, manager of this unit, beams a big smile full of gold teeth and says, “It is my dream for people to come to my farm and learn about our agriculture.”

The Americans, here on the first Top Producer Frontier Study Tour, dart among the high-dollar machinery like little boys at a playground, hardly knowing what to say. It’s their dream, too, just to see something like this.

Ukrainian agriculture, stuck in the doldrums of the Soviet collective farm system for years, is beginning to emerge into the era of high-tech agriculture. After more than a week of visiting farms on the tour, sponsored in part by the United Soybean Board (USB), the Americans say that Raiz Agro is the best example they’ve seen so far of what the future may hold for Ukraine. It’s also a prime example of just how far Ukraine must go to acheive U.S.-style efficiency.

Growing pains. Raiz Agro planted 247,000 acres of corn, wheat, barley, rape and sunflowers this year and plans to double that next year, all leased from former Soviet collective farms. It’s fast growth, but that’s what Ukrainian agriculture is about today.

The company began with 5,000 acres in 1999; its owner, Vitaly Tsehmistrenko, started in the fertilizer and seed supply business. Now it’s a John Deere distributor in Ukraine, too. Today, some workers in a corner of the yard are busy unloading parts from large wooden shipping crates and assembling new disks.

Wade Hubers, a Pantego, N.C., farmer on the Top Producer trip, compares present-day Ukraine to the Brazil he visited in 1989, on the verge of a production breakthrough. “When they get their political system fixed, we’re going to be shocked at how fast it happens,” he says. “As a supplier to the European market, they’re going to have a huge freight advantage. They will be a formidable competitor to the U.S.”

Despite the advancements, the workers can’t match the equipment’s pace. With nine combines harvesting barley in a 1,000+ acre field, three machines sit idle with hoppers full for more than an hour while a summer storm looms on the horizon. Farm Service Agency loan officer and Illinois farmer Glenn Leighty looks on with amazement and borderline disgust.

“What are they doing?” he asks. “They’re losing 30% of their efficiency with those combines sitting.”

All nine are late-model John Deere and Case combines. The other six stop to unload the 88-bu./acre barley into Soviet-era wagons with three-foot wooden side panels. Mean-while, the coveted 30-ton trucks sit less than a mile away. Olexsandrovich doesn’t want the behemoth grain transports to get stuck in the black mud that is sure to form with the imminent rains.

It’s a nation of surprises. “One of the things that surprises me is, where the land has been farmed properly, the potential is so much greater than I expected,” says Russ Carpenter, a Trumansburg, N.Y., farmer and USB director. “These black soils are very deep and profitable.”

The unstable government, full of corruption, gives him pause about the possibility of investing in Ukraine’s agriculture, however. “The risk will be if the government can kick you out once you get started,” he says. “You can have all the money in the world, but if they don’t like you, they can kick you out. It’s high-risk.”

The Frontier Study Tour group visited several large Ukrainian farms with both grain and dairy operations. A couple had U.S. investors. After a careful look, Mark Mueller, who farms at Waverly, Iowa, sees opportunity but also Carpenter’s high-risk assessment: “If you combined a Midwest work ethic and Wall Street’s entrepreneurial spirit with Ukraine’s natural resources, you would have an agricultural powerhouse,” he says. “It has a climate and soil that can grow any oilseed, grain, meat or vegetable.

“Ukraine has proximity to markets such as the European Union and Russia as well as quick access to the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal,” he adds. “And it has infrastructure such as roads, ports, irrigation canals, electricity and railroads.

“Offsetting these advantages is a workforce for whom a sense of entrepreneurship has been snuffed out by decades of socialism,” Mueller notes. “Employees with a good work ethic are among the rarest of commodities. Initiative is rare except among the young, who did not grow up under communism,” he says.

“Theft is endemic. Every farm we visited employed security guards,” he adds. “And they must still deal with a government that dithers rather than decides. Bribes grease the wheels of bureaucracy and get some things done, but bribes can be used against you as well.”

It holds big potential that could take a long time to be realized. “I don’t take Ukraine lightly but I won’t regard it as a major economic threat to U.S. agriculture until the last of the generation that grew up with socialism has died out,” Mueller says. ”Brazil will succeed in conquering Mother Nature before Ukraine can change human nature.”

To contact Charles Johnson, e-mail CJohnson@farmjournal.com .

Top Producer, September 2008

Fit for Soybeans

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:30:25 GMT

Starting with a Case IH 950 16-row, 30" front-fold planter, Randy and Lee Pieper built a 31-row, 15" machine by incorporating units from two Case IH 800 planters. Because they retained the original 950’s platform, the planter can still be used for 30" rows if needed.

The old adage for entrepreneurial success “find a need and fill it” is fitting for brothers Randy and Lee Pieper of Donnellson, Iowa, who have been custom-crafting their own soybean planters since 1976.
The brothers farm with Lee’s son, Jesse. Randy’s sons, Scott and Cody, have full-time jobs, but they help out when possible.

The Piepers’ current soybean planter plants thirty-one 15" rows with two 30" skip rows for wheel tracks. It works in no-till or conventional seedbeds and covers 60 acres to a fill.

The machine started as a Case IH 950 16-row, 30" front-fold planter. To get more hoppers and planting units, the brothers bought two old Case IH 800 planters for $1,000 apiece. They extended the toolbar to make room for the outside planting units while preserving the two skip rows.

The Piepers left the Case IH 950’s planting units in their original location. That way, the planter can be used for 30" corn, if necessary. They added 15
additional units, building brackets to offset them 10" for residue clearance.

To make room for two more hoppers, the Piepers moved the transmission from underneath the original hoppers to the front of the toolbar. Since there are now almost twice as many rows, they reduced the speed of the transmission by half, so they can still use the tables in the operator’s manual to set population rates. They also moved the carrying wheels from the rear of the toolbar to the front.

Further adjustments. There was no room for the driveshaft in its usual position, so the Piepers built a new one across the front of the hoppers. For three of the hoppers, chains run from the driveshaft to a shaft extending out the side of the hopper. Because the fourth hopper is mounted next to a hinge in the toolbar, there was no room to run a shaft out to the side, so the brothers cut a slot for the drive chain in the metal shielding at the base of the hopper.

To accommodate the additional seed hoses, they raised the inner hoppers 8". They mounted the outer hoppers at the same height to line up with the new driveshaft. The inner hoppers are mounted on the main toolbar and the outer ones on the toolbar wings so the planter can flex over terraces.

Extra power. Although the Piepers could have powered the additional hoppers from their tractor’s hydraulic system, the brothers chose instead to replace the planter’s hydraulic pump with a larger one and add an equalizer. To pull the planter, the Piepers also beefed up the hitch on their tractor by bolting an additional drawbar underneath the original one.

The final touch was building a catwalk behind the hoppers. One monitor (from the Case IH 950) handles the original 16 rows, and a second one (from one of the Case IH 800s) handles the other 15.

“The planter works great, and it was much cheaper than buying a new one,” Randy says. “The only thing we would change would be to use 900 Series planter units instead of 800 Series because it’s easier to set depth and downpressure on the 900 units.”

A smaller machine, which can plant eight 30" rows or fifteen 15" rows, specializes in small fields, end rows, point rows, refuges and replanting.

Once the 31-row planter was assembled, the Piepers thought it would be nice to have a smaller planter for small fields, end rows, point rows and refuges. So they kept right on building to capture the convenience.

For $1,500, the brothers bought a 12-row, 30" end-transport Case IH 800 planter. They added four planting units left over from other projects to make a pull-type machine that can plant eight 30" corn rows or fifteen 15" bean rows.

They mounted the new units on a second toolbar salvaged from a cultivator. The toolbars are connected by strips of 8"x½" flat iron, with channel iron welded on for reinforcement. Because the extra iron created negative tongue weight, the brothers raised the hoppers 8" and moved them 6" forward.

“The small planter is helpful,” Randy says. “With our regular corn planter, a Case IH 1200 16-row, it takes longer to unfold than it does to plant a small field. The small machine is nice for replanting; we run over less corn when we replant with the smaller planter.”

A Tailor-Made Sprayer?
Randy and Lee Pieper’s engineering skills aren’t limited to planters. They also converted a used tandem-axle 45' manual-fold, 1,000-gal. sprayer, purchased for $2,500, into an 80' single-axle rig.

The sprayer tracks in the same tramlines left by the farmers’ 40' and 20' skip-row soybean planters (see adjacent story). “We rarely use the sprayer’s foam markers,” Randy notes.

“The tandem wheels that came on the sprayer were not good for turning,” Randy says. He and Lee fashioned a new axle and purchased a set of used 14.9x46 tires. Finding the right position for the axle, where it would provide the correct amount of tongue weight, was a process of trial and error.

The Piepers purchased an 80' hydraulically folding boom for $6,000. They had to lengthen the tongue so the longer wings wouldn’t hit the tractor cab windows when they turned. Then, they converted the boom from being a vertical-fold to being a front-fold.

“That makes it easier to raise the boom to go over terraces,” Randy explains. “In its front-fold configuration, the boom would begin to fold when all we wanted to do was raise it up.”

Finally, the brothers moved the valves and controls to a more accessible location, from underneath the frame to in front of the tank.

The Piepers operate the sprayer with a five-section Raven controller.
“We’re very happy with the sprayer,” Randy says. “It does everything a much more expensive factory unit could do.”

You can e-mail Darrell Smith at dsmith@farmjournal.com .

More Banker Control?

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:30:21 GMT

Few farmers want to relinquish any control over their business, but more may find their bankers claiming some authority in their hedge account in the future.

“I see the handwriting on the wall,” says Jim Bower, a commodity broker and marketing adviser in Lafayette, Ind. “In the aftermath of the financial crisis, banks are going to require full transparency from their clients. Given the importance of good marketing and the extreme market volatility, more will require third-party agreements.”

In a nutshell, these agreements mean that the bank has a security interest in the account and receives notice of all trade orders and copies of brokerage statements. It also may have the power to stop the farmer from making trades, be able to withdraw money from the account, or even close the account.

“By bringing the bank into the agreement, it makes the relationship more cooperative and more professional,” Bower says. “There has to be more accountability and transparency.”

As a broker, Bower believes such agreements will be beneficial to all parties, and he is in the process of finalizing the legal wording for such a contract for his clients. —Linda H. Smith

Hedge Account Control Agreements

Given the opportunity, bankers will always ask for more collateral from farm borrowers, not less. In addition to crops, land, equipment, farm program payments and crop insurance proceeds, bankers may also seek a security interest in a producer’s hedging account.

Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) permits a lender to perfect a security interest in “investment property” by use of a “control agreement.” The UCC definition of investment property includes commodity contracts.
The control agreement is in addition to the bank’s normal security agreement and must be signed by the producer, the bank and the producer’s commodity broker. A control agreement typically includes the following provisions:
• a security interest in all funds that may accumulate in or that can be withdrawn from the hedging account;
• a security interest in all commodities futures contracts the broker transacts for the producer and the proceeds thereof;
• the security interest is subject to the prior payment to the broker of all costs incurred by the producer as the result of the commodity contract transactions, including the broker’s fees and commissions;
• the bank is permitted to withdraw funds from the account on demand and the producer cannot withdraw funds without the bank’s permission;
• the bank, without the producer’s consent, can direct the broker to liquidate open positions in the account;
• the bank can advance margin calls to the broker on behalf of the producer;
• the producer is permitted to continue to make hedging transactions unless the bank notifies him to stop doing so.

The control agreement perfects the bank’s security interest in the account without the necessity of filing a financing statement. Once so perfected, the security interest has priority over other secured creditors who do not have “control” of the account.

Obviously, a bank that exercises its rights under a control agreement must do so with care. Prematurely liquidating contracts and applying hedging account funds to a producer’s loans may undermine risk-management strategies that were designed and implemented to help the producer maximize his returns in the face of market volatility. This may hurt the bank as well as the producer.

If you are asked to sign a control agreement, it’s a good idea to request the bank set up a separate line of credit for the money necessary to fund the hedging account. This will let you delineate the loan funds targeted for growing crops from those deployed for marketing, while impressing upon the bank the risk-management objectives to be served by the hedging account. —Allen H. Olson, agricultural lawyer with Moore, Clarke, DuVall & Rodgers, P.C., in Albany, Ga.

To contact Linda Smith, e-mail LSmith@farmjournal.com .

Top Producer, October 2008

Edge Yields Upward

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:30:09 GMT

Harvesting with one row of a three-row head, Bob Recker has found a 20 bu. to 30 bu. yield variation between rows.

Some people spend their golden years playing golf. Bob Recker plans to spend his figuring out why one row of corn yields less or more than others. For several years, Recker has documented row-by-row yield variability on seven farms in northeast Iowa. He harvests one row at a time, all the way across the field, using a tiny John Deere 3300 combine, a weigh wagon and a grain cart.

“I’ve found dramatic yield variation from row to row—often 20 bu. to 30 bu. per acre,” he says.

Recker plans to collect more data before speculating about the causes of yield variation. In the meantime, he has documented another phenomenon that might help farmers net extra profits right now: the edge-row effect.

Edge rows often yield more because they receive more sunlight. Recker confirmed that—but he also found that poorly managed edge rows may yield less. “On one farm, an edge row yielded only 150 bu. per acre, compared to the field average of 200 bu.,” he says. “The only difference was that weeds and grass encroached from the adjacent roadside.”

Recker calculated how profit might be affected by edge-row management on a supposed 1,000-acre farm. The imaginary farm has twenty-five 40-acre fields, each with a ¼-mile waterway. Half the fields are planted to corn in 30" rows. The outside rows of each field and the edge along both sides of the waterways total 11.4 acres of corn.

“If every edge row yielded 50 bu. per acre less than the field average, the farm would produce 570 fewer bushels of corn,” Recker says. “With $3 corn, that’s $1,710 lost profit. With $5 corn, it’s $2,850 lost profit.”

In a real-world field where outside rows were kept free of weeds, Recker found the edge row yielded 250 bu. per acre, and the second row in from the edge yielded 220 bu. per acre—averaging 235 more bushels per acre than the field average of 200 bu. (The remaining rows yielded the field average.)

Because two outside rows are involved, these rows constitute twice as many acres as in the previous example, or 22.8 acres. They produce 798 more bushels of corn—worth $2,394 at $3 per bushel or $3,990 at $5 per bushel.

An “accidental test plot” on another farm made Recker wonder what might happen if you applied more inputs to the outside rows to use the additional sunlight. The operator accidentally planted 60,000 seeds per acre, instead of 36,000. To salvage the situation, he applied extra nitrogen. He kept the edge free of weeds and grass. The outside row yielded more than 400 bu. per acre and the second row almost 300 bu., while the field averaged 200 bu.

“Using the same 1,000-acre farm layout, I assumed the operator switched from 30" rows to 20" because narrow rows are recommended if you are trying to exceed 300 bu. per acre,” Recker says. In this case, the two outside rows of corn around fields and waterways total 15.2 acres.

“If you average 150 more bushels per acre on 15.2 acres, that’s 2,280 more bushels of corn—worth $6,840 at $3 per bushel or $11,400 at $5 per bushel (minus the cost of additional seed and fertilizer),” Recker says.

Sure, this is “blue sky” brainstorming. But no doubt you’ll someday have the technology to give edge rows special management. For now, it might pay to make sure you don’t let weeds and grass sneak in.

For More Information

Following his retirement as a tractor design engineer, Bob Recker is devoting his time to analyzing row-by-row yield variation. His company, Cedar Valley Innovation, is based in Waterloo, Iowa. Contact Recker at cvi@forbin.net.

You can e-mail Darrell Smith at dsmith@farmjournal.com .

Machinery Doc

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:30:09 GMT

There has been no other improvement in haymaking more pronounced than the advent of the large round baler. The labor-saving aspect of the large round bale made a wholesale change in productivity unequaled by other methods. I’m sure most of you have long forgotten the small Roto-Baler! Unless you are equipped with an accumulator, the small square bale just equates to more labor.

Data gathered by IRON Solutions offers insight into popular models and values across regions. The models that top the list of large round balers are represented in the first chart. Keep in mind that these are not apple-to-apple comparisons, but rather a popularity contest among the owners. Every baler model has its own unique features, but all of the models have been sold in numbers that reflect a high degree of satisfaction.

Two of the most widely reported baler models are the John Deere 567 and the New Holland 688. A John Deere 567 baler in Kansas is the same as a John Deere 567 baler in Ohio, but we can tell by the second chart there are regional differences. The strongest values in reported sales show up in the Midwest. Weather differences can skew values across regions. Reduced production means the baler you have will last a little longer. In addition, you’re less likely to trade in the face of adversity. Less demand equals less value. It may be that a baler gets more use in the West and depreciation is higher. Because of this, there is enough range in value for the buyer or seller to take advantage of his position and profit from the disparity.

At least the large round baler has taken away the constant fear of being asked by a neighbor, “Can you lend me a hand?”

Gone Global

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:30:05 GMT

Visit Flowers Brothers’ office in little Ty Ty, Ga., about halfway between Albany and Tifton in the fertile southwestern part of the state, and, right away, you hear some surprising things.

Sales reps, all on phones at the same time with different people, talk shipping with chain stores as far away as New York and Boston. Chip Flowers, meanwhile, talks on another phone with his brother and partner, Beau, who is working on their business in the Dominican Republic. Matt Tays, Chip and Beau’s lifelong friend and the other partner, walks in the door talking about irrigation pump problems in a field a few miles away.

Life moves fast for these young entrepreneurs. Beau just turned 30; Chip and Matt are a year younger. They’ve been in business since graduating from college in 2002 and 2003 with degrees in history, computer science and business administration.

Located in an area where peanuts, cotton and tobacco were long the big crops, they opted for vegetables. Just as they were getting established, the U.S. vegetable industry, beset by labor and fuel problems, turned topsy-turvy. They responded by growing offshore.

In the past year, they built a large packing shed in the Dominican Republic (DR). They also established a distribution center in Lake Worth, Fla., to truck vegetables across the eastern U.S. In addition, they still grow snap beans, cabbage and cotton in southwest Georgia, and likely will add corn and wheat next season.

Expansion. Mind-boggling? Maybe, but they don’t have much time to think about that. “Everything dictates that the market is global now,” Chip says. “We looked at the DR investment carefully and decided that we could pay it off relatively quickly and be profitable.”

Their DR operation, centered on a new 33,000-sq.ft. facility in Bonao, turns out both organic and conventional vegetables like bell peppers and tomatoes from more than 150 acres of greenhouses under contract, along with some field production. “We’re able to save on labor and other costs. Things we’ve implemented in the DR facility couldn’t be done in the U.S. because it would be costprohibitive,” Beau says. “One thing is our sanitary procedures there, which are modeled after confinement hog facilities in the U.S. Employees shower in and are handed pathogen-free clothes. When they leave, they change back into their own clothes. We control the whole environment there to ensure a quality product.”

It also brings other satisfaction. “We employ 300 to 400 people in Bonao. There are four times that many working in the greenhouse operations,” Beau says. “We pay very competitive wages. We helped them remodel the school and hospital. We have a direct impact on the economy.”

With a stable government, efficient transportation and a good climate, the DR is an attractive investment, Beau says. “People wonder about hurricanes, but the country has high mountains that shield those hurricane winds. Temperatures are 80° during the day and 60° at night in the mountainous areas. That helps us get year-round production.”

Transport. Getting the vegetables to market is its own world of decisions. “A lot of our time is spent on logistics,” Beau says. “We’re dealing with a perishable product. We work with three really good shipping companies and we go down a list of trucking companies. We can exercise five or six options within 30 minutes.

“The product comes in on a container ship or jet from the DR and is delivered to our Lake Worth, Fla., distribution center,” he says. “It’s trucked from there to where it needs to go.”

It takes four or five days to get product from the facility in the DR to the store in the U.S. “Each day is critical,” says Beau. “We’re constantly looking at the supply chain, figuring out how to be a little more efficient.”

When U.S. diesel price topped $4, East Coast vegetable producers found new market opportunities as shipping costs for California and Mexico vegetables zoomed upward. For Flowers Brothers, the Central American Free Trade Agreement helped, too. Implementation of DR-CAFTA means they pay no duty on their vegetables from the DR entering the U.S.

Early on, the partners saw they needed to control markets. That philosophy drove their expansion to the DR and continues to drive their outlook today. “The farmer can’t pass his cost on. He’s a dead duck. He gets abused in every way,” Chip says. “That’s the biggest problem with being just a farmer. You can lose a lot of money fast with what we’re doing, if you’re not careful. But we’re doing everything we can do to be careful.

“It’s a competitive business,” he adds. “We’ve had ups and downs and headaches. It’s been quite a ride. Something like this is very difficult to start. You have to be ready to work long hours. You have to know what buttons you can and can’t push with your partners. You’ve got to mitigate your risk a little and find what commodities you can produce best.

“On this side of the business, the main thing is labor cost,” he says. “With anything mechanically picked, you have a chance for a good profit. If it is handpicked, you’d better be thinking about your other options.”

The Flowers brothers’ father, Buck, concentrated on vegetable and tobacco plant production. He was killed in a plane crash while they were still in college. His ethos drives their business, however, and helps keep things in perspective.

“Dad bought a 1980 Ford Bronco when it was new and drove it every day until his death,” Beau says.

“That’s pretty much how we look to do things, too.”

To contact Charles Johnson, e-mail Cjohnson@farmjournal.com .

Top Producer, November 2008

Repair Shop On Wheels

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:30:01 GMT

A service truck without a boom is only half a truck, say Ron Henggeler and son Keith, who farm and operate a center pivot irrigation setup and maintenance business near Schuyler, Neb.

“A knuckle boom is one of those things you don’t think you need,” Ron says. “But if you get one, you’ll find yourself using it every day.”

When the Henggelers acquired their first boom truck for their business, they used a ¾-ton pickup as a service vehicle. “We outgrew that service truck,” Keith says, “and we were running out of places to store stuff.”

When they spotted an ad for a used municipal flatbed truck with a knuckle boom, inspiration struck: Why not combine their boom truck and service truck into one unit? The vehicle they put together won them $500 in the service trucks category of Farm Journal’s 2007 “I Built the Best” contest.

“The boom truck was a package deal from the factory,” Ron says. “We had already looked at what it would cost to move the boom from our old truck to a new one, and this cost a lot less.”

The 35' telescoping boom simplifies jobs ranging from everyday tasks, such as removing saddle tanks from a tractor, to major breakdowns. “Our combine was on the highway when the hydrostat locked up,” Ron says. “It tipped forward, and the rear spindles broke. Using the boom, we just lifted the combine, put on new spindles and winched it onto a semitrailer.”

Other jobs have included removing dual hubs from a tractor and lifting the roof off a grain bin. “We’ve lifted anything and everything,” Keith says.

“A nice thing about the knuckle boom is it has check valves,” Ron adds. “That makes it safer than a fork lift.”

All seasons, all weather. The Henggelers equipped one side of the bed with tools and supplies for farming and set up the other side for their pivot business. They store seasonal machinery parts in metal containers, using the truck’s boom to lift one container off the bed and replace it with another. They store parts and manuals in the cab. They also carry spare tires for whatever machines are in use.

For cold-weather starts, the truck engine is equipped with intake heaters. A multifunction auxiliary air tank on the air compressor doubles as an antifreeze inductor. “In cold weather, we put air system antifreeze in the tank,” Ron explains. “From there, it gets carried into the air lines, so our air tools don’t freeze up.”

The Henggelers made the 25-gal. air reservoir by capping the ends of a 7"x7" toolbar. The reservoir also serves as a quick-draining condensation tank. “At night, we park the truck on a slope, open a gate valve and the air pressure blows out water and contaminants,” Ron says.

The two-stage compressor, with 200' of air hose, runs off its own gasoline engine. Extra fuel is contained in a 25-gal. auxiliary tank. During farming season, the truck pulls a 300-gal. diesel fuel trailer.
“We couldn’t think of farming without this truck,” Ron says. “In some ways, it’s more valuable than a fancy shop.”

Designed to haul heavy loads and carry a full supply of tools, Jared Loesch’s service truck see frequent use.

Jared Loesch’s custom-designed toolbox, which won the miscellaneous category in the 2007 “I Built the Best” contest, spends the farming season bolted to the bed of a service truck, which he also built. Along with a complete set of tools, the service truck carries an air compressor and welder in the bed.

Loesch, of Hoisington, Kan., started with a salvaged 1984 1-ton Chevrolet truck with a 6.2-cc diesel engine, dual wheels and four wheel drive. “The engine was blown, and the last owner purchased it for the axles,” he says.

Loesch installed a 454-cu.-in. engine, a new four-speed transmission and 1-ton axles. He added overload springs in the rear. “I may replace them with air bag shock absorbers,” he says. “The tools I carry are heavy.”

The bed, which has been on two other pickups, was a project that Loesch’s brother originally started as a high-school student. “I finished it up,” Loesch explains. The sides are 6"x2" channel iron, and the center beams are 2"x5" channel iron. Extra stringers of 1½"x3" channel iron reinforce the underside.

The deck is beaded plate steel. “I applied five or six coats of rubberized coating to keep things from sliding around,” Loesch says.

The hitch, salvaged from a wrecked pickup, was rebuilt and strengthened with heavy side brackets and extra gussets. For safety, Loesch built a rollbar from 2"x4" steel tubing.

Louvers behind the rear window cool the cab without limiting visibility. The four-door cab provides room for storage or additional passengers.

The truck earns its keep answering frequent service calls from farmers for whom Loesch works (in addition to a full-time job in town). “So far, I haven’t found a thing to change,” he says.

You can e-mail Darrell Smith at
dsmith@farmjournal.com.

Rural Life

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:29:57 GMT

High grocery bills have consumers upset around the globe, and there has been no shortage of finger-pointing as to who is to blame. International oil companies, biofuel companies, commodity hedge-fund speculators, policymakers and even farmers have been singled out for driving up the cost to eat. But finding one culprit for the rapid increase in food prices is not that simple, says Neilson Conklin, president of Farm Foundation, which seeks to provide objective information to foster sound farm policy.

“Today’s food price levels are the result of complex interactions among multiple factors,” Conklin explains. The major cause is growing demand for food worldwide, coupled with the slowing growth in agricultural productivity, which is fueled in part by greatly increased energy prices.

That sums up the conclusions of three Purdue University economists who Farm Foundation asked to analyze more than two dozen studies of various forces driving food prices. Wallace Tyner, Christopher Hurt and Philip Abbott’s study, “What’s Driving Food Prices?” can be found at www.farmfoundation.org. Here are highlights of what they found.

Food consumption is increasing faster than production. As incomes rise, people in developing nations have a greater appetite for animal protein. Increasing hog, cattle (both beef and dairy) and poultry production to satisfy appetites requires more grain. But grain production has not kept pace. According to USDA, world grain stocks now stand at 16%, their lowest point since the early to mid-1970s.

One reason productivity has not kept pace with demand is lower investment in research. When surpluses were piling up, Congress and state legislatures made cuts in ag research, which are now coming back to haunt us. Previous studies and media reports point to China and India as examples of consumption outpacing production. The Purdue economists note that neither of these countries is a significant player in the world grain trade. China imports soybeans and vegetable oils and India exports rice, but their trade policies stress self-sufficiency. For that reason, they present no major influence on worldwide commodity prices.

The almighty falling dollar. The Purdue economists believe the link between the U.S. dollar exchange rate and commodity prices is a more influential factor in food prices than past studies have indicated.

The reason, Tyner explains, is that ag commodities are priced in U.S. dollars worldwide but are purchased in local currencies. As the value of the dollar depreciates, U.S. grain and soybeans become a greater bargain. The result? Stronger demand abroad for U.S. products. From 2002 to 2007, the dollar depreciated 22%, and ag exports increased 54% from $53 billion in 2002 to $82 billion in 2007.

Higher oil prices. Rising crude oil prices are increasing production costs, but the initial impact has been on the demand side, not supply. “Higher crude prices mean higher gasoline prices, which mean greater demand for ethanol,” Tyner explains. “Stronger demand for ethanol, in turn, translates into higher demand for corn and, therefore, higher corn prices. “In 2008 and 2009, we’ll see the cost side kick in as increased crude oil prices result in higher costs for diesel, propane, fertilizers, chemicals and other inputs,” Tyner says. “As production costs reach unprofitable levels, acreage cutbacks could result.”

Increased biofuel demand. The global increase in demand for corn in the past four years is primarily from the growth of ethanol production.
The economists maintain that while the U.S. biofuels program has significantly increased the demand for corn and vegetable oils, it has had less impact on corn prices than media reports would have one believe.

They point out that most of the $4-per-bushel rise in corn prices (about $3) is due to higher crude oil prices. About $1 per bushel of the increased cost is due to the ethanol subsidy. On a sobering note, they say higher grain prices have not yet been fully passed on to consumers. Egg prices have increased, but expect higher costs for beef, pork and poultry as production and marketing in these sectors adjust to higher feed costs.

Catch Those Cobs

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:29:53 GMT

If there is one word to describe the burgeoning industry of corncob harvest and collection, that word would be “options.”

“The goal is to make corncob harvest as seamless for farmers as possible, so we are researching lots of options for any size of operation,” says Scott Weishaar, director of business development for Poet, which plans to make cellulosic ethanol from corncobs at its Project Liberty ethanol facility in Emmetsburg, Iowa, starting in 2011.

The Poet team is working closely with more than 10 farm machinery companies to develop equipment that can harvest, collect and transport corncobs from the field to field’s edge.
It’s important that farmers realize Poet is not asking them to store corncobs, just to harvest the cobs and pile them at the end of the field, Weishaar says. Poet will then pick up and transport the cobs to its cellulosic plant in Emmetsburg for processing.

The ethanol producer estimates it will pay between $30 and $60 per ton for cobs. Government incentives and legislation written into the farm bill may also increase the price farmers could be paid for cobs.

Three systems. So far, equipment companies have showcased three methods for collecting cobs.

The first is called corncob mix, or CCM, where combine modifications allow for the corn and cobs to be collected together in the grain tank, transferred to grain carts and separated by trammel screens. Cobs are then piled at the end of the field for collection, and grain is transported to market.

The combine manufacturers that are involved in the CCM method of harvest include Case IH, John Deere and Claas Lexion. Unverferth and Demco, grain cart manufacturers, and Wildcat, the manufacturer of trammel screen systems for cob separation, also have CCM harvest equipment.

“The CCM method requires the least amount of investment in cob collection equipment,” Weishaar says. However, it does necessitate extra equipment for separating out the cobs. Farmers may want to join together to buy separation equipment.

A second harvest method is whole-cob collection, which uses a towable cob cart behind the combine. The combine’s chopper is disengaged, and the cobs coming out of the back of the combine go on a belt that carries them to a separation process. Then, cobs go into the cob cart and non-cob stover blows back onto the field.

With this method, the combine has no modifications except for in-cab monitoring and control of the cob cart. Several technologies are in development for towable systems to separate the cob and put the stalks and husks back out on the field, Weishaar says.

Manufacturers working on towable cart systems are Case IH, Vermeer Manufacturing and Redekop.

“The towable system lends itself to farmers who don’t have much available labor because the separation process is done within the towable cob cart and farmers can just dump cobs at the end of the field,” adds Sam Acker, director of harvesting marketing for Case IH.

A third system under development is a joint effort by Iowa State University researchers and John Deere. It involves modification to a John Deere 9770 STS combine with a forage chopper–style unit mounted on the rear of the combine. With this system, the combine functions as normal, but instead of cob and stover going out the back of the combine and onto the ground or into a towed cart for separation and collection, the forage chopper chops the cobs and blows them into a trailing forage wagon.

Once harvested, there are several options for transporting cobs.

Unverferth has developed the Brent Avalanche 1194 CCM dual-auger grain cart, which is designed to quickly unload and move CCM from the combine to waiting trucks or separating units. The Demco 1050 grain cart also handles the CCM mix effectively.

Besides its CCM cart, Demco has created the 2-SKU grain and cob transportation cart, which receives both grain and cobs from the combine in separate sections but requires only one operator. The combine off-loads grain into the first compartment, and an attached second Demco cart swings around to allow the cob harvest machine to dump its contents into the second compartment on the cart.

Claas is working with Trail King trailer manufacturer to develop a special toolbar hitch so that a semitrailer can be pulled with the Claas Xerion into the field for cob transport. Because weather can be volatile at harvest, the combination of using a large tractor with plenty of horsepower and a semitrailer allows the producer to move a lot of cobs out of the field easily, Weishaar says.
Other manufacturers involved in Project Liberty include Fantini North America, which builds harvesting heads for combines, and MachineryLink, a combine leasing firm.

Near commercialization. The equipment at Project Liberty is still considered prototype, but some equipment is close to commercialization.

Vermeer, for example, conducted test harvests throughout 2008 to evaluate performance and efficiency and plans to have its product available to farmers for the 2009 harvest season, according to Vermeer segment manager Jay Van Roekel.

“Right now is the time for farmers to let us know if they want to harvest cobs for Project Liberty in 2009,” says Jim Sturdevant, director of Project Liberty. “This is our call to action.”

Equipment for Cob Harvest and Collection at Project Liberty

Brent Dual-Auger Cart
Unverferth Manufacturing’s Brent Avalanche 1194 CCM dual-auger cart is specifically designed to move corncob mix from the combine to waiting trucks or separating units and back to the combine quickly and efficiently.

The cart features an exclusive drivetrain design that combines a belt drive for the floor auger and a heavy-duty direct drive 90° gearbox for the vertical auger to quickly
unload its 1,100-bu. payload. For optimum unloading ease, the cart features a pivoting unloading auger with more than 5' of hydraulically controlled height adjustability.

www.unverferth.com

Case IH Cob Harvester
The prototype Case IH cob cart trails behind select combines, such as the Axial-Flow 8010. Cobs, husks and stalks come out the back of the combine and go onto a belt that carries the mixture into a separation process that expels the non-cob material. Cobs are delivered into the cob cart, and clean grain is delivered to the combine grain tank.

Modifications to the combine’s power system are required to power the cart, conveyer belt and separation device. Controls are in the cab to operate the cob cart and the unloading system. A special hitch on the combine tows the cart.

www.caseih.com

Claas Xerion and Trail King Trailer Adaptor
Claas of America and Trail King Industries have developed a prototype steel detachable gooseneck adaptor that can be used to hook a modified semitrailer for corncob transportation to the ball coupling on the Claas Xerion Trac VC tractor.

The Xerion’s horsepower allows it to bring a semitrailer for cob collection to the combine in the field. The ball coupler is located high on the back of the machine behind the cab so the weight to increase traction comes from the trailer. A majority of the trailer weight rests on the four large tractor tires.

www.claas.com

Demco 2-SKU Grain Cart
Demco’s 2-SKU grain/cob cart works with a combine to harvest corn into its grain tank and cobs into a cob harvest machine pulled behind the combine.

When the combine is full, it unloads corn into the main Demco grain cart. An attached second Demco cart then swings around to the side to allow the cob harvest machine to dump its contents into the cob cart. At that point, one operator can haul both carts to the edge of the field for unloading grain and cobs. All operator functions of the Demco 2-SKU cart are performed from the tractor seat.

www.demco-products.com

Redekop Cob Harvester
The prototype Redekop cob harvester is towed behind select combines. Cobs, husks and stalks that come out the back of the combine go onto a belt that carries the mixture into a separation process. Air is used to separate the cob from the stover, and husk and cobs are delivered into the cob cart while non-cob material is pushed out on either side of the cart.

Built by the Canadian company Redekop Manufacturing, the system has a rear discharge that
allows the operator to put cobs into a transport cart or discharge cobs in a pile at the end of the field.

www.redekopmfg.com

Vermeer CCX770 Cob Harvester
Vermeer Manufacturing introduces the CCX770 cob harvester, a new wagon-style cob collection system that tows behind select corn harvesting combines to collect and unload cobs. Hitching is easy with a hydraulic-controlled tongue; the only combine modification needed is adding the OEM-approved hitch.

The self-contained machine has a patented separation process that distributes the husks and leaves back to the field and the cobs into the dump box, which holds 4 tons. The CCX770 allows for unloading into a truck, wagon or storage pile.

www.vermeerag.com

u can e-mail Jeanne Bernick at jbernick@farmjournal.com .

What the Elections Mean to Ag

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:29:53 GMT

Coffee-shop talk centering on the November elections hasn’t simmered much these days. Now that we know the answer to the who question, the what, when, why and how are yet to be determined. For the first time since 1994, Democrats have control of the White House, Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. In the latter two, their margin of control is stronger compared with their 2006 share.

Also significant about the Nov. 4, 2008, elections are their similarities to the 1964 vote:
¡ President-elect Barack Obama captured 52% of the popular vote, the most for a Democrat since 1964.
¡ Virginia and Indiana backed a Democrat for President for the first time since 1964.
¡ The last time a senator from Arizona won his party’s primaries was Barry Goldwater (R) in 1964.

In addition to the usual red versus blue states, the electoral map provides a means to dissect the results. Republicans still fare well in the South and in many western states. The number of southern states, however, that backed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) prompts the question of whether the party’s political clout is waning.

Agriculture’s vote was a factor. While McCain outpolled Obama in rural areas, his margin of victory was only 4% compared with 17% for President George W. Bush in 2004. Some chalk up that narrower margin of support to the stance McCain took against ethanol and farm subsidies. “It seemed like he went out of his way to single out agriculture,” says Jim Wiesemeyer of Informa Economics. The bottom line is that the Democratic party is gaining popularity in rural areas.

Younger voters and new voters also supported Obama, with 66% of those ages 18 to 29 voting for him along with 68% of first-time voters.

As for the impact of Obama’s presidency, that depends on which Obama takes office: the politician we saw on the campaign trail or the pragmatist that he has shown he can be. That’s going to be the critical factor.

Senate results. Democrats managed to pick up seven seats that were formerly Republican-held (North Carolina, Virginia, Oregon, New Mexico, Colorado, New Hampshire and Alaska). The last one took until mid-November to be decided as Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich (D) surged ahead of Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, by 3,700 votes with 2,500 still to count.

At press time, there are still races to be decided—and both have an ag connection. The Georgia race is tapped to be decided Dec. 2 in a runoff election; Senate Ag Committee ranking member Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) came up less than half a percent short of the threshold (50% of the vote) needed to win outright.

In Minnesota, a recount is under way as Sen. Norm Coleman (R) is about 200 votes ahead of Al Franken (D) in the initial results. Recount procedures are set to have that contest decided sometime this month.

If the Democrats don’t take both seats, it will leave them tantalizingly close to the 60-vote mark needed to end filibusters—and will spur an intense Democratic focus toward the moderate Republicans to get them to the 60-vote mark if needed—namely, Sens. Arlen Specter (Pa.), Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Susan Collins (Maine). The latter two are often referred to in Washington policy circles as RINOs—Republicans in Name Only!

House margin widens for Democrats. Democrats added at least 21 seats to their majority in the House when the election results were tallied. However, not all Democrats fared well; three Democratic freshmen members of the House Ag Committee were defeated: Reps. Nancy Boyda (Kan.), Nick Lampson (Texas) and Tim Mahoney (Fla.). Four Republicans on the House Ag Committee were removed: Reps. Marilyn Musgrave (Colo.), Randy Kuhl (N.Y.), Tim Walberg (Mich.) and, the most-senior Republican on the panel who was defeated, Rep. Robin Hayes (N.C.).
Increased Democratic margins in both chambers mean more power for Democratic leaders. They will also increase the ratio of Democrats to Republicans on committees—more Democratic seats and fewer Republican seats, as well as fewer staff members on the minority side of the aisle.

Democrats are now the center of attention—and the top-of-mind question is how they will use their new-found power in Washington. Will they overreach? Will they push too many issues that mainstream voters are uncomfortable with? If so, that will put an intense focus on the 2010 and 2012 elections.

Impacts for agriculture. First on the watch list is who will end up in the various Cabinet and sub-Cabinet posts, such as USDA, the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy and Department of Justice.

For USDA, the key issues will be continuing to implement the 2008 farm bill, which will focus on any “leftover” decisions from the Bush administration, possibly the Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) program and others.

The sticky issue of what constitutes “actively engaged” in farming is also expected to surface with the new administration; it has been two decades since the issue was touched by an administration. Key background on this issue: Obama backed an unsuccessful farm bill amendment to require a farmer to both physically work the land and manage it to qualify for benefits. The current definition says a farmer must either work the land or manage it.

Congressional issues. Already, lawmakers, such as Senate Ag Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), are signaling they’ll focus on regulating the futures market as the new Congress takes over. Plus, they’ll continue to oversee USDA’s implementation of the 2008 farm bill.

House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) started to talk about reorganizing USDA before the ink was barely dry on the farm bill, so that will be a top priority as his panel starts its work in 2009.

Of course, at the top of the list will be assessing the financial crisis gripping the country. Economic stimulus plans are taking shape, and it will be interesting to see how “loaded up” those must-pass pieces of legislation will be once they get to their final form. Agriculture interests will have some pet projects inserted into any stimulus plan.

As for budget cuts, those will still come. But with the focus in Washington on keeping the economy from slipping deep into a recession, even President-elect Obama says focusing on the deficit isn’t warranted in the short term. With the red ink forecasted to be $750 billion to $1 trillion for the current fiscal year, that will mean cuts in government, which will include agriculture.

You can e-mail Roger Bernard at
rbernard@farmjournal.com.

Cobs for Cash

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:29:53 GMT

Todd Mathisen has a habit of walking behind the combine and checking the ground for stray corn kernels. This harvest, he’s also looking for corn cobs and what he hopes to be his next cash crop.

“I think farmers should warm up to the idea of saving cobs because we’re going to be harvesting them for ethanol soon,” says Mathisen, a local farmer and shareholder in Poet’s
Emmetsburg, Iowa, ethanol plant. Emmetsburg is the site of Project Liberty, Poet’s expansion of a corn ethanol facility into one of world’s first cellulosic ethanol plants.

Picking a corn cob apart with his knife, Mathisen looks at the energy potential in his hand. This simple cob—what some consider field trash—could soon contribute to the nation’s fuel solution. Once complete in 2011, Project Liberty will produce 125 million gallons of ethanol per year, 25 million gallons of which will come from cobs.

Poet will need more than 700 tons of cobs and fiber per day to fuel its cellulosic ethanol plant. That’s 275,000 acres of corn cobs annually, says Jim Sturdevant, director of Project Liberty. By year’s end, the company’s pilot plant in Scotland, S.D., will begin producing cellulosic ethanol on a small scale."Our long-term goal is for every farmer in the Corn Belt to harvest cobs as they are harvesting grain,” Sturdevant says. “But we know that for farmers to buy in, cob harvesting has to be economical and practical.”

Fast Facts

Poet’s Project Liberty will convert an existing 50-million-gallon-per-year dry-mill ethanol plant into a commercial cellulosic biorefinery by 2011.
The facility will produce a total of 125 million gallons per year of ethanol; 25 million gallons will be made from corn cobs and fiber. By adding cellulosic production to an existing grain ethanol plant, Poet will be able to:
Produce 11% more ethanol from a bushel of corn
Produce 27% more from an acre of corn, while
significantly reducing fossil fuel consumption
Decrease water usage by 24%
Project Liberty is jointly funded by the Department of Energy. The State of Iowa is also funding the new cellulosic biorefinery.

Equipment gears up. It’s too early to determine the price for cobs, but Poet estimates it will pay $30 to $60 per ton. “Market conditions will drive price, but equipment costs will have an impact,” Sturdevant adds. “The major equipment companies are committed to making cobs work. They think it is doable.” Currently, there is limited farm machinery available to harvest, handle or store corn cobs, but Sturdevant says he is encouraged by how ag equipment manufacturers are stepping up to the challenge of developing machinery.

Equipment manufacturers currently collaborating with Poet on Project Liberty include Case IH, John Deere, Claas, Vermeer, AGCO and Demco. Many of these companies will be showing their prototype equipment for harvesting corn cobs on Nov. 6 at the Project Liberty Field Day. Farm Journal will be there to cover the event, so watch future issues of the magazine and online at www.FarmJournal.com and www.agweb.com for more information.

In working with equipment manufacturers in 2007, Poet and a farmer in South Dakota tested two cob harvesting techniques. The first involved connecting an existing combine to a piece of equipment called a cob caddy, which caught all of the field waste coming out of the back of the combine and separated out the cobs. The second method involved modifying a combine to collect grain and cobs together in the same tank to produce a corn-and-corn-cob mix (CCM). Separating the grain from the cobs occurred in a second operation at the side of the field.

There are more than two techniques for harvesting cobs, Sturdevant adds. To date, Poet has not recommended any certain techniques. Many companies, such as grain-handling systems manufacturer Demco, have spent the past year closely working with Poet to address farmer harvest concerns with cobs. Demco is developing a 2-SKU grain/cob cart that receives both grain and cobs from the combine but would require only one cart operator.

“Labor savings is what we are going for with this equipment,” says Ken Streff, Demco vice president of sales and marketing. Ideally, the Demco 2-SKU cart works with a combine that harvests corn into its grain tank and cobs into a cob harvest machine pulled behind the combine. When the combine is full, it unloads corn into the main Demco grain cart. An attached second Demco cart then swings around to the side to allow the cob harvest machine to dump its contents into the Demco cob cart. Once that is complete, one operator hauls both carts to the edge of the field for unloading grain and cobs. All operator functions of the Demco 2-SKU cart are performed from the tractor seat.

Vermeer Corporation, another company that is working to develop efficient equipment for cob harvesting, is introducing a wagon-style cob collection system that trails the combine to harvest grain and cobs in one pass. “What we’re finding is that there are lots of different options for harvesting and collecting corn cobs,” says B. J.

Watch For More Coverage

Watch for upcoming television reports from Poet’s Project Liberty Field Day highlighting advances in corn cob harvesting for cellulosic ethanol.

Schany, commodities manager of the Poet facility in Emmetsburg. “We want to provide options for the 300-acre farmer and the 3,000-acre farmer.” Aside from labor issues, farmers have also voiced concerns about investment in cob storage. Poet would prefer farmers to dump the cobs into piles at the edge of the field, and Poet would contract a third party to load and transport cobs to the ethanol facility, Schany says."Farmers should be relieved to hear that we want their responsibility with the cobs to stop at the edge of the field,” Schany adds.
Poet is researching various techniques for piling cobs in order to find the method that will best preserve the crop and provide Project Liberty with a steady supply of feedstock throughout the year. Luckily, the cob has several advantages compared with other parts of the corn plant from an ethanol production perspective, says Mark Stowers, vice president of research and development for Poet."The cob has higher bulk density than the other parts of the cornstalk, so it is easier to transport from the field to the facility,” Stowers says. “In addition, the cob has more carbohydrate content than the rest of the corn plant, giving us the ability to create more ethanol from the cob.”

As a result, Poet can expand the amount of ethanol that can come from a corn crop with minimal additional effort and little to no environmental impact, Stowers explains. As there is no other major market for cobs currently, Poet will be producing cellulosic ethanol from what amounts to an agricultural waste, he adds.

Doug Karlen, a soil scientist with USDA–Agricultural Research Service (ARS) National Soil Tilth Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, says he is impressed with the potential for harvesting cobs for cellulosic ethanol. Recent research from USDA–ARS shows cobs make up 15% to 23% of the nongrain, above- ground biomass. By only collecting the cobs, 67% to 85% of the nongrain biomass would be left on the ground to protect against wind and water erosion and to provide carbon needed to sustain the soil resource, Karlen says. “Cob s seem to be one of the best ways to get a cellulosic feedstock from the corn crop without being as hard on the soil as other options,” he says.

And compared with harvesting other biomass, cobs are relatively easy to collect, he adds. “The biggest hurdle I still see is the amount of time it takes to capture that corn cob, even when using a one-pass harvest system,” Karlen explains. “But we are all working on this logistical problem.”

Mathisen says it will take at least $60 per ton, plus government incentives, for him to consider harvesting all of his cobs and justify slowing his grain harvest in any way.
“Farmers are going to need some assurance that cobs are worth the harvest risk and the equipment investment,” Mathisen says. “Nobody wants to park an expensive piece of equipment in the grove.” He also wants the reward for harvesting cobs to equal the risk of taking on new contracts. There are still many unanswered questions about contracting cobs, such as when farmers would get paid and if cob prices will rise with the price of corn, he says.

The farm bill may offer Mathisen some help with the establishment of a new Biomass Crop Assistance Program that pays farmers a supplement for corn cobs produced for ethanol. It also provides payments to assist with expenses for collection, harvest, storage and transportation of cobs to a cellulosic ethanol facility.
But for now, farmers like Mathisen will be looking at results of the 2008 precommercial cob harvest as the first signal for whether cobs can truly be transformed into cash.

You can e-mail Jeanne Bernick at jbernick@farmjournal.com .

The New Century Farm

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:29:49 GMT

Rising up from the soil west of Ames, Iowa, are corn and soybean plants, switchgrass, miscanthus—and walls of concrete. A new “living laboratory” is under construction at Iowa State University (ISU) to help researchers learn how to grow, harvest, store, transport, handle and process biomass for energy.

Called the New Century Farm, this first-of-its-kind facility will enable public and private sector scientists to study bioenergy from field to fuel tank. On the research site, alternative crops will be grown for biofuel, combines will be engineered to harvest biomass and processing methods will turn cellulosic material into energy.

“This farm represents a new paradigm in agricultural research and development,” says Joe Colletti, senior associate dean in the ISU College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “It allows us to go from basic discovery to assisting the industry in delivering the energy product we all need. “

It is widely recognized today that corn grain alone won’t support the renewable fuels economy. “The need for renewable sources of energy requires a dynamic new way of thinking,” says Dean Oestreich, DuPont vice president and chairman of Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a DuPont business. DuPont pledged $1 million to the New Century Farm.
“The New Century Farm will research the practical things farmers can do to grow, harvest and store biomass in a sustainable manner,” Oestreich says. Research will include:

how to produce biomass crops in an efficient manner;
optimal harvest, transportation and storage procedures for biomass;
ecosystem impacts;
which processing method works best—biochemical, bioprocessing or thermochemical;
how to use and add value to bio-mvass byproducts.

The on-site processing facility will be capable of processing 5 tons of biomass per day into bio-oil or synthetic gas. In addition, the facility will process 500 lb. of grain or biomass into ethanol and industrial chemicals, says Larry Johnson, director of the Center for Crops Utilization Research, which will be conducting research on the farm. Many operations in the test facility will be about 1⁄1,000 of a commercial scale.

The New Century Farm is being built during a time when fundamental questions about food, feed and fuel need critical answers, ISU’s Colletti says.
“Between now and 20 years, population analysts think there will be a 50% increase in the world’s population,” he says. “Where do we find the land to produce food; what kind of protein, carbohydrate and fat do we need; and what kind of renewable energy can we provide? These are tremendous issues that beg for substantial increases in scientific research.”

You can e-mail Jeanne Bernick at
jbernick@farmjournal.com.

No-Climb Nurse Trailers

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:29:49 GMT

A well-equipped nurse trailer is the key to keeping sprayers on the go. It’s even handier if you can refill sprayers without climbing on and off the rig.

A nurse trailer built by Brian Bish (photo) and his son Heath carries 2,000 gal. of water and other supplies, with another 2,000-gal. tank mounted on the semi tractor.

A nurse trailer built by Ron Henggeler and his son Keith of Schuyler, Neb., is on its third incarnation. Originally a freight van, it was converted by the Henggelers into a floor trailer for hauling hogs. When they quit raising hogs, they turned it into a nurse trailer.

The trailer holds two 1,000-gal. water tanks, one 750-gal. water tank and a minibulk tank, or shuttle, of herbicide. The remaining room can be used for two pallets of seed or bagged insecticide.

To make the controls accessible from ground level, the Henggelers mounted the pump and water meter under the truck bed on a platform made from deck plate. A herbicide inductor swings outward for use.

The shuttle hose runs through a hole in the side of the trailer. It stores on metal hooks, which also carry the tractor supply hose. The shuttle pump is wired to a switch on the side of the trailer and gets power from the truck’s batteries. The batteries also power a 12-volt pump for rinsing the inductor.

Plumbing the inductor into the water supply line below the level of the trailer deck protects the clean water from chemical contamination. A valve empties the inductor, metering the chemicals gradually into the system.

A ground-accessible inductor swings outward for easy use on the nurse trailer built by Keith Henggeler (photo) and his father, Ron.

On the opposite side of the platform is a toolbox containing planter, sprayer and drill parts and other farm supplies. The Henggelers spent about $4,000 on the tanks and plumbing, including the cost of the trailer.

Easy to maneuver. Brian Bish and his son Heath, of Giltner, Neb., started with a used 26' single-axle trailer that was designed for hauling seagoing containers—"basically I-beams and an axle,” Brian says.

They lengthened the frame to 30', “a size that’s easy to get in and out of fields,” Brian says. A bed made of deck plate carries a 2,000-gal. water tank, boxed or bagged products and a herbicide shuttle, with pump and meter accessible from ground level.

On the bottom side of the bed, the Bishes mounted a plug from a welder, which they connect to the truck battery to get 12-volt power for the herbicide pump. Beneath the bed, they built a saddle to carry a tank from an old planter, which they use as an inductor for herbicides. A valve lets water gravity-feed from the tank to the inductor.

In front of the inductor, the Bishes built a platform to carry a 2,000-gal. water tank and two pumps. One pump is for the water tank on the trailer. The other pump is for a 2,000-gal. tank mounted on the semi tractor that tows the rig. That tank can be used for water or liquid fertilizer. With 4,000-gal. capacity, the Bishes can run for a long time without refilling the tanks—and without ever climbing onto the trailer.

You can e-mail Darrell Smith at
dsmith@farmjournal.com.