Feb_28

February 28, 2008

Greetings,

It has not been a boring winter. I sold beans at $12.01 and corn at $4.75 and now I see as everyone else, I have sold too early. I read somewhere the comment "If you sold anything in the last 5 years it was too early." I am not sure if I can express this correctly, but for the first time in my life, I really honestly believe that if someone thinks they have got this all figured out, you could look them straight in the eye and say "NO, you don't".

I just returned from attending a corn nematode conference put on by Syngenta last week. I have not had the best luck with corn on corn in the plots. In looking through possible explanations nematodes came across the computer. Nematodes can cause major problems on corn, but I am not sure if they are a problem in our plots until we do some soil testing and try some nematicides. Syngenta is working on a seed treat product on corn that could get registration sometime this year. I am hopeful that we could get some treated seeded to try for the 08 cropping year and see if it performs better on our old corn ground. For some information click on the following link.

http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/icm/2007/2-12/nematodes.html

One of my other problems at the plots has been getting weed control in our flax plots. Flax prices are currently around $18.00. Not quite as good as wheat. I don't think it will matter too much what you grow next year, just do a good job and the sky could be the limit for a price. Some of the smaller acreage crops like flax could really explode, but then the speculative money probably won't have as much influence.

We are looking at investigating cover crops on the farm the next couple of years. Last fall we put some pea's in following winter wheat. I did not seed them quite deep enough. They can not go in like a soybean, they must be securely underground, 2-3 inches is just fine. What did come up made a pretty nice stand. When I went through with the strip till machine I could certainly tell the ground was drier, which was one of main goals. We have some areas around sloughs that are looking salty and only foxtail barley grows. We are thinking about planting sugarbeets in some of those spots to dry the soil out and still allow some grass control.

Spring will be coming fast, so hope you all have you cropping plans ready. Hang on , it will be a wild ride!

Kelly Cooper- farm manager