September 19 2007

September 18, 2007

Greetings,

I see a month has slipped away since my last update, and it has been busy both here at the plots and my other work. Last things first, We finished the Winter Wheat the 16th. Our Thanks to Joe Breker for his contribution of CDC Falcon. It was really a toss up on which variety to chose. It appears like Overland is worth looking at but seed is very, very hard to come by. I was happy with the Buteo last year. Also the Howard Spring wheat was good also, but it was tough with latter planting dates on all spring wheats from what I hear. I got a little trigger happy with planting the winter wheat looking at the forecast which was showing most all days this week with rain. Of course it was not just rain but thunderstorms! With our history of getting deluged and not just nice showers I thought I would risk the wheat streak over the mud. The planting did go well. There is plenty of subsoil moisture and the surface is not bad. An inch of rain would be all right, if I had a choice but much more and the stubble would be getting sloppy. I don't think we ever had a moisture stress this year. Just when we were getting a little dry we ended up with close to 3 inches on July 27 and ever since we have had nice small shots. As you can see on the pictures the alfalfa is really coming nicely. My Dad would have killed to get a stand like that the first try! I want to thank Keith Rekow of Dairyland seed for their contribution of Hybriforce 400 seed. Keith tells me dairy quality alfalfa is pretty hot commodity right now. Thinking back a year, what a change! Most all commodities are up but so are expenses and land. We really need to try some different things with the corn on corn. Switching to a different variety seems to be a common suggestion. I am just not happy with how the corn on corn looks. The other corn looks pretty good, that is what the blackbirds and pheasants left. The soybeans had a lot of holes in leaves like everywhere else. The pods have filled nicely. The only bad thing we really had this year was the excessive rain to start with, but a perfect year is pretty rare.

Have a good week.

Kelly Cooper- farm manager