Update Dec 14

December 14, 2007

Greetings,

Unbelievable markets. I don't know how you guys are going to market your crop, just the crop from our plots is enough keep my adrenaline pumping!

I have been crunching some of the yield data the last week, so if you want to take a look, click on the yield info button above. The more I talk to people the more stories I hear of poor corn on corn both from tillage and no till farmers. With the prices going up on other crops, corn on corn will not necessarily be a problem because rotation farming will produce more bushels overall. I think most crystal balls are pretty cloudy right now, but maybe it is better to go with what you know works, and that would be rotation.

We do plan on pursuing corn on corn. Since our corn was planted with our Case IH RTK system in 2007, the strip till this fall went well, and so should the planting in the spring of 08. Walt Albus had 200 bu corn this year at the Oakes Irrigation field trials that was planted into 06 corn that was strip tilled in the fall of 06. There are a lot of unknowns. I was just reading a paper our of Iowa State that covered several papers on the subject. Their conclusion was that in some cases the major yield problem was from cooler soil temperature. Some work done in Minnesota shows that strip till can very nearly match soil temperatures of mold board plowing.

One note on the strip till this fall. The 8 row unit that I was pulling with our MX305 did take quite a little horsepower in the corn stalks. We did not have the duals on, which in hindsight I would certainly suggest that you have duals on. What happened was that with our rolling terrain, one side of the 3 point unit would pull a little harder than the other causing the tractor to "crab" slightly. Having the duals on would probably help. In our situation we use the tractor for spraying so we have the duals taken off after spring planting. Most of you will certainly be using duals, but anything else that degrades the directional accuracy will possibly be yield influencing. One of the presenters at that ag show talked about going into corn that was planted without guidance with the strip till unit. His suggestion was to go in between the stalks with the strip till, then plant with the guidance. The reason being that if you cross the corn rows with the strip till unit, plugging becomes an issue. We had the same situation with the plots this year. My suggestion with hindsight would be to plant it to beans first. If this year is any indication, going corn on corn has a probable yield of 135 bushels vs 175. Doing the math this year looks to be about the same net with 40 bushel beans, but it would be the following crop on the beans where the money comes in. But, who knows where the input costs will be.

Speaking of inputs, you may like to read this article about ammonia production research at Morris Minnesota. Every farmer would probably like one of these. The article does not mention cost of the unit however.

Morris Sun Tribune | Production of nitrogen fertilize from wind energy

Have a good week and Merry Christmas!

Kelly Cooper- farm manager