April 16 2009

April 16, 2009

Greetings,

This is turning out to be another record breaking year, this time with floods. If you are fighting floods, your thoughts are on the immediate needs of protecting your property, and we all hope you are successful. As I write this it sounds as if the Red River Valley may have seen the worst, but rivers to the west are just starting to reach their full fury. Eventually the waters will recede, and then their will still be difficulty in dealing with flooded land, washed out roads and all the rest of the trouble associated with high water. On the CCSP farm, the sloughs are full and overflowing to the outlets. I don't think I will be able to plant wheat on April 19th, like I have done the past 3 years, but without any rain, the last week of April may work. I walked around out there today and it is pretty wet but the soybean stubble is starting to firm. An advantage of no-till is the ability of water to move through the profile and not be interrupted by tillage interface zones which causes super-saturation at the soil surface. It is one of those things you have too see to understand. I have planted wheat as early as anyone in the area using a 1560 John Deere drill, which is not known to be a real mud machine. Even though the ground has been very wet, the ground is firm. It is also important the soybean residue is spread evenly by the combine. Using duals all way around helps also.

When we get to the row crops will be anyone's guess. I don't think the frost is completely out yet, so it will take some heat to warm up the soil. If we could get a few days in the 80's it would really help.

It looks like the Smokey Hill winter wheat did just fine. It is a Nebraska -Kansas wheat so we were pushing our luck a little but looks like with good stubble and snow she made it through a genuine long cold North Dakota winter. From what I can tell the alfalfa made it as well but will need a few more days to be sure on that.

Have a good week.

Kelly Cooper- farm manager