February 7 2009

February 7, 2009

Greetings,

We are well into meeting season in the new year. Everyone is still in a state of shell shock from last year. It was interesting to see Dave Franzen addressing a meeting saying that when nitrogen fertilizer prices were at their peak, it was not profitable to apply to wheat at $6.00. Thankfully nitrogen has come way down, below $400 for urea. In doing some looking on the internet the overseas price looks to be way below $300 before shipping.

<http://www.icis.com/v2/chemicals/9076558/urea/pricing.html>

As we all know, contracting and early buying can be a double edged sword, but that old saying of locking in a profit goes a long way. For those of you who contracted with bankrupt ethanol plants, you do not find much solace in that phase however. It is not the first time we have seen turbulence in the farm sector and probably it probably won't be the last.

We are putting together plans for the next cropping season on the farm. I have just talked with Syngenta and it looks like we will be able to obtain corn seed treated with a product that will kill corn damaging nematodes. Do we have a problem with nematodes? It will be our mission to find out. I was hoping to do this last year but approval for the product was delayed so it looks like this will be the year. Our main focus will be on the continuous corn rotation.

We have 3 varieties of Winter wheat planted. I am anxiously awaiting spring since one of them, Smokey Hill, is not extremely winter hardy but looks good otherwise. It was planted into tall spring wheat stubble and has been filed with snow all season. March is usually the final test.

We will continue to look at cover crops. We will be trying them in several areas. A main focus will be to have them in a rotation that follows winter wheat. We will also put them in where possible to look at how they perform near slough edges and in prevent plant situations. Insurance issues need to be understood before one plants certain crops as a cover crop. You could get in the situation of planting a crop that would considered to be a harvestable crop in the eyes of Federal crop. I personally think that keeping something growing on prevent plant acres is important to keeping soil from blowing but also to reduce salinity buildup, keep nitrogen from leaching, maintaining soil structure and keeping soil organisms alive. Mycorrihzae need to have living roots to maintain enough numbers to keep corn healthy the following year. The term "fallow syndrome" is used to describe what you see when corn follows land that was kept black the previous year.

Upcoming meetings on my schedule are North Dakota Corn Growers, Feb 11 and also North Dakota Crop Advisors same day. Advanced Crop Advisors Workshop, Feb 12-13. Next week is the Crop Expo in Grand Forks, and also agronomist crop consultant John McGillicuddy along with state climatologist Adnan Akyuz will be at the Oakes North Dakota Feb 19. Call 701-349-3249 for info and registration.

Have a good week.

Kelly Cooper- farm manager