March 24 2009

March 24, 2009

Greetings,

Not sure about you, but I am feeling a little more optimistic about commodity and stock prices. Last week and yesterday have been pretty positive, some profit taking in stocks going on this morning and grains will probably drop some with the falling oil price. You sure could make a lot of money fast if you could read these markets.

The big story is of course the flooding. As we went home last night water was moving just about everywhere as most sloughs are filled up and overflowing to the next one. Thankfully the heavy rain that was predicted did not come. The water is right up there out on the plots as you can see from the photos. I am not planning on seeding wheat for at least a couple days. If I remember correctly, after the big 97 storm we did not get any more moisture for quite sometime outside of one late April snow the secured the high snowfall record. If the ground can stay bare it will help keep the temps up. You do not have to go too far west to find snow however.

As you can see in the other two photos, the winter wheat looks in good shape. Our resident winter wheat expert, Roger Knap tells me that does not necessarily mean the wheat is out of the woods yet. It has not broken dormancy and started to grow, it is more like lettuce in a refrigerator. It does show that snow cover was adequate to prevent tissue desiccation and since it is not wilted it is still alive. It is enough to make me feel good anyway. The variety is Smokey Hills which is not listed as extremely winter hardy. She got pretty cold this winter but with good stubble height and early snow that was light and dry we managed to get an excellent insulator that lasted the whole season.

It is nice to have one crop (winter wheat) planted at least. It looks like at the moment that prevent plant is going to be used a lot this year. Keep in mind when those wet acres dry up, the worst thing to do is keep 'em black. We have a speaker lined up for our summer field day that will talk about how salinity is building in these wet areas because nothing is allowed to grow there. Planting cover crops is one of the best things you can do to keep salinity from building. Cover crops can also keep nitrogen in place. Contrary to some beliefs, crops do not "use up" nutrients. Weeds will take nutrients away from a growing crops, but even those weeds will give the nutrients back to the soil when they die. You WILL lose nutrients if they leach beyond the root zone or wash away. In the case of nitrogen, a process called de-nitrification will convert nitrate nitrogen into nitrogen gas which will be released out of the soil and be lost. De-nitrification occurs when soils are wet. Cover crops that will use up moisture also help here as well.

Remember we have a CCSP Board meeting March 30 at 9:00.

Congratulations to Marty Visto our new Chairman! Many thanks to Mark Wyum for doing a super job the last couple years.

Have a good week.

Kelly Cooper- farm manager