updatefor Jan 9 2007

January 8, 2007

Happy New Year every one! I hope your holiday was pleasant and joyful. We have a brand new year to look forward to with more hope on the farming side than I can remember in a long time. Ethanol is the hot topic not only in farm county but in the city as well. I have a friend who tells me Ethanol is talked about all the time on CNBC. It sounds like you don't need investors to build plants anymore with profit being all most guaranteed by the government. The people who have the ability to put up a plant themselves are more than happy to take the risk. So, are things too good to be true? Time will tell, but even at my age of 49, I have seen good times come and go more than once. My dad, who would be 96 if he were still alive, remarked about how good times were in the 20's only to have the 30's come and take all the prosperity away. I think one thing is true, if you plan on having a disaster, you will probably will not place your self in a position to prosper. If you are optimistic and plan accordingly you stand a much better chance to reap the benefits of good times.

With the weather being so nice, I have spent most of my time doing things you can't do when it is 20 below, so computer work has not be a high priority. I have crunched some of the numbers for this past harvest with some interesting results. Corn on corn gave the poorest yield of 119 bu average across 12 plots, next was corn on wheat,143 bu, not strip tilled. Then corn on old alfalfa ground was 3rd out of 5 with 153 bu. 2nd best was corn on soybeans,155 bu, not strip tilled. Best was corn on wheat, strip tilled at 163 bushels. We can do a lot of speculation on those numbers. Initially I thought it would just be a matter of water holding capacity and drainage, and that still has to be somewhat true on a year like we had. It certainly shows what every already knows, corn on corn poses some challenges. The strip tilled wheat had a lot of cover and would have held moisture better than soybean ground, and probably kept soil temperature down as well. Soil temperature can be a problem if to high, and this would have been the year for that to happen. It also appears that strip tilling the wheat is a big benefit.

It looks like we need to do some work with corn on corn. Joe Breker, and I are going down to the National No-Till Conference in Des Moines this week. It should be a fun meeting. Corn on corn will no doubt be a big topic and we hope to get some good ideas.

Have a good week.

Kelly Cooper- farm manager