May 3 2006

News for the Week:

Hi,

Last week went by fast, in fact so fast this is an every other-week update! We had a little over 2 inches rain on the plots last weekend. 15 miles east I heard totals of 3-4 inches. Yes, things are wet again. Just walking around on the plots yesterday, Tuesday, it was as if it had just got done raining. We have most all the wheat plots planted, both disk and shank. There are 4 disk plots, and 1 shank plot that will take some serious drying to get into. All 6 flax plots were planted last Thursday. This is the 2nd year for flax. Last year it came up and froze off several times, severely reducing our stand. I hesitated to plant this early, but with the likelihood of rain, I wanted to get it seeded. Last year I observed that a lot of seed ended up in the duff layer so getting a couple days of wet weather would be good to get it started. We were targeting 3/4 inch depth with the John Deere single disk openers. The seed is germinating as of yesterday. The winter wheat got 65 lbs of N stream nozzled last Tuesday. The 2 inches of rain will be plenty to move that into the soil.

For next week I hope to get at planting corn if there is no more rain. The winter wheat will need a shot of fungicide as we are seeing some leaf disease.

Our many thanks to Titan Machinery for the sponsorship that includes the use of a CaseIH MX-245 for the season. It is a really great tractor. The short steering radius is much appreciated out on the plots. Click on the thumbnail to check it out.

Have a good week.

Kelly Cooper- farm manager