End of Season Cleaning & Winterization
As planting is wrapping up around the plains, don’t forget to show your fertilizer system some love before parking it in the shed. SureFire recommends flushing your fertilizer pump and complete system with water. Next, use RV antifreeze to winterize your system by pumping an adequate amount through all components. At the beginning of the next season, begin with water to verify the system is in working order with no leaks. 
Earth Day
Earth Day is today, and we in agriculture want to join the rest of the world in celebrating and promoting the continued health of this planet that provides all of us with so
much.
Farmers and ranchers sometimes get criticized as not being environmentally friendly. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. As stewards of the land, it’s important to us to take care of what we’ve been given and to make sure natural resources are there for future generations.
Right now, we’re at the beginning of planting season. And this year, like all years, farmers will strive to do even better. Each year we learn a bit more and become a bit more efficient. It’s what every farmer has done since farming began. That’s why every day is Earth Day for farmers.
Ferti/Fungi Systems for Potatoes
View from the cab
"How's it looking over your shoulder?" The Wilger manifold setup offers a visual confirmation that liquid is flowing through the system and down to each row. If the colored ball is floating-- the system is working.
A SureFire system is mounted, calibrated and ready to go on a loaded potato planter.
Looking down a freshly planted row of taters on a beautiful spring day.
Time to load up for another round... and another round... and another round.
Loaded up and ready to plant some spud
One of the planting rigs with a SureFire System.
Crop Acreage Intentions Reported
U.S. farmers plan to plant a record-high 78.1 million acres to soybeans in 2010, according to the Prospective Plantings report released today by the U.S. Department of 
Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS).
NASS expects that total area planted to principal crops nationwide will hold steady at 319.5 million acres, after declining 5.7 million acres in 2009. Intended soybean acres are expected to increase 1 percent from last year’s previous record, while corn planted area is expected to increase 3 percent, to 88.8 million acres. If realized, this would be the second-largest area planted to corn since 1947, behind 2007.
The largest soybean acreage increases are expected in Kansas, up 400,000 acres, and Iowa, up 300,000. Increases of 100,000 or more acres are also expected in Illinois, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.
Expected corn acreage is up in many states due to reduced winter wheat acreage and growers’ expectations of improved net returns. Increases of 300,000 or more corn acres are expected in Illinois, Kansas, Missouri and Ohio. Iowa continues to lead the nation with 13.5 million corn acres, despite an expected drop of 200,000 acres from 2009.
NASS estimates 2010 cotton plantings at 10.5 million acres, up 15 percent from last year. Wheat acreage is expected to decline 9 percent to 53.8 million acres, the smallest total area since 1970. The area planted to winter wheat is expected to be down 13 percent from last year.
Prospective Plantings provides the first official, survey-based estimates of U.S. farmers’ planting intentions for 2010. NASS surveyed approximately 86,000 farm operators across the United States during the first two weeks of March. NASS will publish data on actual planted area in the Acreage report, to be released June 30 at 8:30 a.m. EDT.
NASS also released the quarterly Grain Stocks report today, showing corn stocks in all positions at 76.9 billion bushels as of March 1. This is the second-highest March 1 stocks level on record, after 1987. Soybeans stored in all positions on March 1 totaled 1.27 bushels, down 2 percent from a year ago, while all wheat stored totaled 1.35 billion bushels, up 30 percent from March 1, 2009.
Kansas Wheat Crop Lagging
Cool, wet weather has held back the development of the Kansas winter wheat crop. Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service reported Monday that only 8 percent of the wheat is now jointed, compared with an average of 17 percent in late March. About 88 percent of the acreage has broken dormancy. Twelve percent of the wheat is rated in excellent condition, with 58 percent rated good and 25 percent fair. Just 5 percent of the crop was in poor to very poor condition.
How Much P & K Will Your 2010 Crop Need?
How much P & K?
From: The University of Illinois
After the 2008 cropping season your intentions to apply phosphorus and potassium may have been waylaid because of high prices. So you planned to wait until after crops were harvested in 2009. But then the weather did not cooperate and you still do not have P & K applied, much less a soil test that indicates how much might be needed. After all, the floods of 2009 may have washed some away. So now, you are asking if you should take soil samples, or wait until the fall, or just apply a typical amount of P & K without the samples. Good questions! If your nutrient levels are lower than they normally run, you are probably not the only farmer in the Cornbelt in that situation. With the high prices of the past years your nutrient applications may have diminished for economic reasons. University of Illinois fertility specialist Fabian Fernandez has published a newsletter that may help your decision making. Your initial concern may be how much have nutrient levels dropped since P & K were last applied, and some of that will depend upon the higher yields that you produced over the past two years. Without a soil test, it is nearly impossible to determine where your nutrient levels may be, since there may have been abundant nutrients available a couple years ago, or you might have been at a critical shortage at that time. Fernandez says the higher the initial test level, the more rapid the decline if no fertilizer is applied. If you were at the critical level for phosphorus, then the decline is slowed. For potash soil tests show about a 13 lb per acre decline annually when none is applied. The bottom line is the need to know a starting point with a soil test. So when do you conduct a soil test? Fernandez says that can occur at anytime for P & K, but beware of potential problems.
1) Potash levels fluctuate with soil moisture and freeze-thaw cycles, with levels in late fall and early winter tending to be higher than in mid fall. He says late winter and early spring soil samples will test higher than when taken in the fall after harvest. If your test numbers are inflated because of the temperature conditions of the soil, it may result in a lower application than needed.
2) Phosphorus levels will not change with time of year or soil temperatures. Fernandez suggests that when your soil tests are returned, double check them against your last soil test and the yields that have been taken from those fields. One bushel of corn will remove 0.43 lbs of phosphate and 0.28 lbs of potash, and one bushel of beans will remove 0.85 lbs of phosphate and 1.3 lbs of potash. Compute your yield, calculate the amount of nutrient removal, and if the soil test indicates levels of potash well above what you might expect, then consider the time of the year may have influenced the results.
When Fernandez analyzed the soil test results from 600 fields over half of Illinois, he found that 59% of the soils had adequate levels of P, 22% were at a maintenance level, and 19% were at a critical level in need of a phosphate application. For potash, 31% of the fields were above a level that would recommend an application, 24% were at a maintenance level, and 45% were at a critically low level. Subsequently, he suggests more attention be paid to K than P. And when should you apply? Neither fall nor spring will make a difference on when the application is made. But he says a K application under a row of soybeans will result in a salt injury, and for farmers who keep P levels high for wheat, there should be plenty available for soybeans if wheat was not planted.
Summary: Many farmers may have concerns about P & K levels, if an application was not made for economic reasons after the 2008 season and not made after the 2009 season because of the late harvest and wet fields. Soil tests will indicate how much P & K, if any, are needed. A general survey of Illinois fields indicated that most fields had satisfactory amounts of phosphate, but nearly half of the fields could be short of potash.
Scientists baffled as bees again flee
The American bee population continues to decline, leaving experts wondering why.
According to U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics, the number of beehives decreased for the third consecutive year in 2009. The beehive numbers fell by 29-percent last year, following declines of 36-percent in 2008 and 32-percent in 2007. Scientists in other countries have noticed similar results and have taken to calling the results “colony collapse disorder.”
David Mendes, president of the American Beekeeping Federation, told Jean-Louis Santini of AFP that “preliminary estimates already indicate losses of 30 to 50 percent” in the Winter of 2010, which will further reduce honey production and cause problems for farmers that rely on bees to pollinate their crops. Billions of dollars of crops could be effected.
According to Santini, “Researchers have looked at viruses, parasites, insecticides, malnutrition and other environmental factors but have been unable to pinpoint a specific cause for the population decline.”
Jeff Pettis, the lead researcher of the Department of Agriculture’s Beltsville, Maryland Bee Research Laboratory, stated that pesticide use could be a “contributing factor,” while adding that the best thing to help the sagging insect population is to “limit habitat destruction.”
“The world population growth is in a sense the reason for pollinators’ decline,” he told Santini. “Because we need to produce more and more food to feed the world and we grow crops in larger fields. A growing world means growing more food and to do that we need pollinators. And the fact that the world is continuing to grow is the driving force behind the habitat destruction.”
Fertilizer Frenzy
Lock it in
!
“If you know what youre going to plant, I’d go ahead and contract (fertilizer) now,” says Joe Dillier, director of plant food for GROWMARK. “With all the uncertainty in the market, you dont want to be the last guy to go to your dealer to get your input supplies.”
GROWMARK currently has fertilizer supplies in place, but Dillier suspects the overall supply may be down this spring due to uncertainty in the market.
Some farmers have yet to finalize their plans for planting, which has left fertilizer purchases in the air. Meanwhile, fertilizer retailers who last year experienced financial losses when fertilizer prices plummeted are reluctant to expand inventories while questions remain about planting intentions.
“There is more uncertainty in the fertilizer market for this spring than there has been in a long time,” Dillier said. “We don’t know how much supply is in place (across the industry).”
Dillier believes spring fertilizer prices could move higher if corn plantings increase. And the chance of a major downturn in fertilizer prices at this point appears minimal unless USDA this week drastically cuts its corn acreage estimate.
Dillier, therefore, encouraged farmers to start working with ag retailers to book their fertilizer needs.
Hooper outbreak looms
Grazing Grasshoppers
A common prairie pest is looking to invade in uncommon numbers as experts warn parts of Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska and Idaho may be in store for costly grasshopper infestations this summer.
Federal surveys predict at least 48 million acres of outbreak-level infestation this summer. Charles Brown, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, says some states may see the most severe grasshopper outbreaks in nearly 30 years.
Hungry swarms caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage that year when they devoured corn, barley, alfalfa, beets—even fence posts and the paint off the sides of barns.
A federal survey of 17 states taken last fall found critically high numbers of adult grasshoppers in parts of Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming. Each mature female lays hundreds of eggs. So “the population could be very, very high this year,” said Charles Brown, who manages grasshopper suppression for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Ryan Fieldgrove is dreading the influx. A rancher near Buffalo, Wyo., Mr. Fieldgrove was enjoying a banner year last summer when, seemingly out of nowhere, crawling carpets of hoppers marched onto his rangeland—a harbinger of this year’s infestation. In three weeks, they had eaten every blade of tender, nutritious grass on his 10,000 acres. They also ate his wife’s lilac bushes. “They took it all,” Mr. Fieldgrove said.
Unable to find enough grass, Mr. Fieldgrove’s 200 young calves began to lose weight. He ended up selling them at auction several weeks earlier—and 60 pounds per calf lighter—than planned. And he had to import hay to feed the mother cows he kept on his ranch for the winter.
The grasshoppers cost Mr. Fieldgrove about $30,000 in profit, he said—and local agricultural officials are warning him it could be worse this year.
To try to get ahead of the problem, Wyoming has allocated $2.7 million for suppression efforts, including aerial spraying of the pesticide Dimilin, which is fatal to maturing grasshoppers. But Wyoming’s congressional delegation—concerned that’s not enough—demanded federal help.
“It does not appear as though the USDA has any sense of urgency in the face of this pending plague,” the delegation wrote in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack last month.
Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal this month weighed in as well, writing a public letter urging county, state and federal officials to join forces to prevent “economic and ecological damage.” The forecast, he said, suggests an infestation “with disastrous implications.”
Planning to plant?
Plan Now for Successful Corn Planting
From the University of Minnesota Extension
With fieldwork just around the corner, now is the time to evaluate decisions related to corn planting. Corn planting-date studies from 1988 through 2003 conducted at the University of Minnesota Southwest Research and Outreach Center in Lamberton show that on average grain yield was maximized with an April 28 planting date, but planting dates ranging from April 21 to May 6 produced yields within 1% of the maximum. In central and northern Minnesota, optimum planting-date windows generally begin a few days later. When corn planting is delayed beyond mid-May, yield potential is reduced rapidly.
Corn requires soil temperatures of 50° F or higher for germination, and the amount of time from planting to emergence has been shown to be reduced from 24 days to 13 days when average soil temperature in the seed zone from planting to emergence increases from 51° to 54° F (Nielsen, 2009). A greater amount of time for emergence increases the potential for stand establishment problems, but in very late April most agronomists agree that growers should ignore soil temperature and plant corn as soon as soils are fit, since warmer temperatures are expected soon afterward.
Timely planting also increases the amount of time for in-field grain drying prior to harvest, but the advantages of timely planting can be lost if planting occurs when soils are too wet. Sidewall smearing can occur on heavy soils when double-disk openers on the planter cut through wet soil, resulting in compacted soil around the seed that is difficult for seedling roots to penetrate. Seed furrows can also open up after heavy soil dries following wet conditions at planting. In general, a field is fit for seedbed preparation if soil from the surface 3-4 in. breaks apart when pressed between your fingers rather than forming a ribbon or ball.
A firm seedbed at planting is critical for obtaining good seed-to-soil contact and establishment of roots that are located near the soil surface. A seedbed is too loose if your boots sink over 1 in. when walking through the field. At the same time, avoid excessive preplant tillage, which can result in surface crusting and emergence problems if heavy rainfall occurs prior to emergence. Excessive preplant tillage can also enhance wind erosion and injure corn seedlings with blowing soil.
