Fireworks

The fireworks off the fourth are still shooting in farming. Between the weeds, the weather and the markets, it is pretty exciting on the farm around here.

Farmers are locking in bushels for 2011 and 2012. Prices are high enough to make you get started. Wheat for example, can be sold for $6 right now and it might have gotten there once this year.

We are a point in time where demand is eating up the extra bushels we grow. That is a good place to be as the naysayers said SELL a long time ago but the market came back and gave us another opportunity.

Weeds have been real firecrackers. They grew faster this spring than a man can spray. Thankfully I kept the farm in the picture pretty clean compared to some of the disasters around here. Farmers depend on RoundUp too much and it shows. I take a very rotational view to crop and production and the chemicals you use on them. It is paying off.

I just got my rainfall report from Spatial Rainfall Consulting and the pattern has changed. The south farm got the least amount this week, the far west farm, closest to the city got the most. Everything else was somewhere inbetween.

We are cleaning out the rest of the non GMO soybeans for GMO for the Japan contract and that is why I took this picture on the grain tower. You sure get another perspective up there. I saw planes flying on fungicide nearby.

Me, I would rather be offensive on yield than try to protect it with chemicals I may not need by taking care of the other plant health benefits. Those products really add to your cost and may be difficult to recover.

Time to head back to the Clinton County Fair and watch the grand daughters show their pigs.

See ya,

Ed Winkle