Find your corn, soybean profit numbers
You know these tight margins are playing havoc with crop budgets and potential profits. The University of Wisconsin has a tool to run various scenarios and calculate your profitability for the coming...
View ArticleAmerican farmers and sustainability: You don’t want to hear this
I just talked to a very sharp large progressive producer fresh off a plane from Brazil, concerned that his fellow American farmers “don’t get” food companies’ sustainability emphasis. Bottom Lineread more
View ArticleHigher profits are in the soil for corn, soybean growers
You might say that soil is the original green machine. Working with the Earth’s soil microbes saves you a lot of money. At no cost, soil’s tiny, underground critters convert sunlight, water, carbon...
View ArticleSpray Palmer amaranth before it reaches 4 inches high
Geez, the margin for error shrinks constantly, especially with weed resistance. The latest bulletin on this theme relates to Palmer amaranth’s tight control window—before 4 inches high. That gives you...
View Article$2,000 buys this corn farmer aerial scouting technology
Crop consultant and farmer Marc Burggraff found an unmanned aerial vehicle that can fly GPS patterns with his son’s GoPro camera.Content Classification: Curated Bottom Lineread more
View ArticleCover crops do not rob from corn and soybean yields
Rick Juchems, Plainfield, Iowa, is surprised that cereal-rye cover crops did not reduce his corn or soybean yields. He and 11 other Iowa farmers participated in a five-year trial to determine whether...
View Article$4.58 breakeven corn price: ouch!
Newly released figures from farm-management sage Gary Schnitkey, University of Illinois, amount to a 6% increase for 2013 non-land costs above 2012. That’s $615 non-land costs to produce an acre of...
View ArticleThink differently on nitrogen four Rs
Answers are unfolding to our nitrogen nightmares, but they beg for thinking differently. Of the four Rs of nitrogen BMPs (the right Rate, Time, Place, Source), most research addresses nitrogen Rate....
View ArticleJudgment, farm experience impact your bottom line
Technology is a great tool, but don’t discount your judgment. When and whether to enter a wet field, identifying broken tile, how you control spray drift, which surfactant to use, when to use...
View ArticleHere’s a cash rent approach you can live with
Sam Halcomb calculates a field’s revenue-generating potential, then offers a landlord 25-33% of that for cash rent. He’s found over the years that 25-33% accurately reflects a point where he can profit...
View ArticleIdeas you can use to reduce risk
As a farmer, how do you reduce risk? Ideas to accomplish that include: planting offensive and defensive hybrids and planning for multiple alternate future scenarios. Take some time to think about how...
View ArticleMore farmland in Africa?
Corn and soybean farmers will face more price pressure once 247,100 square miles of productive African land enters production, according to a Wall Street Journal report.Bottom Lineread more
View ArticleCover crops release more nutrients than they accumulate
Joel Gruver, Western Illinois University agronomist, planted specific cover crops in a band, then after their demise he pulled soil samples in the cover crop row and compared them to samples taken 15...
View ArticleAverage cost of production: $4.23 corn, $10.96 soybeans
How do your production costs look for the year ahead? Iowa State University just released its 2015 crop-production estimates, and I hope your figures look better than these guidelines. That won’t be...
View ArticleDo retired farmers sway tillage decisions?
Is it too unreasonable to consider even just one field of strip-till or no-till, if you save roughly $15 per acre, and each 1% of soil organic matter helps soil hold 20,000 gallons more water per acre?...
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