farming

Why High Fertilizer Prices?

After a late 2025 drought and lower crop prices, farmers are looking ahead to the 2026 crop year.  High volatile fertilizer prices will be a significant concern next year.  Currently, the DAP  retail price is $926 per metric ton, up from $580 in January. DAP or diammonium phosphate is 18% nitrogen and 46% phosphate (18-46-0). The retail price for MAP (mono ammonium phosphate) is $921 per ton. Potash or potassium (60% potash or K, 0-0-60) prices are about 24% higher than last year at $483-485 per ton. Some global spot prices are $350-$360 per ton. Ammonia (NH3) prices are about $440-$450 per metric ton.  

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Are small grains profitable?

Entering October, is it too late to plant small grains (wheat or possibly barley), and is it even profitable to do so? It is not too late, but with wheat at roughly $4.50 to $5.00, it is difficult to make wheat profitable. Most can justify planting wheat at $6/bushel. However, $4.50 corn is not much better. Planting wheat helps improve the crop rotation, reduce weeds, and may increase other crop yields by 10%. Wheat and other small grain crops like barley, cereal rye, oats are alternative crops. The market for barley and oats are fairly limited. Due to high test weight oats grown in Canada and a few breweries in Ohio, the oat and barley markets are slim. At around $12/bushel for cereal rye as a cover crop, cereal rye can be profitable with good yields.

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Farm Economy Suffering

Farmers are in a tough spot. Fertilizer prices are spiking, and crop prices are not high enough to cover the costs. The bright spots are on the livestock and dairy side, with much higher prices and profits. For grain farmers; with a late drought, yields and prices are not high enough to make much money.

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Paulding FFA members attend Farm Science Review

The Paulding FFA had 30 members and two advisors attend Farm Science Review on Wednesday, September 17, in London, Ohio. The members started the morning with breakfast at McDonald’s and then headed to London, Ohio to enjoy a day filled with hands-on learning experiences and learning more about the new technologies in the agriculture industry.  Farm Science Review strives to teach its visitors of all ages about the current issues and opportunities in the agriculture industry. Some notable exhibitors this year include the Farm Bureau, OSU Extension, and John Deere. Students could take shuttles out into the fields of FSR to see equipment in operation and drone demonstrations conducted by local agricultural businesses. Then students could tour the Gwynne conservation area to learn more about native plants, talk with soil scientists, and even go down into a soil pit. In-depth experiences, such as virtual welding demonstrations, were also available to FSR visitors, allowing them to view the industry from a hands-on perspective. There were several different types of livestock on exhibit for the students to learn more about as well. We also saw some local ag companies from our area, as well as former Paulding FFA members, while visiting FSR. Our students and advisors immensely enjoyed this opportunity and will continue working to share their agricultural knowledge. The members are already talking about attending this event again in the coming years.

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Improving your farm

This was adapted from a Randall Reeder article, Retired OSU Extension Engineer at Ohio State University. Most farmers would like to leave their farm in better shape than when they started. The question is: What does that mean? You never hear a farmer brag about making their farm worse. What does it mean to make a farm better when you retire from farming?

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Share rental agreements

Last week, cash rental agreements were discussed and now crop share rental agreements. For crop share rental agreements, both landowner and tenant share crop expenses and also the crop. This involves much more involvement of landowners in the farming operation. The landowner has the land while the tenant supplies the labor and the equipment for farming the crop. Since the landowner has more risk, usually the return is expected to be higher, but they also have to have more cash outlay. For newer farmers or for cash strapped tenant farmers, this can be helpful, lowering the tenant cash outlay and risk, but the tenant should expect lower total returns.

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Crop Update

May has been a cold and wet and many farmers are struggling to get crops planted. Some for the first time. Others are already replanting. Although a week old, May 18th USDA’s crop progress report is probably fairly accurate with the recent rains. Estimates are that only 34% of corn acres are planted in Ohio, with 22% of corn emerged. Emerged acres are probably higher by now. Corn planting progress was behind the 5-year average (48%), but corn emergence was slightly ahead (20%) as of May 18th. For soybeans, 40% of soybean acre were planted and 24% of soybeans emerged.

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Reducing compaction with roots

Brian Doughtery, a Understanding Ag consultant, says compaction is a sign of a poorly functioning soil. Soil compaction is not a natural occurrence, it comes from too much equipment (heavy axle loads, too much tillage), not enough biology (lack of roots and living organisms), and excess nutrients.

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