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?
August and September have been dry with higher-than-normal day time temperatures prevailing. Crops are drying down quick so harvest may be early. All that dry tinder may create fire hazards when harvest equipment starts rolling.
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.
After a wet and late planted spring, crops and weeds are starting to grow. Spraying weeds is important for getting good yields and reducing weed… Login to continue reading Login…
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.
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.
Beck’s Hybrids conducts annually extensive corn and soybean research to improve crop yields. They recently released a 256-page book on their recent results. Research is conducted throughout the USA, Midwest, and Ohio.
New University of Florida research shows that healthy plants with high levels of nutrients resist plant pests. As farmers get ready for spring planting, applying fertilizer enhance plant growth, yield, and reduces pests.
Recent soybean research by Dr. Rafiq Islam, Ohio State University shows benefits from using sulfur fertilization and small doses of aspirin or salicylic acid (SA, a fulvic acid) to increase soybean yields. Soybeans are planted on about 86.5 million USA acres. Yearly increases in soybean yields have been flat and with lower prices, farmers are looking for ways to get higher yields. Hot weather, drought, flooding and other environmental issues have caused soybean yields to stagnate.
Dr. Jodi DeJong-Hughes has been doing strip till research in Minnesota for the past 20 years comparing it to conventional tillage practices on both corn and soybeans. She says the two most common questions farmers ask about are “Does Strip till allow my soils to warm up and dry out in the spring”, and the second is “Will crop yields suffer (decrease) with strip till.” Dr. DeJong-Hughes as set up her research trials to test those two farmer assumptions.