Hoorman’s soil health

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.

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?

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…

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.