Grow a round

[wrightcattle]

Of buckwheat.

It bounces the soil. Frees up nutrient availability of soil .

Might be able to cut fertilizer use by 50 to 100% after buckwheat. 

[BA Deere]

You better like pancakes.   🙂

[timetippingpt]

illini....if you want to call and discuss ways to drive down your costs give me a call.

First thing I would do is completely skip the P & K apps for 2022, likely you have too much P and not nearly enough Ca or S if yields are at that level. It depends on what program your fert supplier has you on, but that is the normal outcome over the years.  What is your average Organic Matter on a 1 acre grid basis? It drives the variable N rate application and thus the amount actually needed. Also a good indicator or pH normally. 

IF your cost is too high due to large land payments, might use this land price spike to rationalize the balance sheet a touch and sell a small piece, or sell off a house lot to make the payment for a few years. 10 acre lots around us are worth about $22,000 an acre right now. 

[BA Deere]

Dave Hula says for top yields you need "God`s grace, John Deere machinery and Pioneer corn"   🙂 

[rsbs]

Illinois, maybe you should post your cost budget and let guys like hobbyfarmer look at what you are spending and get some free advice.

No way you should not be making money right now.

[Hobbyfarmer]

really sorry to see a post like Ill's.

Rsbs is right about making money in this environment.

It's all about profit per acre and cost control.

Everybody has something to sell you that costs money BUT according to them will pay off. Yea right.

If most or all is rented at top of the line rent, that is a major hurdle.

Some problems can't be fixed, can only be eliminated.

Majority of beans were sold at the $10 @ the farm level. 

Lots of corn got sold with a $4 as first #

That makes an ocean of difference between the ones with sales in the six dollar + corn and the fifteen dollar + beans area. 

I didn't see this coming. But my blunder around marketing system did pay a nice dividend inspite of what all the experts advised.

Time might be your best help. Might be a big help to me on the fert side.

I'm one of those old geezers from the old school of hard knocks.

Nothing around here other than a monthly electricity and phone bill, real estate taxes, and insurance.

My point of view is way different than most. 

Very hard to not trip over a taxable event.

[timetippingpt]

A lot could be said, and most of it might offend Illini....that is why I was suggesting he call privately. Everyone's past greatly affects their present, and lots of time we had no control over our past. Point being is there is help available from a lot of places and asking is simply strength, not weakness.

Other ideas, drive a school bus, around it here they $22/hour plus health care for a 5 hour a day job, with a few weeks off. 

Need an equity infusion, or deep pocketed partner, call Blue Diamond Farms. Why even we mere Purdue grads might be interested in another joint venture 🙂

Basically Dave Hula is just an environmental nightmare. Enough stuff leaching off his farm to kill the Bay all on his own. No one even monitors discharge in these high yield science experiments. He got the first part right, God is in control. After that he is just lost in the wilderness. John Deere is way over priced vs. performance. Pioneer is a company that has died 3 times already. If he would have said Stine short stature genetics bought from Wyffels, I could have an open mind on the issue.

[sw363535]

two of the finest posts I have read in a long time.  not vengeful and on point.

Land rent is a pendulum that swings between production and real estate value.  The last few years land sales prices have driven rents up.  It will need to reconnect with production profits at some point and the renter shoulders all the responsibility for that once the original homesteaders have died.

Fertilizer ---- this cost must be controled.  Even if the grain price rises-- it will be a year or 2 before the producer cashes that check.  Hobby is delivering in august 21 to the market we all woke up to in Sept 2020.  Nearly a 12 month wait.... for the forward seller it is closer to 2 years.  I have cut fertilizer applications at least 4 times in my life by 50% and production did not reflect it.  If it was a 3 year process then we might see bu/a lower some.  Most all over fertilize some annually.(my low organic matter sandy soil does not store nutrient like the black corn belt--- I wonder how many years some of those dark soils could go on their reserves.)

Technology ---- makes up a high % of equipment and seed costs.  A few nice features, but a lot of blue sky or unproven costs(drought tolerance being the expense of the day).  Outside of gps, hydraulics in the late 50's, hybrid seed, Roundup technology of the 1970's,------ we have paid for a lot of stuff that have made manufacturers and chemical companies rich far beyond production benefits.  The robotics cost implied in new green prices is big.  It is necessary evil but I find it hard to justify a new combine on any farm as an expense----price is just too high.

beyond that Labor is the next big expense.... that can usually be improved.  Most really good farmers find themselves shuffling paper and hiring someone else to farm-- simple question is "who adjusts the deck plates?"  If that is the least proficient of personnel, what good was it to spend that much for a combine.

[BA Deere]

I`ve never met Illfarmer, I do know he`s guilty of the sin of liberalism, however I can`t judge the profitability of someone who i`ve never walked a mile in their moccasins.   I was born on 3rd base, now I`m on 2nd and the shortstop might chase me back to first, so who am I to judge?   🙂    And a lot of us can be drama queens on social media, some of us don`t want to admit how blessed we really are.

Dave Hula farms some what we`d call crappy ground, he said "you guys call 160 bushel corn a disaster, where I farm a disaster is when we get nothing"    Touché David.    But his contest ground is just a fraction of his operation and it`s so sandy that he has to spoon feed his crop a lot through irrigation or it would leech into the bay and he`d go broke.  David`s real advantage is the climate that he`s in ....when he doesn`t get a hurricane.  

We can learn from the uber high yield farmers.  Look at fungicides a few years ago with the soybean rust scare, we were saying "oh crap another expense and trip over the field!"  But now BASF brainwashed us into fungiciding everything, chasing those last elusive 20 bushel of yield even though the nearest rust danger is 4,000 miles away.  

[rsbs]

some points on dry fertilizer.....a farm management operation in southern mn did a long term study on soil fertility and yields, and they took one area for a test, and stopped applying fertilizer. Over a 20 year period, the tests steadily declined, but the yields were the same as the controls. So if you are in a pinch, you can dramatically cut rates, at least for corn production. Corn has an ability to "mine" the soils.

This is something the "fly by night" BTO's with high cash rents understand and utilize. So landowners, make sure you have a fertility clause in your leases if you are concerned about the future of your farms.

Myself, I bought a farm that had been mined for years...first by the farmer that went bankrupt, and next by the tenant that was nearly bankrupt. The P test was down to single digits...some at 2, 4, 5....and was still producing corn crops but terrible bean crops. I put on about 800 lbs of P and K for a few years to get the tests back up to the 20-30 P range and 120-150 K range. Bought the farm cheap enough that I could afford to do that.