It`s all relative

[BA Deere]

If you go down highway 63 enroute to Waterloo the crops look fantastic, on the way back on highway 218 brown spots dry ears hanging down.  I`m generally against windshield crop tours, but brown husk drooping ears on August 23rd ....I`ll go out on a limb.   Same can be said east/west for I-90 and highway 9 , looks "good" on I-90.  While many areas on highway 9 are burnt up.  Then you go further north on highway 14 and they had rain.

David Kruse said ProFarmer`s route is a sweet route and it is and they admit it and that is fine to ground truth USDA that there are in fact some good out there.   But Profarmer shouldn`t be using their numbers to guess a final production or even a national yield.  They only have cherry parts of 7 states, I mean they shouldn`t have their cake and eat it too.

I always see Kluenders Kountry Kafe where Brian Grete ordered chicken fried steak and a piece of homemade pie.  If Brian was sampling around New Hampton, yeah no doubt he`s thinking "Where`s the dry stuff I been hearin` about?"  Well, sample 20 miles west, around Waverly, Iowa (not Tennessee)  and say "Oh, this is what they were talkin` about".

[erikjohnson61y]

In South Dakota, we are quickly getting rid of the poor looking corn. Soon all you'll see are nice green stalks in the good areas. The rest will be in the silage pile! It's still early enough that I can 't tell how much more than normal will be cut for feed, but the scuttlebutt is that guys are worried about the longevity of the drought that is now a year old here, and are going to do all they can to conserve hay in case it's still dry again next year. Less than a half inch of rain here since our last good rain on July 17, but the weather guessers say 70% chance on Thursday. Of course, the last two times they said 70-80% chance of 3/4 to an inch, we actually got .05" or less, so I'm not holding my breath. 

[BA Deere]

Erik, I think those that want to stay in the cattle business should prepare for this being the first of maybe a couple more years.  Kind of consider pastures as "one big dry lot" and figure on feeding silage into the summer of next year.

[RJG640v8]

Started today.  Taking all the end rows, field edges and then in and about taking any and all puckered up knolls first.

Processor does a super job

Waiting my turn

[sw363535]

thanks for those two pictures.

sw

[wrightcattle]

It's one thing to turn say $4.50 corn into $7.20 feeding cattle...like 2020 thru 21. 

It's quite another turning 6.50 corn into $6.50 or maybe $7.20 corn feeding cattle. 

Good luck. 

[RJG640v8]

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@wrightcattle wrote:

It's one thing to turn say $4.50 corn into $7.20 feeding cattle...like 2020 thru 21. 

It's quite another turning 6.50 corn into $6.50 or maybe $7.20 corn feeding cattle. 

Good luck. 

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I'm a cattle / meat producer first and foremost.

It's all about nutritional density. Corn Silage produces at over 3 times what hay does per acre. Works out nutritionally to about a 1.5  times advantage after adding needed additional protein to balance the diet. I get an economical  ProMin mix from my feed company as well as sourcing additional protein watching some of the other feedstuffs that are available.  Last fall locked in tons of Canola at a very good price... Working on sourcing for fall of 2022 now, 2022/2023 look to be a tougher years to source protein... Maybe I'll make more Haylage next summer...