Resolution tips for farmers to start the new year right

By Heather Meade
hmeade@dailyadvocate.com

DARKE COUNTY — New Year’s res­o­lu­tions aren’t just for those who are over­weight, seden­tary or strug­gling to break a bad habit. Farm­ers can resolve to avoid poor man­age­ment prac­tices or imple­ment bet­ter pro­duc­tion tech­niques in 2013.
Steve Leer, com­mu­ni­ca­tions consultant/senior writer for Pur­due University’s AgComm news and pub­lic affairs and pub­lish­ing units, col­lected farmer res­o­lu­tions from Pur­due Uni­ver­sity crop, live­stock and agri­cul­tural eco­nom­ics spe­cial­ists.
Accord­ing to Bob Nielsen, exten­sion corn spe­cial­ist, farm­ers should resolve to improve hybrid decision-making.
“Look for hybrids that not only have high yield poten­tial but also a demon­strated abil­ity to con­sis­tently achieve that poten­tial across a wide range of grow­ing con­di­tions, because you can­not pre­dict what 2013 will bring in terms of weather,” stated Nielsen.
Nielsen also said farm­ers should resolve to spend more time in the fields with the crops, as “this will help you bet­ter iden­tify the yield influ­enc­ing fac­tors most impor­tant to your farm­ing oper­a­tion. Then work with your advisor(s) to develop strate­gies to begin man­ag­ing those fac­tors.”
The third res­o­lu­tion is to work toward improv­ing the over­all effi­ciency of your nitro­gen man­age­ment pro­gram.
“Take steps to reduce the risks of N loss, such as leach­ing, den­i­tri­fi­ca­tion and volatiliza­tion,” Nielsen com­mented.
Shaun Cas­teel, exten­sion soy­bean spe­cial­ist, said farm­ers should resolve to read the vari­ety tag.
“Seed size varies from year to year. The drought con­di­tions — tim­ing and dura­tion — have impacted seed size — small and large — ger­mi­na­tion and vigor. Your planter set­tings and seed­ing rates need to be adjusted accord­ingly,” Cas­teel explained.
Farm­ers should resolve to take stand counts: “Plant pop­u­la­tions of 100,000 to 120,000 plants per acre opti­mize return in invest­ment. Early sea­son stand counts pro­vide the oppor­tu­nity to ver­ify your seed­ing rates and emer­gence poten­tial. You will also be scout­ing the field for pres­sures of weeds and pests,” com­mented Cas­teel.
They should also resolve to har­vest grain above 13 per­cent mois­ture.
“We are los­ing out on a por­tion of our yield when we har­vest below 13 per­cent. Note that this might mean hav­ing to set the com­bine mul­ti­ple times based on the tough­ness of the stem and ease of pod thresh­ing. You will gain yield in water weight and reduce the losses due to dry grain and header loss,” Cas­teel stated.
Accord­ing to Keith John­son, exten­sion for­age spe­cial­ist, it’s impor­tant to sam­ple soils for nutri­ent lev­els.
“Fol­low through with the addi­tion of lime­stone and fer­til­izer rec­om­mended by the test. The appli­ca­tion of a blended fer­til­izer like 12–12-12 and call­ing this your fer­til­izer pro­gram is not a wise deci­sion,” John­son explained.
Farm­ers should also scout fields weekly to deter­mine the well being of the grow­ing for­ages. They should eval­u­ate graz­ing pres­sure, pres­ence of pests, includ­ing weeds, insects and dis­ease, and pos­si­ble nutri­ent defi­ciency symp­toms, John­son stated.
Farm­ers could resolve to eval­u­ate the pos­si­bil­ity of graz­ing corn residues in the early fall, which could reduce feed cost sub­stan­tially for beef and sheep pro­duc­ers, said John­son.
Ron Leme­nager, exten­sion beef spe­cial­ist, sug­gested farm­ers resolve to take feed sam­ples and have them ana­lyzed for nutri­ent con­tent by work­ing with a nutri­tion­ist to for­mu­late rations that will min­i­mize cost and opti­mize per­for­mance. Another pos­si­ble res­o­lu­tion is to adjust rations for cold stress, to min­i­mize losses in weight and body con­di­tion.
“For each 10-degree drop in wind chill fac­tor below 30 degrees, the main­te­nance energy require­ments increase by 13 per­cent for cows in mod­er­ate body con­di­tioned with a dry, win­ter hair coat and 30 per­cent for thin cows or cows with a wet or sum­mer hair coat,” Leme­nager said.
Farm­ers could also cre­ate a busi­ness plan of where they want to go and how they plan to get there, Leme­nager said.
“It can help not only when you go to the bank for a loan, but also when the IRS does an audit,” he fin­ished.
Hog farm­ers could resolve to closely mon­i­tor feed­ing pro­grams, since feed is 70 per­cent of swine costs, said Brian Richert, exten­sion swine spe­cial­ist.
“This includes stick­ing to your feed bud­gets, being vig­i­lant in your feeder adjust­ments, mon­i­tor­ing your feed par­ti­cle size and ana­lyz­ing your feed ingre­di­ents. Ana­lyz­ing your feed ingre­di­ents is crit­i­cal when you feed more byprod­ucts with their increased vari­abil­ity, and with a bad grow­ing sea­son this year even our corn and soy­bean meal needs to be ana­lyzed,” Richert com­mented.
Farm­ers could resolve to col­lect and use records. They should be culling the lowest-producing females, mon­i­tor­ing drug use, con­duct­ing timely euthana­sia and eval­u­at­ing all costs across all phases of pro­duc­tion, said Richert.
Swine farm­ers could re-evaluate vac­ci­na­tion and med­ica­tion plans by meet­ing with their herd vet­eri­nar­ian to ensure they are meet­ing the herd’s health needs, Richert com­mented.
Accord­ing to Chris Hurt, exten­sion agri­cul­tural econ­o­mist, farm­ers could also resolve to never say, “It can’t hap­pen to me.”
“The 2012 drought was a stark reminder that bad out­comes can come to our farms and busi­nesses. Eval­u­ate and use the tools to help reduce the ter­ri­ble finan­cial con­se­quences that can come from bad out­comes. Start with a re-evaluation of crop insur­ance alter­na­tives,” Hurt stated.
Another res­o­lu­tion farm­ers could make would be to des­ig­nate 2013 as a learn­ing year, he said.
“New tech­nol­ogy is com­ing at us quickly. There will be a new farm bill to learn about. Tax laws will likely change. New farm prod­ucts are emerg­ing. Brand new oppor­tu­ni­ties will be pre­sent­ing them­selves. Be sure to com­mit time to increas­ing your knowl­edge and to the improve­ment of your decision-making skills,” Hurt remarked.
Hurt also said farm­ers should resolve to review their family’s suc­ces­sion plan and update their estate plan.
“Even if you have a great plan, remem­ber the laws are chang­ing. At the very least, learn about those changes and how they affect your plan. If you don’t have a plan, the new laws will give you a great rea­son to get started,” Hurt com­mented.
Other crop and live­stock man­age­ment tips are avail­able at Purdue’s Agri­cul­tural Pro­duc­ers infor­ma­tion page, ag.purdue.edu/pages/producers-index.aspx. The Ohio State Uni­ver­sity and Pur­due Uni­ver­sity part­ner in exten­sion to bring cur­rent agri­cul­ture research to the com­mu­ni­ties in our states.
For more detailed infor­ma­tion, visit the Darke County OSU Exten­sion web­site at www.darke.osu.edu, the OSU Exten­sion Darke County Face­book page or con­tact Sam Custer, at 937–548-5215.

Heather Meade is a staff writer at The Daily Advo­cate in Greenville.

Posted by Ashley Fritz on Jan 2 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.