For Release December 29, 1998

End of Year Office Clean Out

AGRI-VIEWS
by Chuck Otte, County Extension Agent

I’m not sure what you would call it, but when the last half of December rolls around I just have this overwhelming urge to get my desk and office cleaned up. Maybe I just want to start a new year without items leftover from last year. Maybe I just want to see my office clean one day of the year. Maybe it’s still a holdover from the guilt I always felt about my own office when I’d go into my college advisor’s office and his entire office was always immaculate and organized to a T. Whatever the reason, I’m cleaning up and putting "leftovers" into my year end column.

Several popular seasonal bulletins have arrived in the office the past couple of weeks. Although you may not want to think about it we’re heading into tax season. We just received a new shipment of farm account books so we’re ready for either your 1999 or 1998 records, whichever way you work your farm records. Hand in hand with that we also have the 1998 Farmers Tax Guide. By the way, did you know that most of the IRS publications and forms can be found on their World Wide Web site? You can get to their home page at http://www.irs.gov or you can go directly to their forms and pub page at http://www.irs.ustreas.gov/prod/forms_pubs/index.html.

Other bulletins are trickling in, as they always do this time of year. The first of the annual crop variety performance test bulletins arrived just before Christmas, grain sorghum. Corn and soybeans should not be far behind. The 1999 Chemical Weed Control Guide should be out any day now. And with the upcoming drop dead date for changing agricultural leases (30 days prior to March 1), we have a supply of the Kansas Farm Lease Law bulletin and lots of copies of various ag lease forms and explanatory booklets.

All of these new bulletins, as well as many of the popular older bulletins, can also be found on the World Wide Web. K-State Research and Extension’s home page is found at http://www.oznet.ksu.edu. You can go straight to the publications page at http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/library/. I should point out that all of these bulletins, as well as those at the IRS’s home page, are in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document File (PDF) format. The software to read these (Adobe Acrobat Reader 3.0) is available free from the company on their web page. Go to http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html and follow the instructions. While you’re out on the web, be sure to stop by the Geary County Extension Office’s home page at http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/geary. If you want to have 26,000+ pages of these bulletins at your fingertips we do have a CD-ROM available for $20. Contact our office for details.

A new ag newsletter has just been mailed out. If you didn’t get it, or you haven’t been getting one, call up and make sure you’re still on the mailing list. We periodically have to clean up our mailing list, and if you don’t respond to our notice, your name may get deleted. If you aren’t getting the ag newsletter, call in and request to be added to the list!

I’ll be having a fruit tree pruning demonstration in late February or early March and I’m looking for someplace to hold it. I need a cooperating landowner in Junction City, Milford or Grandview Plaza (or close by) with at least one apple and one peach tree that’s in need of pruning, preferably a dwarf or semi-dwarf, who wouldn’t mind having their yard invaded by other homeowners. Give me a call so I can make a visit and inspect the site. I promise not to ridicule you, the trees or the care (lack thereof) that these trees have been receiving!

One final thing, we’ve got another long holiday weekend coming up and the long range forecast may be a little wetter than this past weekend. Please drive safely and soberly when you’re out celebrating over the holiday. Happy New Year everyone!

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