Air January 5, 2000

Thank you Mark, good morning everyone and Happy New Year! Snow on Monday was a good reminder that this is Kansas and it is winter. I sat in my office Monday morning working on New Year’s activities and listened to all that scanner traffic with accident after. Remember that with the first bit of any kind of winter precipitation you will start to lose optimum control of your vehicle and you will need to start adjusting your speed. With the front wheel drive vehicles of today it is much easier to get started when the roads are snowy and slick. Unfortunately it still takes the same amount of time to stop and turn. If there’s snow on the road and you’re still driving like you do when the roads are clear, I hope I’m safe in my home or office!

It’s a new year, and that’s all, and like any January, we’ve got meetings coming up. A week from tomorrow night, January 13th, starting at 7:30 p.m. at the 4-H/Sr. Citizens Building we’ll have a couple of K-State specialists talking about cowherd nutrition, forages and economics. Both of these speakers are interesting and well versed. In addition we’re going to have some real numbers from several dozen forages samples that were analyzed recently. If you’ve got cows and you feed them forages, just plan to be at this meeting. The next local meeting of interest is on Monday, January 24th. We’re hosting an in-depth corn school at the 4-H/Sr. Citizens Building. This is the full load. We’ve got an entomologist, we’ve got a plant pathologist (remember all that gray leaf spot and corn leaf rust last year?) We’ve got three agronomists to address things like variety selection, fertility, plant rates. Speaking of planting rates you’re going to see data that indicates if you’re dropping less than about 24,000 seeds per acre, you’re way under planting. As hard as it is for me to swallow, these guys just may be right on this one. I’ve seen the numbers and they are quite engaging! One of the problems with this meeting is that it does overlap a little with the No-Till on the Plains two day program. Most of the Salina meeting will be later on the 24th and all day on the 25th so this shouldn’t be too big of a problem. The evening of the 25th is also a Cow Health Management meeting in Clay Center starting at 7 p.m., let me know if you need a ride.

And Mark, in response to a question that you were mulling over several weeks ago, This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2000.

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