Air May 9, 2001

Thank you Mark, and good morning everyone. I can not believe our recent good fortune. Good rains, then about 10 to 12 days of dry weather so we can get some field work done and then some more good rains. I don’t know if I can stand all this prosperity. Let’s keep thinking positive thoughts and avoid the negative memories of last year.

As promised last week, more about the bluestem pasture rental report. The report came out about ten days ago and many of you may have seen it already. Several things jumped right out at me in this years report. First of all, there were virtually no changes in rates. For mid weight steers and heifers prices were up a dollar or two, for cows and lighter steers prices were down. For what it’s worth, the per acre basis didn’t change, but I’m coming of the mind that we need to forget that, and just go on a per head basis. That makes it a little fairer for the cattle owner and the land owner can adjust stocking rates without putting a big hit on the cattle owner. Cows with spring calves listed at $104.10 for the pair for the season. A few comments about the season - the average starting date seems to be about the first of May in this end of the flint hills and the average end date is reported as October 17th. We need to keep that end date flexible. I think we all saw last year that cattle stayed in many pastures entirely too long. For standard grass cattle we were in the $63 to $65.50 per head range for season long stocking. For early intensive stocking we are looking at $52.60 to $53.40 per head. What interested me as much as anything in this year’s report was the acreage gurantees or stocking rate. They all went up, which is obviously a reflection of the poor condition earlier in the year. The ironic thing is that they probably went up to where I think they should be in a normal year. For standard grass cattle, the numbers increased to 3.9 to 4.0 acres per head. The really big jump occurred with cow/calf pairs. Last year a cow with spring calf was guaranteed 7.1 acres. This year that jumped to 8.8 acres, and I’ll just say that I think it should stay there! Looking briefly at just the northern tier of the Flint Hills, the average for a cow calf pair was slightly higher at $105.20. The range for cows with spring calves was from $85 to $125. If you are paying or receiving something outside of this range - you may want to give me a call!

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2001.

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