Air January 17, 2001

Thank you Mark, and good morning everyone. A quick update this morning on upcoming meetings. Call me at the Extension Office if you need more details. An estate planning workshop in Washington on the 22nd. No Till on the Plains in Salina the 22nd and 23rd, Narrow Row Crop management in Marysville on the 5th and Revenue Management in Leornardville on the 12. The meeting in Leonardville on revenue management is sort of paired up with the meeting we’re having in Junction City on the 6th of March talking about controlling crop production costs for increased profitability. The timing on these two meetings couldn’t have come at a better time. Plan to make both of them - I’ll be getting a lot more information out to you in the near future.

I know a lot of producers are going to be looking long and hard at their crop input costs this coming year. County soybean acres have nearly quadrupled over the past 15 years. Even with last year’s less than stellar soybean yields, it looks like few producers are going to be backing off any. With the price of nitrogen fertilizer going up, you may be looking at even more acres of soybeans. But you need to make these decisions after spending time with the pencil and paper (or computer spreadsheet if you prefer) to see how everything works in the rotation. The notion of not having to buy nitrogen fertilizer may sound good on the short term cash flow. But how about in the long term. If you get 40 bushel beans I’m sure you’ll be okay, but what if we have a repeat of 2000 and you harvest 10 bushel beans. And even if you get that 40 bushel yield, are you sure you can market them? Maintaining a good balance of crops in your rotation has a lot of merit. Evaluate each and every input cost. Don’t just do something because you’ve always done it that way, and don’t just cut an input that you think is too expensive. To every action there is a benefit and a cost. With the rising nitrogen fertilizer prices, you are also probably going to see the fertilizer substitutes becoming very visible again. Another word for these "alternative" products is snake oil. DO NOT spend a dime on any of these alternative sources until you visit with me. Most of them are just what I said, snake oil. And you can throw a lot of money into the wind in a hurry if you buy them!

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

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