Air September 24, 2003

Thank you Gary, and good morning everyone. It is hard to believe that a week from today is October 1st. Fall is now upon us and the ag scene is going to get pretty hectic pretty fast now. Let's hit a as many topics as we can this morning!

A lot of milo is just now shooting heads or still hasn't, and it isn't going to make grain. Don't let it go to waste! You can either swath those fields now and bale them up or you can wait until after a good hard freeze and then graze them down. What about nitrates and prussic acid? The harvesting process will eliminate most if not all of the prussic acid as well a hard freeze that actually kills the plant. Nitrates have always got to be a concern when you have a sorghum plant involved. Fortunately, the recent rains have stimulated a whole lot of new growth in the sorghum and a lot of the potential nitrate problems should be taken care of with this new growth. We currently have a couple of samples at the lab for nitrate testing and I'm sure that when those come back we'll see that nitrate levels are fairly low. A lot of folks have a great stand of volunteer wheat coming on right now and want to use that as forage. All the wheat streak mosaic problems aside, that's a good use for that volunteer, just try to get cattle on it as soon as it is well established. If you have volunteer wheat growing and don't intend to graze it - do everyone a favor and get it sprayed or worked down and killed. We've got a lot of cattle coming off grass. Some folks are trying to decide whether to sell them or retain ownership. Several years ago a long term study was done of cow calf producers and opportunities for profit. The bottom line was that in virtually every year the calves could have been sold at some point along the way for a profit. The first time that opportunity comes along, take it - you may not got another chance. Markets have been strong and I would take advantage of this profit opportunity. With the price that heifers are bringing, and the probable shortage of grass next year in pastures you may not want to start building your herd back up with these high price heifers. Prices will fall sometime and then it will be cheaper, if you will, to build you herd back up! It's like Yogi Berra said, when you come to that fork in the road, take it!

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2003.

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