Air January 14, 2004

Thank you Gary, and good morning everyone.

A quick reminder of the pasture lease meeting, Thursday night January 22 at the 4-H/Sr. Citizens Building starting at 7 p.m. No charge and plan on a great meeting. If you rent your pastures out or if you lease someone else's pastures, you need to come to this meeting. Ag Economist Brad Lubben and I are going to spend a lot of time talking about lease law and stocking rates and rental rates. This stuff isn't rocket science, but there's a lot of misunderstandings out there and we need to stop some of it! Plan to attend and again that is Thursday January 22nd, a week from tomorrow night. I also need to throw a plug in for the Wind Energy meeting that's going to be next Tuesday, 9 to 3 in Manhattan at the Riley County Fairgrounds - give me a call if you need more information.

Since everyone is probably tired of hearing about mad cow disease, I think I'll stick with the ag land leasing theme. I receive a lot of questions about leases every year. And questions about leases that you may have never even thought of. Sticking with pastures, what about controlling noxious weeds? Is it the responsibility of the landlord or the tenant to control noxious weeds? The Kansas statutes are really precise on this one. It is the responsibility of the party that either owns the land or supervises its use that has the duty to control noxious weeds. Since the renter is granted, by Kansas law, exclusive supervision of the land during the term of the lease, it first comes to the responsibility of the renter. HOWEVER, if the tenant does not control the noxious weeds and the county steps in to do the job, the lien will be filed against the property and the landlord will have to pay that cost. So if I was renting my land I would make sure that it was in the lease that the tenant controls noxious weeds. How about brush control in pastures? Here the law is silent. Since they don't HAVE to be controlled by law, it comes down to what th elandlord and tenant can agree upon, the same with keeping up fences. The law of tresspassing livestock says it is the responsibility of the livestock owner to fence in the cattle - period. However, to my thinking, it would behoove the landlord and the tenant to come to terms whereby both parties can actively participate in the control of brush and upkeep of the fences. Communication will always be the key in all successful long term leases.

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2004.

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