Air March 10, 2004

Thank you Gary, and good morning everyone.

Some very good rains last week made things a little muddy, but finally gave us a little runoff. Let's hope it doesn't forget how to do this! The Farm Profit Wake Up Seminar is next Wednesday morning at the 4-H/Sr Citizens Building. It is free, but you need a ticket. You can get tickets at the Extension Office, Orscheln Farm and Home, JC Livestock Sales, Geary Grain, Geary County Farm Bureau or Central National Bank. Hope to see you there!! A few weeks further on out we have a notill planter and drill demonstration on March 30th in Riley county. I won't try to give you directions just yet, but it'll be northwest of Manhattan just off highway 24. There's a free lunch with this one, but you need to pre-register, which you can do with my office!

Last Friday was Cattleman's Day. It was cloudy, windy, muddy and there was a great turnout. There was an outstanding cadre of speakers covering a whole host of topics from electronic animal ID to research results of the past year to Mad Cow. The pleasant surprise to me was the overall upbeat attitude that everyone had. In spite of the severe hit on cattle prices with the single case of BSE in December, markets are recovering nicely and I think we'll be okay in the long run. And recent rains certainly have everyone optimistic about having water and grass in ponds. So what about burning pastures in 2004, should you or shouldn't you? Well, the first question is do you have enough fuel to even carry a fire? If not, then that shuts the door on that question pretty quick. Once we get beyond that question, then comes the next question of do you have a need. If you don't have a lot of cedars or brush you are working to control AND you are running cow calf pairs, then you probably don't have an overwhelming need to burn. But if you have the fuel and you have the need, we can move on to the next question of are the conditions right? We normally like to have a pretty good soil profile of moisture and wet soil surface conditions. And while we are still several weeks off from when most of you will burn, I think we do have the last two. But in the meantime, it would be a good idea to get out to your pastures, check them over for condition and maybe spray a few musk thistles that are growing nicely right now!

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

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