Air November 22 - 28, 2006

What Nutrients Do I Test For?

This is Ag Outlook 2006 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. I am real pleased with the number of forage samples that have been brought in this fall to send off to the lab for testing. And while many of you are mainly interested in testing for nitrates, I have also encouraged nutritional testing as well. So what do you test for and what do those figures mean. For nitrates, you will usually receive a sheet with some interpretation, but in most cases the results will come back as parts per million of nitrate nitrogen. Under 4500 is going to be safe, over 4500 we need to proceed with caution and over 18,000 ppm we probably need to not feed. For those forages in the middle range, we probably need to mix with other feeds, but keep in mind, that the bacteria in the rumen of the cattle can change and adapt as the season goes along allowing the cattle to eat higher and higher levels of nitrate without adverse effects. But we can visit on that after your results come back. As for the other nutritional factors to test, it all depends on the type of forage. For sorghums and grass hays, I usually just have them check moisture, crude protein and acid detergent fiber. From this then they will also calculate total digestible nutrients and net energy. Crude protein is just what it sounds like, moisture is needed to convert everything to a dry matter basis and acid detergent fiber, ADF, simply is a measure of how digestible the forage is, lower is better. As ADF goes down, total digestible nutrients, TDN will go up. IF you are testing alfalfa I'd also recommend getting relative feed value, but mainly, let's just make sure we're testing the forages.

This has been Ag Outlook 2006 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

Should I Change My Production Method?

This is Ag Outlook 2006 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. One of the growing trends in virtually any production program is what they call niche marketing. And the beef industry is no different. Every time you pick up one of the farm trade magazines, they have an article about a farmer who has started producing organic or natural beef, or maybe direct marketing of their cattle as finished meat products. So it's natural for a producer to wonder if they shouldn't be doing this. I advise producers not to treat this any different than any other major change in their operation. Before you do a thing, spend a lot of time researching it. And the place you need to start is not at the production end, but at the marketing end. I have no doubt that any cattle producer in Kansas could produce organic or natural beef. That's not the question. The question is can you sell it for enough of a profit to justify the cost of switching over. Just because you produce it doesn't mean that you can sell it. Research what it would take to produce organic or natural - there is a difference between the two, and then where would you sell it. Or, if you want to sell retail cuts of beef or even quarters and sides, can you do it? These kind of specialty markets are not for everyone. If you are going into direct sales to customers, you need inspected facilities to process, package, store and sell. And that's the easy part. Then you have to advertise, man the store and deal with customers. Most people find that producing and processing aren't a problem. But dealing with the customers can try anyone's patience. So if you are thinking about a major change in your production operation, come on in to the office and let's spend some time talking! This has been Ag Outlook 2006 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte.

Happy Thanksgiving

This is Ag Outlook 2006 on 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. Well, here we are at another Thanksgiving. Like so many of our holidays, a lot of the celebration will revolve around one of my favorite topics, FOOD. Every year at this time I find that I always think back to what it must have been like at that first Thanksgiving gathering. It wasn't probably held on a Thursday, that would have been another work day. It was probably held on a Sunday because that would have been a day of rest for the pilgrims. The foods that the Pilgrims shared with the native tribal members that they ate with I'm sure was no where near as fancy as what you and I are going to sit down to. I'm sure that there might have been wild turkey and probably other wild game as well and maybe even some fish. Corn was probably involved as well as potatoes, sweet potatoes perhaps, but definitely squash or pumpkins of some kind. Afterwards there wasn't a football game to watch and probably not even a nap to take. I could see the men sitting around and talking while the women cleaned up whole event while visiting also. In that aspect, maybe things are the same today. But the one thing that I'll bet was far different, is the amount of thankfulness that the Pilgrims displayed. They were happy just to be alive and to have had a meal. They weren't worried about heading out the next day to hit the big Christmas sales, they probably were worried about getting the work done and hoping they had enough food to get through the winter. So why don't we all do our part and uphold the true reason for the Thanksgiving holiday and all take a little time to give thanks in our own way for all that we too have been blessed with. This has been Ag Outlook 2006 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I'm Chuck Otte, Happy Thanksgiving!

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