AIR FEBRUARY 3, 1999

Thank you Mark and good morning everyone. It certainly was great to wake up yesterday morning and actually watch the sun come up in a cloudless sky. I think seeing the sun improved everybody’s disposition about 1000%! It seems like year in and year out the one consistent thing I hear from farmers and ranchers both is that they could sure do a better job of marketing. To help with that there is going to be a four session marketing series for novices covering basis, introduction to hedging with futures and options and strategies for selling commodities with options. This is going to be held in Manhattan at the Riley County Extension Office meeting room starting at 7 p.m. on the evenings of Feb. 10 & 17 and March 10 & 17. Mike Christian, Riley county ag agent and myself will be teaching it. There’s no cost, it is limited to 25 people and you can ride over with me. Call the Extension Office at 238-4161 to register. Also, remember our Estate Planning workshop on February 15th, 9 to 3. Call the office to register today!

I saw some really interesting figures come out about wheat planting last fall. The state was down 7% in acres over the prior year and in NE and EC Kansas those numbers were down 20 to 23%. I’m sure some of this is adjusting to different crops, but some of it is bound to be related to the wet weather preventing planting this fall. I’ve had a few people asking about oats planting and if you didn’t get wheat planted, oats would probably be a fair option on some of those acres. One of the problems with oats is always finding good seed and then what variety to go looking for. Based on the 1997 test results, as there was no test in 98, it looks like there are a few good varieties to go looking for. A couple of the old standbys, Larry and Starter should really be avoided if at all possible. They are consistently towards the bottom of every test anymore so there are better varieties out there. I would go looking for Brawn, Bates, Gem Prairie, Ogle, Don and Armour based on yield. If you want good test weight then look at Premier, Bates and Don. Make sure you plant 1.5 to 2.5 bushels per acre, get them in the ground between the 25th of February and the 15th of March and then get a good starter fertilizer applied and follow up with enough nitrogen to total 60 pounds, that’s starter plus topdress. And as always, call me if you have questions!

This is Chuck Otte, County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook ’99.

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