PARP and Breeders and Feeders Banquet Information

Greetings Boone County!

There's some decent content on this blog which I hate to lose so rather than start an entirely new blog now that I've moved to Boone County I decided to just change the title even though the web address still has Clinton County in it. If, after a while, I find this doesn't work, particularly with searches, I may have to start from scratch but I'll go with this for the time being.

There are two upcoming events you may be interested in:

Ag Outlook and Pesticide Applicator Training Program

On Monday, February 24 we'll be having an Ag Outlook and Pesticide Applicator Recertification Program at the Farm Bureau Community Building at the Boone County Fairgrounds in Lebanon. The schedule for the day is as follows:

10:00 a.m. - 12:00 Noon - Ag Outlook with Purdue Ag Economist Chris Hurt
Noon - 12:45 p.m. - Lunch
12:45 p.m. - 1:45 p.m. - Palmer Amaranth Strategies with Purdue Weed Scientist Bill Johnson
1:45 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. - Insect Control Update with Purdue Entomologist Chriatian Krupke
2:30 - 3:00 p.m. - Reducing Pesticide Drift with Curt Emanuel, Boone County Extension


As usual, there will be a $10 fee for those receiving Pesticide credit. CCH's have been approved for Commercial Applicators.

I'll be sending out a letter with more details, including registration information, to all Boone County Private Applicators. Call the Boone County Extension Service at 765-482-0750 by Friday, February 14 if you plan on having lunch.



Breeders and Feeders Fish Fry and Awards Banquet

The Boone County Breeders and Feeders annual Fish Fry and Awards banquet will be held on Thursday, March 6 at the Witham Health Services Pavilion at the Boone County Fairgrounds. Tickets are available at the Extension Office or from Breeders and Feeders Directors. The cost is $7.50 for adults and $4 for children.

The Purdueettes will be the entertainment for the evening.

I'll have additional information on the banquet as we get closer.

Hogs and Corn Price Recovery

Chris Hurt has published an article in the University of Illinois' Farm Doc Daily discussing the prospects for future hog expansion in response to the reduced corn prices which I found very interesting. There are some negatives which may impact the industry's ability to increase the breeding herd, particularly whether porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDv) becomes widespread. In virgin herds this disease has been devastating to young pigs and could result in a delay in national swine herd growth. However the article is positive for long-term corn price recovery.

The same market factors which will influence swine numbers should result in an increase in the cattle herd though it will take longer for this to have an impact on corn prices. A link to Chris's article is below.

Hogs Provide Near $7 per Bushel Corn Value

Indiana Farm Management Tour Summary

We had what I think was an excellent Indiana Farm Management Tour June 26 and 27. Of course I've never put one on before so I don't have much of a basis for comparison but all of the comments I've received have been positive (though I imagine people who hated it decided to keep their thoughts to themselves). We managed to keep things pretty much on time, the weather cooperated and most importantly, I think we had five very good host farms who had a fair level of diversity in how they go about their business and were able to communicate some of what they do and why they do it to the audience. Plus the food was very good.

As a quick review for those not familiar with the tour, each year the Purdue Ag Economics Department puts on an Indiana Farm Management Tour. This year was the 81st annual tour. The tour rotates around regions of the state and is hosted in one or two counties, with Clinton County hosting this year. Four or five farms are selected and two days are spent traveling to these farms. At each host farm Purdue Ag Economics Staff conduct a general interview with the farmer and his/her family and following this the audience breaks up into smaller groups and rotates around to what are called mini-tours which are short (15 minute or so) sessions where an aspect of that farming operation is discussed.

I'm about to set out to summarize this year's tour. As a qualifier, as host my number one job was making sure the tour ran, not that I could hear all of the presentations. I heard some and on some farms I was scrambling around taking care of something. I also want to mention that I had a ton of help. The Clinton County Pork Producers helped out a lot with sponsoring a lunch and moving tables and chairs around. Clinton County 4-H Junior Leaders served as the tour "crew" hauling a bunch of stuff around, helping with parking, handing out water, etc. And I had a lot of my fellow Extension Educators from other counties who helped with parking, as tour guides, and doing whatever needed to be done. The Purdue Ag Economics staff was great, in particular Alan Miller who was the overall Tour Director. 1 And of course the biggest thanks goes to our host farmers. This isn't the kind of thing you just agree to do. Facilities need to be cleaned up and prepped, presentations prepared, and there's a fair amount of media attention ahead of the event. Host farmers, their families and staff put a lot into this.

I could have found another 10 Clinton County Farms which would have made very good host sites. What I was looking for were operations where I knew the farmers had given some thought to how and why they made decisions and took their farms in the direction they had, and that they would be able to articulate this to an audience. I hoped - and I think succeeded - that there would be differences in the farms and how they went about doing things. It wouldn't be a very good tour with five farms where everyone had identical management systems, goals and objectives, decision-making processes, etc. And when selecting them, it obviously helped if it was someone I'd worked with before and that I was at least somewhat familiar with their operation. As we are a major pork producing county, I thought it was important to make sure this was included as well.

This year's Farm Tour Sites

With all of the preambles out of the way, let's get on with the summary. And even though it's a summary, this will be a pretty long post.

We opened the proceedings at Noon on Wednesday, June 26 at Hawley Farms with Jay and Sue Hawley. They operate a side business, Grandpa Jay's Pork and we were able to feature this with a pork picnic co-sponsored by the Clinton County Pork Producers and Indiana Pork. The main menu item was Grandpa Jay's porkburgers. I don't have an exact count but we had 240 chairs set up and some people were standing so I'd call it 250.

The lunch crowd at Hawley Farms

Hawley farms consists of 720 acres of cropland, mostly in corn and soybeans with a little bit of wheat. They also sell feeder pigs from 250 sows and raise some food grade corn and seed soybeans. A major component of the operation is Grandpa Jay's Pork. Jay and Sue process their cull sows and gilts to produce whole hog pork products. These products are for sale in some retail stores, they visit farmers markets and have a health department approved grill so they can serve porkburgers at various events, farmers markets, street vendor opportunities, etc. Jay can also be found traveling around with coolers delivering pork to customers when he can spare the time from the rest of the operation.

Jay and Sue Hawley with Purdue Ag Economist Chris Hurt

I didn't get to hear much of the interview or mini-tours. As might be expected at the first tour stop, I was scrambling around a bit trying to make sure things were set for the next two days. I know one of the mini-tours was a discussion of adding value to farm products and locally grown foods. Another was Josh Trenary from Indiana Pork and Jay discussing the importance of farmer involvement in public policy and taking local leadership roles. This is a topic that's near and dear to my heart and I was happy to see it included as part of the tour.

The second stop of the day was at Windy Lane Farms, operated by Ty and Hal Brown. Windy Lane Farms is a bit of a contrast to the day's first stop as they farm nearly 5300 acres in a corn and soybean rotation. Their soybeans are all grown as seed beans and 100% of their corn is non-GMO. They use conservation tillage on virtually all of their acreage and in 2013 expect to plant cover crops on about 4300 acres. In addition to the farm enterprise they are a Drago corn head dealership and are exploring becoming a dealer in tillage equipment.

The farm is intensively managed with a high emphasis on keeping track of costs and returns. They own and operate their own excavator to do land improvements with and have a great deal of grain storage and drying capacity. The mini-tours at this farm included; Ty talking about risk management, Hal discussing cover crops, a walking tour of an old hog barn they converted to a shop and their containment facility, and a tour of their office facilities.

Again, I didn't attend many of the mini-tours but I did listen to Hal Brown talk about cover crops. I've heard him speak several times. He does an excellent job and every time I learn something new. The Brown's have been working with cover crops for several years, experimenting with different mixes and have several which they use. Hal gave an excellent demonstration of how cover crops help reduce soil erosion and he gave a very interesting demonstration I hadn't seen before showing why they prefer 28% over Anhydrous Ammonia as Anhydrous has a tendency to remove carbon from the soil.

Hal Brown during his cover crops presentation

I didn't stay for the Master Farmer Banquet sponsored by Prairie Farmer and the Purdue School of Agriculture which was held in Brown's shop that night. The next morning we opened the tour at Neal farms, owned and operated by Gary and Larry Neal. Neal's farm approximately 6,000 acres in a corn-soybean rotation annually with about twice as much acreage in corn as in beans annually. Neal's have been early adopters of quite a few different practices and technologies. Two areas that stand out are in grain handling, drying and storage, and in upgrading their equipment. Their grain system can be controlled remotely through the farm's network and they are continually modifying equipment so one person can operate large machinery. They are also one of the few Clinton County farms to have an irrigation system on some of their acreage.

Gary and Larry Neal with Purdue Ag Economist Craig Dobbins during the general interview

Mini-tours at Neal's included a discussion of their grain system by Gary, their irrigation system by Larry, and a tour of their shop, including some of the modifications they've made to their equipment by Brandon Neal.

Brandon Neal (barely visible in the background) discussing Neal Farms' shop and equipment during a mini-tour

Stop number four was at Need Farms, owned and operated by Jeff and Kent Need. Actually they are the two primary owners but the entire family participates in the farming enterprise. 2 The Needs farm about 1500 acres in a corn-soybean rotation. The vast majority of their acres are farmed with continuous no-till and they have been experimenting with tillage radishes as a cover crop for several years. They use quite a bit of technology with their operation including GPS and auto-steer, an automatic scale on their grain auger cart and Jeff has started using an app with an iPad during planting.

Jeff Need discussing some of the technology used on the farm

The mini-tours here included; Brandy Daggett and Susannah Hinds from NRCS giving a soil health demonstration, Dave Need and Josh McCarty discussing cover crops, Kent Need talking about their automated grain auger cart, and Jeff gave a presentation on the technology used on the farm. Once again, I only heard all of the cover crops program though I was able to catch part of the soil health mini-tour.

Kent Need giving a mini-tour presentation on the farm's automated grain auger cart

The final tour stop was at Meadowlane Farms, operated by Mike and David Beard and Chris Pearson. We opened with lunch and hopefully everyone was OK with us serving pork at both meal stops, considering this is the main livestock enterprise in the county (though we do have a couple of large poultry operations as well). This operation consists of about 1900 acres of cropland in a corn-soybean rotation, with about twice as much corn planted as beans. They also contract finish about 33,000 hogs annually and David and Chris operate a commercial manure application business, Waste Application Services. The name of this is actually a bit of a misnomer as they manage their manure as a resource, not as a waste product, and try to help their clients do the same. They have adopted a risk management through diversification strategy with three enterprises and income sources; field crops, hogs and the manure application business. Most of their soybeans grown are seed beans, a common theme with this tour.

I've always appreciated Mike's involvement in the community and his dedication to educating others about agriculture. I've often taken local officials or high school students to his operation to help them learn the real story, or truth, about agriculture. Apparently Mike addressed this during the program. I'm sorry I missed that part of it.

Mike Beard discussing diversification strategies with Purdue Ag Economist Elizabeth Yeager

The Meadowlane farms mini-tours included; Mike discussing diversification strategies, David talking about the economics of manure application, Chris presenting on their manure application systems and equipment, and a discussion of their seed soybean production. I managed to hear both Chris and David. I didn't take a lot of notes but their application systems are designed to inject manure with minimum tillage and a figure David mentioned is that the nutrient value of their manure is five cents per gallon which got everyone's attention.

I haven't posted many audience shots but thought I would throw in this one of the people listening to Chris's presentation as you can see some of the equipment he talked about in the background. You can see about half of Chris on the left

That's my 2013 Indiana Farm Management Tour Wrap-up. We had a good two days, visited some great farm operations and the weather, while warm, was cooperative. I don't have numbers for the tour but we think we fed about 250 at Hawley's and 262 at Beard's (the caterers count better than us). I didn't know it at the time but after the tour, in addition to trying to find operations which had thought about why they do what they do and how they do it, two other themes became dominant. One was value-added. Most of the farms tried to add value to what they were doing, from growing crops for seed or as non-GMO's, to feeding grain to hogs. The other is diversification. Again, not universally but several of the farms had branched into multiple businesses ranging from selling food products to applying manure commercially to selling farm equipment. As margins tighten (does anyone think the last 3-4 years can continue indefinitely?) this is an option which farm families will likely explore even more. I apologize for not providing more details about the mini-tours. I didn't realize how few of these I attended until I was putting this post together.

In my opening to this post I mentioned that I had a lot of volunteer help in putting this on. I'll repeat that my greatest debt of gratitude goes to the host farmers. They helped make this an excellent tour and I hope they feel they got something beneficial from it too. I also want to thank those who provided financial support. The easiest way to do this is by posting one final picture. 3

Thank you to all of the 2013 Indiana Farm Management Tour Sponsors. I suppose I should add the standard disclaimer that this does not imply Purdue University's or Purdue Extension's endorsement of any of the products or services provided. However I very much appreciate their support

1 I found out when I opened the 2013 Indiana Farm Management Profiles book that my official title was, "Host Extension Educator & Local Arrangements Director." I've always had a theory, developed in college when being an "Assistant Animal Technician" meant I spent most of my time in a barn with a shovel, that the longer your title, the less important you actually are. ;)

2 I think it's important to note that all five of the farms on this tour are family farms. All five of the farms on this tour are also corporations. For those less familiar with ag who may come across this page, you sometimes hear people criticizing agriculture with terms like, "the vast majority of all farms are corporations." They're technically correct but this is because incorporating is important for tax purposes and insurance and liability reasons. This doesn't make them any less of a family farm. The vast majority of farms in Clinton County (and I'm pretty sure in Indiana and the US) are both family farms and corporations.

3 If you want to see more tour pictures, I've posted some on my Facebook page. I think this is set so the public can see them.

2013 Central Indiana Pork Conference Report

I want to throw in a brief report about the 2013 Central Indiana Pork Conference held February 6. As I was the site host I did have to bounce around a bit from time to time, particularly in the morning, but I'll provide as much of a summary as I can. Also, pdf's of most of the presentations are up on the Clinton County Extension Office website.

Paul Clouser from Indiana Packers was the first presenter and this is the one I missed the most of. However I did catch a few items which caught my attention. First, they wanted to congratulate producers for helping them by providing higher quality animals to their plant. Since DDGS have become a substantial portion of swine rations Iodine Values and carcass quality have been a big industry issue and they had far less of a problem with this recently than they did a year or two ago.

He wanted to caution farmers on several aspects of production. One, which I intend to use in my PQA programs from now on, is that if you have a broken needle in an animal, euthanize it. My suggestion, so long as it meets all withdrawal standards, would be either to process it for your own use at home or send it to a processor and donate the meat to a food bank. However they don't want these animals at the plant. He also wanted farmers to be aware that as much of their business involves overseas markets, they should be aware of and follow IPC's corporate residue limits which in some cases are more stringent than US standards.

The Industry Outlook provided by Purdue Ag Economist Chris Hurt focused, unsurprisingly, on feed prices. He made the "official" prediction that US corn prices will experience the largest drop in history, $2.50 by next summer. Of course prices will still be above $5.00. He considers this to be a "sweet spot" where both grain farmers and pork producers should be able to turn a profit. Current stocks are short so this will be very weather-driven but he sees a good possibility of a long, slow decline with, if it looks like the crop is good, a rapid price drop in early July. With decent weather the next few years he thinks a long-term price outlook is for corn in the $5 range and soybeans around $11. With bad weather it's hard to tell where things might go. Another drought could drive corn over $10 and soybeans to $20. Ultimately, he believes that if the weather cooperates, the industry should see a return to profitability by the second quarter of 2013.

Brian Martin and Wes Lack from MP3 farms discussed a new sow unit they recently installed which uses an automated electronic feeding system and houses sows in groups rather than using gestation stalls. They provided a great deal of information on how the system works, how they train farm employees as well as gilts to use the system and other aspects which I won't detail here. They also operate an older sow unit which uses gestation stalls so they were able to provide some interesting comparative date over production in the two systems. Very briefly, while sow mortality is slightly higher with this system, overall performance of animals in the two systems has been very comparable when looking at areas such as pigs/sow/year and lbs/sow/year. One area which doesn't show up in the numbers is that they said the sows in this system are very easy to handle and work; very calm and easygoing.

I'll use their talk as a jumping-off point to editorialize a little. I've been at several programs recently including those sponsored by the National Pork Board and animal handling and housing is a prominent theme. Despite research which shows that sows get along fine in gestation stalls and other similar production-related issues, we live in a new age. At one time in this country, people were primarily worried about having enough to eat. They progressed from that to a concern over the quality of what they eat. Today many people are concerned with how animals are raised. In any business where you're producing a product for consumers, consumer preferences is a driver. Animal handling standards, housing systems, etc., should definitely be considered in animal operations. It's a basis for the Pork Quality Assurance (PQA Plus) program which almost all Pork Producers receive certification through. If I'm talking to a farmer who's considering building a new breeding/gestation/production unit, I would urge him or her to strongly consider a group housing system for sows. At this point I wouldn't advise spending a lot of money to convert an existing facility but for new construction I think farmers need to give it serious thought. The industry has been heading in this direction for some time now and I see no indication that this trend will stop.

Aflatoxin was a serious problem in corn this year and farmers know that this was a big issue in feeding hogs. Brian Richert from the Purdue Animal Sciences Department discussed issues related to this. A portion of this was related to levels at which hogs can tolerate Aflatoxin, strategies and methods of maintaining feed quality and preventing toxin development. I was more interested when he started talking about how some approved flowables - products added to grain to prevent clumping due to moisture - also can substantially mitigate the impacts of Aflatoxin in feed by serving as binders. In this area most farmers were able to blend feed enough to keep Aflatoxin levels down to acceptable levels but if you want to plan for a year where this may be next to impossible, Brian's presentation would be a very good starting point to start looking into these binders as another option.

This was a very good program. I was disappointed that numbers were down this year and will be looking at ways to bring this back up next year. For those who attended, thanks for coming and a big thank you goes out to the Rossville FFA Chapter who provided lunch.

March 1 Ag Outlook Breakfast and Meeting

The Clinton County Extension Service will be hosting an Ag Outlook Breakfast on Friday, March 1 at 7:30 a.m. at the Clinton County Extension Office, 1701 South Jackson Street, in Frankfort. Purdue Ag Economist Chris Hurt will be presenting his Outlook for 2013 including crop and livestock prices, the overall US Economy and farm business management strategies.

A breakfast, sponsored by The Farmers Bank and Regions Bank, will be provided. Please contact the Clinton County Extension Office at 765-659-6380 or 765-296-3511 or e-mail me at cemanuel@purdue.edu by February 26 if you plan to attend. There is no cost for this program.

Ag Outlook Breakfast & Pesticide Applicator Training

This will be along the lines of a "save the date" post however I want to mention that we've scheduled the Ag Outlook Breakfast for Friday, March 1, 7:30 a.m. at the Clinton County Fairgrounds 4-H Building in Frankfort. Purdue Ag Economist Chris Hurt will be on hand to provide his Outlook for 2013. The program is free and designed to help farmers, land owners, input suppliers, and those interested in agriculture make better business decisions in the coming year.

The breakfast and program are sponsored by The Farmers Bank and Regions Bank. Now there's a lot of time between now and the program but because we are serving a meal and need to know attendance numbers, pre-registration for the program is required. Please either call the office at 765-659-6380 or 765-296-3511 or e-mail me at cemanuel@purdue.edu if you are planning to attend. The registration deadline is 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 26. And don't worry, I'll have additional information as we get closer.

Later that same morning, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. we'll have a Private Applicator Recertification Program(PARP), also at the Fairgrounds. Christian Krupke from Purdue Entomology will present an Insect Control Update and Bill Johnson from Purdue Botany and Plant Pathology will provide a Weed Control Update. The regulatory topic will be on Indiana’s New Fertilizer Rule. The cost for this program will be $10. All Clinton County Private Applicators will be mailed additional information as we get closer. I also intend to request CCH's for commercial applicators.

Review of July 13 Drought Program

I'm currently in South Carolina at the National Association of County Agricultural Agents Annual Meeting but I would like to get out a summary of the Drought Program, "Making Decisions in a Difficult Crop Year," held last Friday at the Clinton County Fair before too much time passes by.

Purdue Ag Economist Chris Hurt discussed economics and I don't think he had any big surprises - as yield projections drop, prices will be rising. He showed a chart demonstrating that in many poor crop years producers more than make up the revenue lost by reduced production through higher prices. I'm looking at the December futures which stands at $7.84 compared with it being just a tick above $5.00 in May. That's already an increase of over 50% and Chris believes that $10 corn and $20 beans are both possible this year - his exact words were, "It's not crazy to talk about these prices." For Clinton County, even now it looks like we'll have some sort of crop so we should be able to capture the price change (if you haven't sold it yet). That's better than a lot of fields in southern Indiana and Illinois.

One of the differences from past short crop years is how tight stocks are. In the past there was often an early, rapid increase in price followed by a leveling off or even a decline shortly afterwards.. Chris doesn't think this is very likely given the scarcity of corn in storage.

Brittany Shepherd from the Clinton County Farm Service Agency talked about forms of assistance available from USDA. It's important to note that as I type this, Clinton County is not yet a declared disaster area. If we reach D3 on the US Drought Monitor we will automatically become an Ag Disaster County (I think there's a very good chance we get there tomorrow). We are contiguous to Howard County which makes us eligible for some forms of relief. Clinton County farmers are eligible to apply for emergency loans whaich have an interest rate of 2.25%. You cannot hay or graze CRP acres at this time though this may change soon. However even if CRP is released, certain kinds of ground will not be eligible for haying/grazing and you would need to wait until after August 1.

The key in this is that before you do anything with CRP, contact the Farm Service Agency and make sure it's OK.

Matt Weaver from Crop Insurance Specialists discussed some insurance aspects. There are two key points I want to repeat. First, before doing anything beyond normal farming practices with insured acres, contact your insurance agent. Second, all valid crop insurance claims will be paid. Crop insurance is a federally backed program. This doesn't mean they pay for all losses - those are the responsibbility of the insurance company. However if an insurance company can't make the payments, then the federal government steps in. In 2008 a large insurance company went under and the government made sure payments were made.

Rod Miller from Crop Fertility Specialists talked about conditions he's been seeing and implications for future inputs. Spider mites are becoming a serious issue and it's important for farmers to be scouting their bean fields. In this kind of year, spider mites can devastate a crop. Fungicide applications are less certain. As dry as it is, there really isn't much disease out there. There have been applications made to both corn and soybeans to improve overall crop performance, plant health, photosynthesis, etc. I'll offer my obligatory note that Purdue has not found a consistent enough yield response to recommend this practice.

Setting that aside, right now you have beans that are almost in a holding pattern biologically and corn which has its leaves tightly rolled by noon many days. In each of these cases, the plant will not be absorbing the applications very well, or utilizing it in the plant. In particular, if someone sprays when corn leaves are rolled up, the spray doesn't get onto the surface of the leaf. Rod said you absolutely shouldn't be spraying on corn which is rolling like this so any applications that are made should be done in the morning.

I offered just a couple of notes which I'll repeat here. Purdue Soybean Specialist Shaun Casteel compared a couple of previous drought years and came up with an interesting finding. In 1988 corn yields were down over 40% from trend yields and beans were down about 30% in Indiana. In 1991 corn was down 29% but beans were only down 2%. Shaun looked at the weather for those two years and found it was very similar with one exception. In 1988 early August had temperatures from 100-105 degrees and no rain. In 1991 temperatures were in the lower 90's and there was some water. There is still time for soybeans to respond significantly to some rains. Unlike corn where rain will mainly keep things from getting worse, beans can still improve their yield potential.

While we don't have many livestock producers in Clinton County who feed forage we do have some. In southern Indiana some farmers have started to abandon corn and are mowing it either for silage or hay. There is an issue with nitrate levels, particularly in the lower section of the corn stalks. Before purchasing silage or hay from corn, make sure you have it nitrate tested. Also, keep in mind that when we're talking about silage from a failed corn crop, you have corn with no ears. It will not have the same feed value as corn silage normally would. This is important both from a pricing perspective and in calculating rations. The "book values" for corn silage in rations won't work so again, make sure you have it tested so you know what you're feeding.

I haven't yet seen a field in Clinton County which I think, as of now, won't make some sort of crop, however if we do get to that point and you decide to chop/mow your corn for forage, the same holds true for you as a forage producer; test your corn, both for nitrate levels and for its nutritional value.