Thank you to those who attended Partner to Profit 2020 Grower Summit!
If you missed it, here's a quick summary and links to download slides.
Craig Allaman recapped the growing season of 2019 and the agronomic lessons we learned (or didn’t learn) from one of the most challenging growing seasons farmers have faced. Cornelius Country started the spring with overly saturated soils and the above normal precipitation and below normal temperatures continued through the start of the summer, followed by a moderate drought in August.
Craig’s Overall Comments on 2019:
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- Bad experiences still yield learning opportunities
- Some trials will need to be repeated
- Multi-year, multi-location, wide geography
- Walk before you run with products that have only one year of data
Craig’s 2020 Watch-Outs from 2019:
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- Compaction
- Excess rain, wet harvest-deep till where possible
- Saturated Soil
- Starting wet, makes a wet spring more likely - be ready to go
- Fall Nitrogen
- What is your spring plan?
- Weed-bank on Prevent Plant acres
- Fallow Ground Syndrome
- Starter fertilizer may be advisable
- Inoculant in soybeans might help
- Temptation to use earlier maturities
- Will give up yield/income
- Wholesale agronomic practice changes
- Learn what we can in case we see a similar year again
- Keep doing what has worked over the long-run
- Compaction
Megan Dwyer discussed sustainability and market-place drivers, utilizing conservation as a risk management tool, and how Corn Growers are working for farmers. She asked the audience to define sustainability and some responses were: profitable, longevity, maintain, responsible, buzzword, continuous. We hear about sustainability in the news and agriculture has been under attack. There is the goal of net zero green house gas emissions by 2050 and agriculture is a solution. According to the audience, the biggest things impacting sustainability are: weather, market prices, profitability, technology, efficiency, management, public opinion, risk.
Using conservation as a risk management tool, we need to overcome the barriers to implementing conservation practices such as cost, previous bad experiences, fear of the unknown, lack of information and changing from the mindset of “what I’ve always done”. Megan challenged everyone to try something new for conservation on their farm.
Corn Growers associations have member benefits including cover crop programs and other initiatives. Check what your state offers at www.ilcorn.org, www.iowacorn.org, or www.wicorn.org.
Mike Pearson provided an update and outlook for the farm markets and the global trends impacting those markets. No doubt about it, 2019 was a tough year but there’s optimism in the grain and meat markets ahead. Mike stressed the importance of knowing your break-evens and being ready to sell as the markets move above that. Waiting for the markets to always go higher is not a good strategy. Commitments of Traders charts can be found for free at www.cotpricecharts.com and Mike recommends incorporating those into your marketing.
Follow Mike on Twitter @PearsonCattle and listen to his podcast Ag News Daily.