A Little Boost

Traffic jam - County Line style as Randy stops while feeding cows to talk to the Kanza Co-op spray rig workers.

Goldilocks had a hard time getting everything "just right." Papa Bear's porridge was too hot. Mama Bear's porridge was too cold. But Baby Bear's porridge was just right.

Getting things "just right" is best left for fairytales, though we'd all like to have a good dose of "happily ever after." That's easier said than done on a farm. Weather is always an uncontrollable factor in crop production. And these, days, with commodity prices low, it's a balancing act to try and keep input costs under control and still produce a good yield on a quality crop.

 

The Kanza Co-op recently used their ground rig to apply a couple of different inputs to part of our 2017 wheat crop - nitrogen fertilizer and Finesse herbicide.

This year, Randy decided to apply 10 pounds of nitrogen per acre. Last year, he had them apply 30 pounds per acre. He used the results from soil samples to determine the nitrogen application level. With each unit of nitrogen added to the field, there's a "diminishing return on investment." In other words, the cost outweighs the potential yield bump.

 

I'll admit that my eyes were starting to glaze over when Randy started explaining about "diminishing return on investment." So he pulled out his old textbook, "Economics for Agriculturalists: A Beginning Text in Agricultural Economics" and showed me a chart. Who knew those textbooks would still come in handy?

According to current research, if you put on 10 pounds of nitrogen per acre, there's a 2 bushel per acre boost in yield. If you put on an additional 10 pounds per acre, there's only a half bushel per acre increase in yield. The nitrogen costs $3.50 per acre.

 A "nurse" truck came to the field to replenish the rig.

During the applicator's same trip over the field, Randy also had them apply Finesse, an herbicide used to control broadleaf weeds, including kochia, henbit and wild mustard. Finesse needs to be sprayed before the wheat breaks its dormancy. Moisture will incorporate it into the soil. We hope to get some rain soon.

This year, it costs $2.50 per acre for the Finesse. This is 20 percent less than it was last year, a financial advantage that Randy says comes from the merger of the Kanza Co-op with some other co-ops, giving it better buying power.

Since we don't have our own spraying rig, we pay $5.00 per acre for the application. If you're adding that all up, it costs $11 per acre, an input expense that we'll add to the bottom line of producing our 2017 wheat crop. 

Later, Randy will have additional 2017 wheat acres sprayed with a different herbicide. That herbicide has less carryover. In other words, Randy will be able to plant sudan hay on those acres after we harvest the wheat in June. That's not an option for the acres sprayed with Finesse. However, Finesse is less expensive and has longer lasting control. Again, it's a consideration of what's "just right" for our farm - or as close as we can get it.

The plot thickens. Just like Goldilocks, we are hoping for a happy ending. We'll see what Mother Nature has up her sleeve as we continue the march toward the 2017 wheat harvest. The thermometer climbing into the 70s in February may delight golfers, but if the wheat breaks dormancy and starts growing, there is the potential for a damaging freeze if the temperature then goes back to more seasonal levels.

 

Just like in a fairytale, there are a lot of pages between "Once upon a time" and "They lived happily ever after." (For a complete look at the life cycle of wheat on our Kansas farm, check out "Aggie Visits the Wheat State," a blog I wrote a few years ago when we had Flat Aggie visit from a California elementary school.)

Farm Wife Secret Code

21 - 17 - 0.
It's the secret code. It's the secret handshake. It's the right combination.
 It's my overactive imagination at work again.

The "secret code" is actually what kind of fertilizer I'm getting at the Kanza Co-op. It stands for 21 percent nitrogen, 17 percent phosphate and 0 percent potassium. (Why do they have to include something that's 0 percent? It's the law that fertilizer be labeled with the percentages of those three ingredients.) We are applying about 12 gallons an acre.

Randy began planting the 2017 winter wheat crop on September 26. He was hoping for an inch of rain before the planting began. But while areas around us have gotten some moisture in the past couple of weeks, the rain has skirted our fields.

Meal delivery is my specialty. But during these wheat planting days, I add fertilizer delivery to my list of chores.

I take the pickup and trailer to the Zenith branch of the Kanza Co-op to get the next tank load of fertilizer. First stop is the scales, where the pickup and fertilizer trailer are weighed empty. (After it's full, I weigh on again.)

It's there that I offer the "secret code," telling them what kind of fertilizer I want. They then hand me a ticket, which I take to the fertilizer shed and give to the co-op employee there.

One time last week, I had to wait for my turn. It was my version of a traffic jam - country style!

Once it was my turn, I pulled the pickup and tank into the fertilizer shed. The co-op worker hooks a hose from the co-op's tank to the trailer, then pulls a series of valves to get the right mix of nitrogen and phosphate.

 

They are used to me wandering around and taking photos. (Sometimes I wonder what the new employees think about the crazy lady with the camera. On second thought, maybe I don't want to know. But I'll bet they forgive me when I bring cookies!)

After the tank is full, I pull back onto the office scales so they can bill us for the fertilizer we receive. Often, the trips to Zenith include filling up the fuel tank with diesel for the tractor. Since the tank holds 100 gallons, it takes awhile to fill, so I try and remember a book to help pass the time.

Then it's back to the field, where Randy can then apply the starter fertilizer blend as he plants.

Randy refills the yellow fertilizer tank on the drill by hooking up the trailer that I brought from Zenith. The "nurse" tank holds 1,000 gallons of fertilizer. Kind of like a big "measuring cup," the tank is marked. That way, Randy can look at the tank to see how much fertilizer he's applied to each landlord's field. The co-op can then bill everyone accordingly. (When I go for fertilizer, I always tell them how to bill the previous tank.)

It means plenty of trips back and forth to Zenith during wheat drilling season. (And it means a hefty bill will soon appear in my mailbox. But we hope it pays off down the road for the 2017 wheat crop. Time will tell.)

Willie Nelson has nothing on me: "On the road again ..." This morning, I'll make three trips "up north" to help get the drill, wheat truck and fertilizer trailer moved to a new location. Early this afternoon, I'll bring Randy lunch when it's also time to get another load of fertilizer and diesel. I will sandwich in a trip to Stafford to deliver a meal for a family with a new baby and cookies for a memorial gathering tomorrow.

There is a fringe benefit to all the time in the driver's seat:  I have a front-row seat to the arrival of fall.

What Goes Around, Comes Around Again: Wheat 2017

 

As the sun sank into the west and tinged the clouds above with light, God's sunset masterpiece spoke of promise and hope. It's a good thing to remember as we continue planting our 2017 wheat crop.

Here in Central Kansas, we plant winter wheat. The hard red winter wheat is planted in the fall and comes up looking like tender green grass. As cold weather arrives, it goes dormant during the cold months of winter before coming out of its "hibernation" and growing again next spring before maturing for a June harvest. Wheat is far and away our biggest crop here on the County Line. Randy is not quite halfway done planting 1,283 acres to wheat.

For the past week, Ricky has been working ground with a disc and packers before Randy plants the wheat using a drill. 

Some of the wheat is being planted on ground where we harvested the corn crop in August. You can see the residue left behind, even after the ground is worked.

Kansas is classified as drought free, which is great news after so much of the state suffered from drought for more than three years. (In 2013, 104 of Kansas' 105 counties were classified as federal disaster areas because of drought.)

However, while we have good sub-soil moisture, Randy would have preferred about an inch of rain before planting. We didn't get it, but he went ahead anyway. Sometimes, you have to do the job because it's "time."

We saved some of our 2016 crop in bins on the farm to use as seed wheat. It was binned during harvest this summer, and then we load it into the truck to take to Miller Seed Farms near Partridge for cleaning. They treat it with a fungicide, which helps protect the small wheat plants from disease. It's also treated with an insecticide which helps keep bugs at bay. (Those treatments are what gives the wheat its pink tinge.) Detractors worry about the amount of chemicals that go into the mix. However, only 0.48 ounce per bushel of Cruiser is used, while 1.68 ounce per bushel of the Vibrance product is used. Think about a little bottle of eye drops (usually about 0.5 ounces). Adding slightly more than 2 ounces to a whole bushel of grain is really not much!

Once the truck is full, he takes it to the field, where he uses the auger on the grain truck to load the wheat into the drills. He sure thinks it beats shoveling, which he did for a lot of years!

Today, I'll be making a trip to Miller Seed Farms to pick up our certified seed wheat. Our reserved bags of KanMark (a K-State release) and WB 4458 (a WestBred variety) will be used to plant for seed wheat. When we harvest the certified seed next June, it will go in the on-farm bins to be used for seed wheat the next year. And so it goes ...

During those seed stops, Randy also has to fill up the tank with fertilizer.

 

The starter fertilizer is a combination of nitrogen and phosphate laid down right beside the planted seed. As the seed germinates, its roots seek out the nutrients, establishing a strong root system.

The fertilizer gets transferred from the 1,000-gallon "nurse" tank pulled by the pickup to this tank on the drill. Then it goes into tubes ...

and is squirted out of small holes in the drill.

As a board member, Randy gets a weekly update from Kansas Wheat. Last Friday, CEO Justin Gilpin concluded with some thoughts about this process that struck home with me and went perfectly with a sunset photo I took of Randy planting.

Peaks and valleys: It’s part of all aspects of life.  I encourage my kids to participate as much as possible in sports so that they learn life lessons like dealing with adversity, being a teammate, being accountable, and picking yourself up when you’ve been knocked down.

Being a wheat farmer, you guys know all about that.  The courage it takes to spend 12-14 hour days, drilling wheat when you know cash price is less than $3 dollars.  Sowing seeds when the rewards are 9 months and good fortune away from harvesting.  Putting all of your hopes into the weather and “generations of how-best-to” knowledge that has been passed down and learned through past failures.  Wheat farming is something special.  I hope you all know that the world watches with admiration, and I’m proud of you guys...

As Randy worked his way toward me one night last week, he turned on his lights. He knows how I like light shining from a tractor or combine as the light fades during a sunset.

So even with a challenging price and no crystal ball for what the weather will bring, the lights are on ... the optimism continues on the County Line. This week, Pastor Nate's sermon was based on Luke 17 and having the faith of a "mustard seed." I think it goes for wheat kernels, too.