There is a Grain Marketing School being held in Darke County on Mondays during November and December. The four sessions will be held at the OSU Extension, Darke County Learning Center located at 603 Wagner Ave. in Greenville.
Topics to be taught include Marketing, Risk Tolerance, and Risk Capacity; Marketing Matrix and Crop Insurance; Marketing Vocabulary, Hedging, and Cash Sales; Futures, Options, and Basis; Storage and Post-Harvest Marketing; What Not To Do When Building a Market Plan; and an AgYield Simulator Challenge.
The meetings will begin at 10 a.m. on Nov. 7 and 21 and Dec. 5 and 19. Classes end at noon each day. Cost for this program is $50 per person with a registration deadline of Oct. 31 (Today!). Yes, preregistration “and” prepayment are required! Registration includes snacks and materials.
More information and registration information is available at http://darke.osu.edu/sites/darke/files/imce/Program_Pages/ANR/2016%20Grain%20Marketing%20School%20Flyer_0.pdf.
Just a note: Our Office will be Closed this Thursday, Nov. 3. We have a Regional Extension Conference in Dayton that all of us will be attending. Thank you for understanding!!
Wanted: Farmer cooperators and crop consultants to help conduct On-Farm Field Trials for the 2017 season. This next year will probably be our last field trials before the Ohio fertilizer recommendations are updated and/or revised. Updating fertilizer recommendations is a major undertaking that will require a collective effort from numerous OSU extension personnel, crop consultants and farmers.
We are looking specifically at N, P, K, and S in corn, soybeans, and wheat. We want to collect data from a large number of farms across the state and determine economically-optimum fertilization rates to maximize farm profitability. We can work either directly with farmers or crop consultants and agronomists to conduct the trials and collect data on fields.
Farmers can choose which nutrient they’d like to work with and will have a large degree of flexibility in the plot layout and applied rates. There are funds to compensate both farmers and crop consultants for their time and effort.
Experiments will involve either applying fertilizer or no fertilizer to replicated strip plots. Farmers can decide the rate and source of fertilizer. We are especially interested in fields that test low in phosphorous and potassium.
Some of the data to be collected includes soil samples before planting, leaf nutrient analysis at early reproductive stage (R1), grain yields at harvest along with a nutrient analysis of the grain, and a short questionnaire about soil management.
The nitrogen trials will be similar, but a full nitrogen rate will be applied in all replicated strips. While a zero-nitrogen treatment is highly desired, it “is” optional. Growers that do include a fully replicated zero-nitrogen treatment will be compensated extra to account for yield loss.
Data to be collected will be basically the same as previously listed, with the addition of an optional corn stalk nitrate test. For more information, please contact me or Steve Culman at [email protected] or 330-822-3787.
Well, things are moving along on the farm house! They should start laying flooring downstairs this week … They even moved some stuff (summer clothes) over this past week!
It’s been neat having the kids and grandkids staying with us. Yeh, it’s hard to get much “quiet time,” especially in the evenings, but we’re seeing them grow up! Lorelei has really advanced in the past three months: She’s easier to understand and we can have real (age 2 ½) conversations with her! William is very loving and always seems to know where the TV remote is … Of course, Genevieve and Annaliese have their own activities! Hard to keep up!
